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Cl 2^
Ph ases of Atheism,
DESCRIBED, EXAMINED, AND ANSWERED.
BY
SOPHIA
DOBSON
COLLET.
“ An Atheist by choice is a phenomenon yet to be discovered, among thousands
who are Atheists by conviction.”—The Reasoner, July 31, 1859.
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it resteth in
Thee.”—St. Augustine’s Confessions, Book I., s. 1.
I860.
�LONDON :
JOHN WATTS, PRINTER, 147, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�PREFACE.
The following Essay is reprinted, with revisions and additions,
from the American Christian Examiner for November, 1859.
Its original form as a magazine article will explain its limitation
to the writings of a few authors only. My object has been to
show—first, that the purely Secular view which, regarding
religion as a mere intellectual uncertainty, endeavours to avoid
that uncertainty by virtually eliminating the spiritual element
from daily life, misses the richest and highest influences that life
can receive, and cramps the full and natural development of the
human soul. Secondly, that the more ideal Atheism which
escapes this error, does so only to fall into another equally
serious. Preserving the religious sentiment, and alive to all the
intuitions of ideality and devotion, yet unable to link them with
any source of personal trust beyond the reach of human frailty,
“ Religious Atheism” struggles at every step under the impos
sible attempt to make the finite human conscience and the frail
earth-bound affections meet the infinite claims made upon both
by the tasking realities of life; and under the perpetual, haunting
sense of grief and failure thence resulting, is driven to question
—and most justly so—whether the absence of a Divine Helper
from the world of moral conflict, does not virtually amount to
the Supremacy of Evil.
Those who have the happiness to believe in the God of Con
science as the Life of their life, ever leading them on through
tempest and calm, humiliation and conquest, to a deeper sym
pathy and a completer self-surrender to His infinite goodness,
are surely bound to do all that in them lies to lift aside the
obstacles which cast these shadows of Atheism on the minds and
lives of their fellow-creatures. No one can be more sensible
than myself to how small a share in such a work this brief
Essay can pretend. But if only a few of the suggestions here
made should lead any of my Atheist readers but a single step
nearer to the God whom, under the names of “ Truth ” and
“Duty,” they may already have unconsciously sought and
served, these pages will not have been written in vain.
London, January, 1860.
S. D. C.
�■
_______
■-
H
�PHASES
OF
ATHEISM.
1. The Life and Character of Richard Carlile. By George Jacob
Holyoake. 1849.
2. The Last Trial by Jury for Atheism in England; a Fragment of
Autobiography. By George Jacob Holyoake. 1851.
3. The Case of Thomas Pooley. By G. J. Holyoake. 1857.
4. The Trial of Theism. By G. J. Holyoake. 1858.
5. Shadows of the Past. By Lionel H. Holdreth. 1856.
6. The Affirmations of Secularism ; in Seven Letters to G. J. Holyoahe.
By L. H. Holdreth. Published in the Reasoner for 1857.
7. Conscience and Consequence. A Tale for the Times. By Lionel
H. Holdreth. Published in the Reasoner for 1858. London :
Holyoake and Co.
Among the many signs of the times which demand the study of
religious thinkers, few are so little known in proportion to their
importance as the recent developments which Atheism has assumed
among the working-classes of England. These developments are in
many respects widely different from those which were current about
thirty or forty years ago. There is no less a chasm between the
Deism of Thomas Paine and the “ Natural Religion ” of Theodore
Parker, than between the crude “ infidelity ” of Richard Carlile and
the devout Stoicism of Lionel Holdreth. We do not thoroughly
appreciate any form of religion till we know what are the classes of
minds that reject it, and what sort of principles they accept in pre
ference. And when the rejection of religion is itself tinged with a
religious spirit, we may safely predict, not only that the current creed
is too narrow for the age, but that a wider and deeper faith is already
striking its roots in the hearts of men.
The popularization of Atheism in the working-class mind of Eng
land owes its first impulse to the labours of Richard Carlile, the
editor of “ The Republican.” Untutored, antagonistic, and coarse,
but brave, devoted, and sincere, he initiated and sustained a twenty years’
struggle for the free publication of the extremest heresies in politics
and religion, at the expense of nine years’ imprisonment (at different
times, ranging from 1817 to 1835) to himself, and frequent incar
cerations of his wife, sister, and shopmen. This movement, though
vigorous to the point of fanaticism, was not widely supported, and it
virtually died out, as a sort of drawn game between the government
and the heretics. A somewhat milder revival of it took place in
1840-1843, when “ The Oracle of Reason” was set on foot by a few
energetic young Atheists, and several prosecutions took place. It
B
�2
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
was this movement which first introduced to the public the name of
George Jacob Holyoake, who, having served his apprenticeship to
propagandism by a six months’ imprisonment, rose in a few years
to be the acknowledged leader of the sect. Under his influence, it
has not only increased immensely in numbers, but has passed into a
far higher stage of character, both moral and intellectual. This is
strikingly illustrated in the case of Thomas Pooley, a poor, half
crazed Cornish labourer, who was in 1857 sentenced to a long im
prisonment for “ blasphemy.” Fifteen years previously, Mr. Holyoake’s own imprisonment excited but little notice beyond a small
circle, and not one petition was presented to Parliament for his
release. But by the time that Pooley’s case occurred, the Freethinking movement was strong enough to reach the sympathies of
liberal men in all sects, and thus to effect the reversal of an iniquitous
*
sentence.
This event also illustrates the progress of Freethought
in another direction. The coarse language for which the poor
labourer was indicted—language only too frequent in the pre-IIolyoake
era—found no defenders among the Secularists who petitioned for
his release, but was unanimously objected to, as degrading to Freethought. And this double change, bringing both parties one step
nearer to each other, is, there can be no doubt, mainly owing to the
good sense, rectitude, and devotedness of George Jacob Holyoake.
But Mr. Holyoake’s influence is not the only one observable in the
Atheist party. Like many others, that party now possesses its right,
left, and centre. For the improvement which took its rise from the
establishment of the Reasoner, in 1846, has gradually come to tell
upon the mixed elements of the Freethinking party ; and in 1855 a
sort of reactionary “split” took place, and the ultra-Atheistic Secu
larists set up a rival journal, the Znveó'tig,ator,f for the avowed pur
pose of returning to the old traditions of hatred and ridicule, in opposi
tion to Mr. Holyoake’s more catholic and fraternal policy. The
utterly shameless spirit in which the Investigator habitually treats of
the human side of religion is quite sufficient to stamp its incapacity
for touching what pertains to the Divine; and its malignant and
calumnious enmity towards Mr. Holyoake is a sufficient indication of
the divergence between his advocacy and that of “ Old Infidelity,” as
it is expressively termed. Counting this reactionary party as the
lowest development of English Atheism, we next come to the party
of the centre, namely, that party which is represented by Mr. Holy
oake. This is much the largest of the three. Its idea may be
stated in Mr. Holyoake’s words,—“ that the light of duty may be
* Pooley was sentenced to twenty-one months’ imprisonment. He was par
doned at the end of five months, most of which was spent in the county lunatic
asylum, to which it soon became necessary to remove him. He was so judi
ciously treated there, however, that on the receipt of his pardon he was restored
to his family.
t Delunct in August, 1859.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
3
seen, that a life of usefulness may be led, and the highest desert may
be won, though the origin of all things be hidden from us, and the
revelations of every religious sect be rejected ;”* in short, that Life,
Nature, and Morals are self-sufficient, and independent of religion.
Beyond this aspect of Atheism is yet another, numbering at present
no definitely attached adherents besides its enthusiastic propounder,
but evidently received with pleasure by many listeners during the
last three years. This new Gospel owns to the paradoxical title of
Religious Atheism, and is put forth by Mr. Lionel Holdreth, the most
cultivated and coherent thinker of whom the Atheist party can boast. He
does not, in fact, belong to the working-classes either by birth or educa
tion, although his sympathies with them are of the warmest. A little
volume of poems, entitled “ Shadows of the Past,” is the only separate
volume he has published; and all his other communications to the
Freethinking public have been made through the columns of the
Reasoner. The reactionary “ infidels ” hate religion: Mr. Holyoake
wishes to be neutral to it: Mr. Holdreth desires to re-incarnate it in
another form. Such are the three phases of the Atheistic party in
England,—the central body shading off into the two others at either
extremity. Passing by the first section, as presenting mere hollow
word-controversy, untinged by any real passion for Truth, we pro
pose to examine the second and third sections at some length.
The disintegrated state of Theology in the present, day has given
rise to the necessity for preaching the Gospel of Free Utterance,
wholly distinct from any decision as to what is to be uttered. To
preach this Gospel has been, in the main, Mr. Holyoake’s vocation.
But now that the right to speak has been so largely won, the question
arises, “ What have you to say ?” and the metaphysical and spiritual
bearings of the subject come into prominence. To this question Mr.
Holyoake has endeavoured to give some coherent reply in his recent
work, “ The Trial of Theism,” in which he has reprinted and revised
the chief papers on theological subjects which he had written during
the previous ten years, with other matter here first published. It is
a singular book; utterly destitute of anything like systematic thought,
and scarcely less deficient in any arrangement of its materials ; pain
fully unequal, both in substance and tone. Frequently we come
upon noble, earnest, manly writing, which indicates real intellectual
power, aud fine perception; then comes some passage so puerile, so
weak, so indiscriminating, as to cause quite a revulsion of feeling in
the reader’s mind. What makes this frequently-recurring contrast
more singular is, that those chapters which are reprints of former
papers are mostly revised with minute care, the alterations often indi
cating delicate discrimination and real expansion of mind. (Chapter
27, which is a reprint of “ The Logic of Death,” is an instance of this.)
Yet the entirely new matter is often of quite inferior quality, both in
Cowper Street Discussion, p. 221.
�4
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
thought and expression. It would seem inexplicable how a writer
who could give us the better portions of this book could endure to
put forth some other parts of it, were not this inequality a pheno
menon of such frequent recurrence in literature as to be one of its
standing anomalies. Intellectual harmony is almost as rare as moral
consistency, and men of even the finest genius too often cultivate one
side of their nature to the positive neglect of others. The prominent
side of Mr. Holyoake’s nature is the moral and practical. He belongs
to the concrete world of men, rather than to the abstract World of
ideas. The best parts of his book are the delineations of character,
some of which are very felicitous. Chapter 14, on Mr. Francis New
man, and Chapter 29, on “Unitarian Theism,” give the high-water
mark of his religious character-sketches. A man who could thus
appreciate the leading ideas of his opponents might (one would think)
do great things in theological reform. But note the limiting condi
tion of his power ;—he can appreciate these ideas when incarnated in
another human mind, but it is mainly through his human sympathies
that he does so. Neither the religious instincts nor the speculative
intuitions are sufficiently magnetic and passionate in his own nature
to force their way to an independent creative existence. Whenever
he turns to the region of abstract thought, his power seems to depart
from him. And this book, which deals almost exclusively with
speculative themes, is a marked illustration of it. It manifests all the
weaknesses, and but very little of the best strength, of his mind. Thus
it affords no clue to the real benefits which, in spite of grave errors,
his movement has produced for many among the working classes;
while it shows plainly the barriers which must ever limit any move
ment, however sincere, which excludes religion from the field of
human life.
We ought not, however, to quit this point without quoting the
author’s apology for some of the imperfections of his work:—
“ If anything written on the following pages give any Theist the
impression that his views, devoutly held, are treated with dogmatism
or contempt, the writer retracts the offending phrases. Theological
opinion is now so diversified, that he has long insisted on the propriety
of classifying, in controversy, the schools of thought, and identifying
the particular type of each person, so that any remarks applied to
him alone shall not be found ‘ at large ’ reflecting upon those to
whom they were never intended to apply. If just cause of offence
is found in this book, it will be through some inadvertent neglect of
this rule.
“ The doctrine is quite just, that crude or incomplete works ought
to be withheld from publication ; and the author reluctantly prints
so much as is here presented. If this book be regarded, as it might
with some truth, as a species of despatch from the field of battle, the
reader will tolerate the absence of art and arrangement in it. The
plan contemplated—that of taking the authors on the side of Theism
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
5
who represented chronological phases of thought—required more time
than the writer could command. From these pages, as they stand,
some unfamiliar with the present state of Theistical discussion uiay
obtain partial direction in untrodden paths. Hope ot leisure in which
to complete anything systematic has long delayed the appearance of
this book, after the writer had seen that many might be served even
by so slender a performance. At length he confesses, in a literary
sense (if he may so use words which bear a spiritual meaning), —
‘ Time was he shrank from what was right,
From fear of what was wrong:
He would not brave the sacred fight,
Because the foe was strong.
‘ But now he casts that finer sense
And sorer shame aside ;
Such dread of sin was indolence,
Such aim at Heaven was pride.’—Lyra Apostólica." *
In seeking for the central pivot of the movement which Mr. Holyoake represents, we find it in the Independence and Self-sufficiency of
Ethics,—their independence of Theology, their sufficiency in them
selves to the needs of man. This doctrine is a compound of several
elements, some of which are doubtless valuable truths, while others
are serious errors. To disentangle these from each other is now our
task. The following passages sufficiently sketch Mr. Holyoakes
position. The first is from an early number of the Reasoner, the
second will be found in the “ Trial of Theism —
“Anti-religious controversy, which was originally, and ever should
be, but a means of rescuing morality from the dominion of future world
*
speculation, became an end,—noisy, wordy, vexed, capricious, angry,
imputative, recriminative, and interminable.
“ To reduce this chaos of aims to some plan, to discriminate objects,
to proportion attention to them, to make controversy just as well as
earnest, and, above all, to rescue morality from the ruins of theological
arguments, were the intentions of the Reasoner. It began by announ
cing itself ‘ Utilitarian in Morals,’ and resting upon utility as a basis.
In all reforms it took unequivocal interest, and only assailed Theology
when Theology assailed Utility. The Reasoner aimed, not so much to
create a party, as to establish a purpose. It threw aside the name of
‘ Infidel,’ because it was chiefly borne by men who were disbelievers in
secret, but who had seldom the honour to avow it openly. It threw
aside the term ‘ Sceptic’ as a noun, as the name of a party, because it
wished to put an end to a vain and cavilling race, who had made the
negation of Theology a profession, and took advantage of their dis
belief in the Church to disbelieve in honour and truth.’’f
“ Let any one look below the mere surface of pulpit declamation,
* Preface to “ The Trial of Theism.”
t “ Reasoner,” No. 57.
�6
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
and ask himself two questions : What has even Atheism, on the whole,
meant ? What has it, on the whole, sought, even in its negative and
least favourable aspect ? It has, in modern times, disbelieved all ac
counts of the origin of nature by an act of creation, and of the govern
ment of nature by a Supreme Being distinct from nature. It has felt
these accounts to be unintelligible and misleading, and has suggested
that human dependence and morals, in their w’idest sense, should be
founded on a basis independent of Scriptural authority; and it has done
this under the conviction, expressed or unexpressed, that greater sim
plicity, unanimity, and earnestness of moral effort would be the result.
This is what it has meant, and this is what it has sought. The main
popular force of speculative argument has been to show that morals
ought to stand on ground independent of the uncertain and ever-con
tested dogmas of the churches.”f
Now this desire to sever life and ethics from “ the dominion of
future-world speculation,” is not without its true side. When the •
great synthetic conceptions of life which arose out of deep religious
impulses are breaking up through the imperfections of the doctrinal
forms in which they are incarnated, it is necessary to deal with each
element separately, before the general mind can reach the point at
which it becomes possible to recast the whole. And in these periods
of transition, we often see special teachers whose vocation seems to be
the preaching of those supplementary truths which are needed to
bridge the chasms—to detach moral realities from the crude doctrinal
form in which they were no longer credible, and so to prepare us for
a completer view, in which they shall hold a truer position. The
connection of Morals with Theology has hitherto been frequently
taught on an incomplete basis—namely, that the ground of duty was
only to be found in God’s command. Thus whatever was held to be
God’s command was exacted from men as duty; and any criticism of
the supposed command, as violating conscience or reason, was at once
condemned as rebellion—God’s will being represented as the only
criterion of right. In early and unreflective stages of development,
the errors of this doctrine were mostly latent; but when the moral
and intellectual elements in spiritual life arrive at a distinct and
separate existence, a fuller and more discriminating estimate of the
truth becomes imperative. That Moral Obligation is inherently sacred,
and that the sense of this obligation does not necessarily imply belief
in a Person who claims our obedience, is true; and it is a truth which
needs to be clearly recognised, and which is recognised by many of
the most religious thinkers of the day. It is also true that a common
possession of moral truth forms a positive ground of union for its
votaries ; and this, too, is important in an age when so much differ
ence exists between good men on religious subjects. So far as Mr.
Holyoake has preached the independent foundation and positive nature
f “ Trial of Theism,” p. 135.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
7
of Ethics, he has been working on solid ground, and his work has
been productive of useful results, which may long outlive their
polemic environment. But when he proceeds to erect these doctrines
into a basis of neutrality to religion, he enters new ground. He does
not actually say that Ethical Truth is the only supersensible reality
attainable by man; but he implies that it is so to himself, and he
evidently believes it to be so for an increasing majority of mankind.
That his Atheism is suspensive rather than dogmatic, is indubitable
from many touching passages scattered throughout his writings ; but
*
the fact remains, that he deems this suspensive position capable of
being incorporated as a permanent element in the philosophy of life,
not only for himself, but for human creatures in general—that he
studiously cultivates neutrality to religion as a principle of action.
Baffled by the difficulties which obstruct his intellectual comprehension
of the universe, he has no spiritual apprehension of its fundamental
realities sufficiently vivid to fall back upon ; and although “ in hours
of meditation he confronts with awe the great Mystery,” his “ baffled
speculation returns again to the Secular sphere,”f and he deems it
possible and desirable to divide the secular from the spiritual with a
sharpness that can entitle the former to support a whole philosophy
of life. Now such a philosophy is quite conceivable on the supposi
tion that the spiritual does not and cannot exist; and for thoroughly
materialised Atheists such a philosophy is consistent and right. This
is the ground taken by the reactionary “ Infidels.” But Mr Holyoake
evidently means something different from this : he means that a man
may pass through life as satisfactorily as man can, without being
thoroughly convinced of the truth of either Theism or Atheism; that
the chief part of human life is independent of religion; that to the
Secularist’s aspirations “ the idea of God is not essential, nor the
* “ I see the influence men can exert on society, and that life is a calculable
process. But why is it so ? There my curiosity is baffled, and my knowledge
ends. In vain I look back, hoping to unravel that mysterious destiny with
which we are all so darkly bound. That is the channel through which all my con
sciousness seems to pass out into a sea of wonder; and if ever the orient light of
Deity breaks in on me, it will, I think, come in that direction. The presence of
law in mind is to me the greatest fact in nature.”—“ Trial of Theism,” p. 69.
“ When pure Theists, as Mazzini and Piofessor Newman, explain their fine
conception of God as the Deity of duty, or of moral aspiration, the imagination,
borne on the golden wings of a reverence untinged by tenor, soars into the
radiant light of a possible God. But the Possible is not the Actual. Hope is not
proof. . . .
“ Had I been taught to conceive of Deity as either of tbe writers just named
conceive of Him, I think it likely that I should never have ceased to hold Theism
as true: and if it were not misleading to one’s self to covet opinion, I could even
wish to be able to share their convictions. But having once well parted from my
early belief, I am free to inquire and resolute to know,And I seek for evidence
which will not only satisfy my present judgment, but evidence with which I can
defy the judgment of others. He who can supply me with this can command me.”
—Ibid., pp. 115, 113.
f Ibid., p. 115.
�8
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
denial of the idea necessary.”* “ What help has the Theist which
the Atheist has not also
he asks, evidently unaware how the per
ception of religious reality modifies the whole of life, altering its pro
portions, and often even reversing its purposes. Take, for instance,
the subject of death. How widely different are the feelings with
which we must regard the vicissitudes and problems of life, on the
supposition that our career is not ended by death, from those feelings
which are forced upon us by the supposition that it is so terminated!
This is a case in which the reality must lie either with the one
alternative or the other : either we shall, or we shall not, survive our
present existence; and except in those cases where excessive misery
or mental torpor has produced a state of abnormal indifference to life
altogether, a neutral feeling on the subject is scarcely possible. Our
affections, hopes, pursuits—the whole conduct and tone of our lives
—must inevitably be influenced to an incalculable extent by the con
clusion which we adopt. It is quite true that Duty is equally binding
on us, whether our term of life be mortal or immortal. But the
absence of a futurity must alter the line of our duty in an infinity of
directions, and it is unavoidable that we act from one hypothesis or
the other. Even suspensive Atheism, though not shutting out the
chance of a futurity, is obliged to act on the other theory. Mr.
Holyoake, though far more open to spiritual influences than his party
generally, is obliged to base his world on the Secular alone. His
superiority on these points is purely individual, and is constantly
overborne in party and polemic life by the inevitable tendency of his
principles.
There is an instinctive feeling in men’s minds that
religion is either a great reality or a great mistake, but that it cannot
be a matter of indifference. And this perception is beginning to show
itself in the Secularist party. They are dividing more and more
visibly into positive and negative sections,—the one repudiating
religion, the other reapproaching it more or less distinctly.^ For
human nature is so constituted that men cannot for ever rest at the
parting of the ways. Individuals there have always been, to whom a
peculiar combination of temperament and culture renders a decision
on the great problems of life less easy to the intellect, and perhaps
less imperative to the character, than to the generality of mankind ;
but, whatever other services to human welfare such minds may render,
they cannot aid in the development of those primary spiritual intui
tions which have formed the deepest basis of human life in all ages.
But Mr. Holyoake may plead that it is quite legitimate to prefer
one of two influences without absolutely pronouncing against the
other, if the one be certain and the other uncertain,—the one close at
hand and the other .afar off. And this is his view of the Secular as
contrasted with the Spiritual. He does not presume to say that God
* “ Trial of Theism,” p. 175.
f Ibid., p. 121.
J See Appendix A.
�PHASES OP ATHEISM.
9
does not exist ; but he holds that, whether God is or is not, the
*
course of human affairs is left to humanity alone,—that human effort
is the only practical agency which it is of any use to invoke. Take
the following passages, for instance, from “The Two Providences.”
“ It is said we are without God in the world ; but remember, if it
be so, that it is not our fault. We would rather that the old theories
were true, and that light could be had in darkness, and help in the
hour of danger. It better comports with human feebleness and harsh
destiny that it should be so. But if the doctrine be not true, surely
it is better that we know it. Could the doctrine of Divine aid be
reduced to intelligible conditions, religion would be reinstated in its
ancient influence. For a reasonable certainty and an unfailing trust,
men would fulfil any conditions possible to humanity. Faith no
longer supplies implicit confidence, and the practical tone of our day
is impatient of that teaching which keeps the word of promise to the
ear, and breaks it to the hope.
“ Could we keep before us the first sad view of life which breaks in
upon the working man, whether he be a white slave or a black one,
we should be able to see self-trust from a more advantageous point.
We should learn at once sternness and moderation. Do we not find
ourselves at once in an armed world where Might is God and
Poverty is fettered? Every stick and stone, every blade of grass,
every bird and flower, every penniless man, woman, and child, has an
owner in this England of ours no less than in New Orleans. The
bayonet or baton bristles round every altar, at the corner of every
lane and every street. Effort, in its moral and energetic sense, is
the only study worth a moment’s attention by the workman or the
slave.....................
“Now it is not needful to contend that prayer never had any
efficacy,—it may have been the source of material advantage once ;
but the question is, Will it bring material aid now ? It is in vain
that the miner descends into the earth with a prayer on his lips, unless
he carries a Davy lamp in his hand. A ship-load of clergymen
would be in danger of perishing, if you suffer the Amazon once to
take fire. During the prevalence of a pestilence an hospital is of more
value than a college of theologians. When the cholera visitation is
near, the physician, and not the priest, is our best dependence, and
those whom medical aid cannot save must inevitably die. Is it not,
therefore, merciful to say that science is the Providence of life ? . . .
Science represents the available source of help to man, ever augment
ing in proportion to his perspicacity, study, courage, and industry.
We do not confound science with nature. Nature is the storehouse
of riches, but when its spontaneous treasures are exhausted, science
enables us to renew them and to augment them. It is the well* “ Does the most absolute Atheism do more than declare the secret of nature
to be unrevealed ? ”—“ Trial of Theism,” p. 143.
�10
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
devised method of using nature. It is in this sense that Science is the
Providence of Man. It is not pretended that Science is a perfect
dependence; on the contrary, it is admitted to be narrow, and but
partially developed; but though it should be represented as a limited
dependence, we must not overlook the fact that it is the only special
dependence that man has; and however infantine now, it is an evergrowing power.” *
But in what respect is it needful that the study of Nature, and the
methodising of its agencies for the material benefit of man, should be
regarded as invalidating the existence of a Divine purpose in Nature ?
Surely nothing can be more congruous with Theism than that Nature
and Man should be found in harmony with each other. In exploring
our relation to the home in which we are placed, and in utilizing every
material within our reach, we are in no sense turning away from the
Author and Animator of Nature, but rather acquainting ourselves
with His infinite resources of power and beauty. The real question
between the Theist and the Atheist lies far deeper down ; it is,
whether we have any means of reaching the Power displayed in the
Universe beyond that which we gain from the study of Nature,—
whether that power is a Conscious Soul, with which we can com
mune, and whence we can derive help and guidance when the visible
world ceases to afford us aid,—whether, when “Nature”is dumb, He
will speak,—whether, when all “materialadvantage” shall have been
reaped by material science, the affections and the conscience must yet
be left entirely to themselves, possessing no power of contact with
any Personal Reality beyond that of erring fellow-mortals. Yet, if
such contact be possible, it must affect our moral lite to an incalcu
lable extent; and the moral life of those who do not cherish any
relation to that Personal Reality must miss one of its most important
elements. In contrast, therefore, to the Secularist theory, on the one
hand, which holds that Ethics as a whole, both in theory and prac
tice, is attainable without Religion,—and to the orthodox theory, on
the other hand, which maintains that the unassisted human mind can
neither know nor do anything in Morals without the conscious recog
nition of Religion,—we hold that Conscience and Faith are, each of
them, primary sentiments in man; that each may arise independ
ently of the other, and may grow up separately, to a certain point of
development,—a point varying relatively to the temperament and
culture of each individual,—but that beyond that point each tends to
call forth a need of the other, and deteriorates if that need be not
supplied. He in whose glowing heart spiritual love precedes the
strong sense of duty becomes a bigot or a dreamer, if his idea of God
long fails to suggest a free and reasonable standard of conscience.
And he who finds his purely human conscience really all-sufficient to
his needs, can scarcely have much fulness of moral life requiring to
* “Trial of Theism,” Chap. XXII.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
11
be guided. And here it is to the point to remark, that the absence of
any reliance on such higher Personality has a visibly cramping effect
on the minds of Ethical Atheists. There are innumerable cases in
life where human sympathy and reciprocation must fail ; nay, where
the very fact of virtue implies the renunciation of sympathy. In
such cases it may too often be seen that the Atheist is thrown back
upon himself, in a way which tempts him either to yield the point
for the sake of sympathy, or to hold by the point in a way which
is apt to overstrain his sense of duty done. In Atheistic defences
we frequently see a recapitulation of facts brought forward to de
monstrate the rectitude of the party, or of its champions, which even
generous minds cannot save from a tone of “ self-righteousness,”
while to commonplace speakers the danger is not even perceptible.
Now it is fatal to the healthiness of virtue to look back in this way
at its own achievements. The love of Goodness is kept safe and
sound by being constantly directed to that which is before, and not
behind it. Otherwise, it is apt to sink into ?elf-complacency with
having been virtuous, and rather to test its aspirations by its perform
ances, than to feel that the only good of its performances is derived
from the aspirations which they but imperfectly realise. Broadly
speaking, there is a certain climate of tendency observable in dif
ferent communions—a gravitation of influences towards certain levels,
—which determines the tone of average minds, and which the higher
thinkers only escape by lying open to other inlets of thought and
feeling. The Secularistic idealisation of human duty as the only
source of moral life, must ever give rise to the tendency to glory in
“merits.” It is inevitable that this temptation should come to minds
vividly conscious of honest and faithful purpose, and anxious to
defend that purpose against coarse and base aspersions, but not con
scious of receiving, from an Infinite Source above them, far more
than the most devoted of human lives can ever re-express, and whose
human fatigues and disappointments are thus unrefreshed by that
repose and re-invigoration which are essential to the elasticity of the
highest human endeavour.
Now this strain on the nobler faculties which results from the
absence of Divine sympathy, must necessarily vary greatly according
to the need of sympathy in different minds. Many upright, unimpulsive men, in whom conscience scarcely rises into affection, do not
feel it at all. Others, of generous and affectionate natures, are yet
so far free from the disturbing influences of passion as to be able to
live habitually from a sense of duty alone. To observers at a little
distance, the benumbing effect of a merely Secular faith may be visible
in such natures, confirming their constitutional defects, and cutting
them off from rousing influences; yet the Secularist’s own mind
may not be distinctly conscious of the want. But now and then
comes a passionate soul, that feels the need of the Divine with a
keenness that cannot be suppressed. The mind may be entirely per
�12
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
suaded of the untenability of Theism; but the intellectual convic
tion in such cases is at war with the whole bent of the soul. To
such a nature, the needs of the affections must be recognised dis
tinctly, whether for satisfaction or abnegation : they are primary reali
ties which cannot be passed by in any accepted theory of human life.
And here does Ethical Atheism culminate in the religious sentiment,
not only virtually, but avowedly, as we shall find by passing on to the
latest development of Atheism, as propounded by Mr. Lionel Holdreth.
With Mr. Holdreth the relation of Ethics to Theology takes an
altogether different aspect from that which it assumes in Mr. Holyoake’s system. Mr. Iloldreth utterly eschews all neutrality; his
Atheism is far more decisive than that of his friend. Ilis Secularism
is confessedly based on the rejection of Spiritualism, and he is fully
aware of their essential incompatibility. But, on the other hand, his
natural feelings toward religion are of a very different nature from
those manifested by Mr. Holyoake. The latter can respect the reli
*
gious sentiment, but he does not appear to have ever been deeply
conscious of it in himself, since the unreflecting period of his boy
hood ; all the realities of life which take hold of him most strongly,
bring no irrepressible longing for anything beyond humanity. But
with Mr. Iloldreth the religious sentiment is woven into his very
nature, and the intensity of his Atheism makes this only the more
apparent. The first specimens we shall present of his writings are
two passages which, taken together, strike the key-note of his whole
conception of life and faith.
“ In advocating the claim of Secularism to rank among religions,
and in asserting its inherent superiority to all other forms of reli
gion in point of truth, purity, and directness, I had in view, not
merely the assertion of a fact, but the attainment for Secularism of a
position, without which I do not conceive it possible that it can
maintain its ground. I wish to render it stable by defining and con
solidating its principles ; I wish to weaken the enemy by depriving
them of the monopoly of that principle—the religious—which always
must exercise a paramount influence over the minds of men. Human
nature is not a mere bundle of faculties, under the direction of a
supreme and infallible intellect; if it were, then we might rely
solely upon the intellect, not merely to teach men what is right, but
to compel them to follow its teaching. But as things are constituted
it is only the first of these points which the intellect can achieve;
we have to look for some other motive influence which shall induce
men to do what they know to be right. This can only be found in
their emotions or affections. It is on these that the religious senti
ment has its hold, and therefore, apart from the religious sentiment,
_• He calls Mr. Newman’s work on “The Soul” “a book conceived in the
highest genius of proselytism, which must command respect for the religious
sentiment wherever it is read.”—“ Trial of Theism,” p. 60.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
13
you can rarely hope to find steady and thoroughgoing virtue in any
life; never, except in minds peculiarly well balanced by nature, and
well disciplined by the education of life and action, of teachers and of
circumstances. Here and there, it is true, you may find a man or
woman who docs right by habit or by impulse ; but these are motives
which can hardly be relied upon to resist the pressure of strong
temptation. For the strength here needed we must look to a prin
ciple which can exercise complete control over the affections, and
wield their whole power in such a struggle ; a commander-in-chief of
the faculties of our moral nature. Such a principle is that of Reli
gion, and such is no other. This principle is embodied in the faith of
the Christian and the Deist, of Socrates and of Paul, of Isaiah and
of Mazzini, of Plato, ay, and of Paine. None of these were or are
Atheists; they write and speak of a God in tones of reverence and
adoration ; and it is in this religious sentiment which is embodied in
their creed that they find consolation in sorrow, and strength in the
hour of conflict. Such a strength and such a consolation must be
found in any faith which is ever to attain an empire over the hearts
of men; such a principle of power must there be in a creed, call it
philosophical or religious, on which our morality is to be based, and
by which our life is to be directed, or we shall be sure to find it fail
us in our hour of need. And I maintain that, as a fact, Secularism, as
taught by Mr. Holyoake, and as accepted by myself, does contain such
a principle, in its religious sense of duty; a duty derived from natural
principles, and referable to natural laws; a duty binding on men as
fractions of mankind, and on mankind as a portion of the cosmic whole.”*
“ I believe in no true, honourable, virtuous life but in this reli
gion ; and in proportion as the supernatural creeds have contained
this essential religious element, have they been useful and saving
faiths. Christianity had far more of it than Paganism, Theism than
Christianity; but pure Secularism is the pure religion—faith in a
grand principle its sole guide of life, its sole source of strength,
unalloyed by timid dependence on a Father’s arm, unpolluted by
selfish thoughts of a reward hereafter. To this Religion of Duty—
the One True Faith, the one true principle giving life and spirit
to the bodies of false doctrine wherein it hath been incorporated—do
I look for all strength for each of us, all guidance for all men, all
progress for mankind.’’^
In this remarkable declaration there are three main propositions :—
First. That “ any faith which is to attain an empire over the hearts
of men” must contain “a principle which can exercise complete con
trol over the affections, and wield their whole power in the struggle."
No truer ideal of faith could be laid down than this.
Second. “That Secularism does contain such a principle, in its
religious sense of duty.”
* “ Reasoner,” No. 600.
t “ Reasoner,” No. 579.
�14
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
Third. That Secularism is “superior to all other forms of religion
in truth, purity, and directness,” because it holds this sense of duty
unalloyed by any dependence on a Father, or any hope of a hereafter.
Now that “ Secularism, as taught by Mr. Holyoake, and accepted
by Mr. Holdreth, does contain a religious sense of duty,” may be
readily granted. Mr. Holdreth elsewhere says, that “ Sacrifice for
the sake of others, not in the hope of future reward, is a principle
which, though glimpses of it were occasionally visible through the
mists of the future to Prophets and Apostles, waited for its full
recognition until a faith arose which knew nothing of an eternal
retribution.”* And there is a truth in this which should not be
forgotten. The absence of any settled hope of futurity does throw
into keener relief the absolute disinterestedness of virtue; and
although there have been Theists, as well as Atheists, who leave the
question of immortality as an insoluble problem, yet it is the noblest
characteristic of Ethical Atheism to have preached, deliberately and
fearlessly, that virtue is a present rectitude, utterly irrespective of
pleasant “ consequences,” whether in this world or in any other.
The popularization of this truth is one of the most valuable contri
butions that Secularism has made to the moral education of Free
Thought. But it is one thing to assert that Moral Obligation is a
primary element of our nature, “ derived from natural principles,
and referable to natural laws
and it is quite another thing to main
tain that no extra-human Personality exists, of whose parental rela
tion to us, those natural laws are but an outward visible expression.!
It is one thing to assert that the idea of virtue excludes, per se, the
very notion of reward; and it is quite another thing to maintain
that our sentient existence cannot extend beyond our life in this
visible plar.et. The connection between ethical truth and cosmical
fact is one that cannot be thus assumed a priori. Moreover, although
the ethical truth on which Mr. Holdreth bases his whole system is
one which can scarcely be over estimated in its own place, it is’clearly
incapable of fulfilling all the requirements of the ideal which he
previously sketched as essential to a complete Faith. Is Duty, as a
matter of fact, “ a principle that can exercise complete control over
the affections, and wield their whole power in the struggle?” We
apprehend that no mortal soul, however saintly, could ansiver “Yes.”
It is true that almost any amount of self-sacrificing heroism may be
gradually attained by a dutiful nature, even to a degree that would
at first appear incalculably beyond the power of human nature to
support. Let the capacity for “service and endurance ” be granted
to the full, untainted by any notion of “ reward,” either in earth or
heaven. But the province of effort, which is active and voluntary, is
distinct from the province of affection, which is receptive and involun
tary. Duty may, indeed, be taught to exercise control over the
* “ Reasoner,” No. 596.
t See Appendix B.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
15
affections, in the sense of coercing them; but that is clearly not the
sort of control of which Mr. Holdreth is here speaking. The con
trolling principle that he desiderates is one that shall “ wield the
whole power of the affections in the struggle." It must therefore
respond to their fullest longings, and dominate them by an Objective
Reality that can rightly command them. But how is this possible
if the object loved be an unconscious one ? Only a person (in the
sense of a conscious mind) can wield the whole power of the affec
tions, for only a person can reciprocate them—and what affection
ever comes to its full maturity until it is reciprocated ? And what
person can wield that complete control over our highest and purest
affections which is here sought, but One who shall be above us all—
the realisation of Infinite Perfection ? The admission of the affec
tions into the “ religious sense of duty ” naturally implies the idea of
an Object on which to repose them; and the absence of any such
object in Mr. Holdreth’s theory is an incongruity somewhat like that
exhibited by Tycho Brahe, who admitted that the planets revolved
round the sun, but maintained that the sun and the planets together
revolved round the earth- In the same way, Mr. Holdreth holds
that all our faculties should be under the complete control of reli
gion, but that religion itself is only dependent upon man—that is, upon
the very being who needs the control. Perhaps he would reply with
the heroic but most melancholy saying of Spinoza, “ He who loves
God aright must not expect that God should love him in return;” an
idea which implies that the power of loving has been, in some mys
terious way, monopolised by mortals, and is the only quality for
which the Great Cosmos has no capacity. Now if the affection we
receive from our fellow-creatures were in itself perfectly satisfying,
and always at our command when deserved, there would be much
plausibility in the theory that we have no concern with any other
affection. But that such is not the case in human life, it would be
superfluous to prove. Moreover, if there be one feature of Mr.
Holdreth’s writings more characteristic than the rest, it is the keen
ness and distinctness of his desire after an Infinite Object of affec
*
tion.
It is therefore to the point to discover the estimate he himself
takes of this desire. The fullest notice he has taken of it, as an
argument for Theism, is as follows:—
“ Some have urged that, since in Nature is found no want without
a satisfaction, no appetite but for a purpose, it were contrary to
nature to suppose man’s natural instinct of worship, and—so to
speak—desire of Deity implanted only to be balked. But to this it
* Many critics of his poems were misled by this characteristic to under-esti
mate the reality of his Atheism—a very easy mistake to arise in the minds of
those who see the religious instinct, and who do not see the complicated intellec
tual difficulties which may coexist with it. We have frequently heard the
remark, “Mr. Holdreth will not long remain an Atheist.” But the question
remains, Why is he an Atheist now ?
�16
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
may be replied, that for artificial desires Nature provides not always
gratifications; nor for all natural needs, except to those who have
the capacity to seek their satisfaction aright. Accordingly, it is
nowise to be accounted an anomaly in Nature, if she provide not a
personal object of worship, such as shall satisfy the artificially
excited imaginations and feelings of men and women, educated from
youth to worship; or if she yield no gratification to those whose
neglected intellect and uncultivated conscience can reverence naught
that is not personal, and love only where they expect reward for
loving. But for so much of this devotion as is natural in minds
sound and healthily trained, there is a sufficient object in the Order,
the Truth, the Beauty of Nature herself—in the Duty which springs
from Law, and in the authority which belongs to Conscience.”*
Such is Mr. Holdreth’s theoretical conviction. But what are the
utterances of his natural feeling ? Scrupulously passing by all such
passages as he might possibly reject or modify now, we will illustrate
this point by a few quotations. The first is from the opening of a
lecture delivered in 1856, entitled “Theism the Religion of Senti
ment.”
“ Stern indeed and strong must that heart be—if indeed it be not
utterly callous and insensible—-that has not at times, at many times,
sighed after such a comfort. The strongest spirit has its hours of
weakness, the most hopeful and elastic nature its moments of deep
and hopeless depression. What comfort is theirs who in these
moments can cast themselves on the ever-present arm of an Eternal
Father, in calm reliance on his unfailing power and inexhaustible
kindness! In the hours of loneliness and melancholy, when the
heart feels itself as it were alone amid a deserted universe, how
enviable is their state who feel that they are not alone—that with
them and around them is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother
—a very present help in time of trouble. To the labourer whose
twelve hours’ toil can barely suffice to earn bread for his suffering
wife and his sickly children ; to the slave who sees before him no rest,
no mercy, no escape but in the grave ; to the lonely student on his
solitary couch of sickness ; to the starving and sorely tempted seam
stress in her fireless and foodless garret; to the martyr of conscience
in his dismal prison, or yet more dismal liberty ; to the patriot exile,
inclined almost to despair of the cause for which he has given all that
was dear in life—what happiness to turn from the harshness and the
misery of earth to the Father which is in heaven !
“ And, on the other hand, how hard seems their fate who have no
such hope and no such comfort—who must endure through life the
hardships of poverty, the sorrows of obscurity, the misery of unbe
friended loneliness, and must at last pass to their graves with the
bitter thought, that they have lived in vain for others, and worsc* “Reasoner,” No. 629.
�PHASES or ATHEISM.
17
than in vain for themselves. Truly, it is no light, no easy matter to
be, much more to become, an Atheist.”*
(How much, by the way, is implied in that parenthesis,—“much
more to become an Atheist.”) The next passage we quote appeared
considerably later, and occurred in a review of the “ Eclipse of Faith.”
After quoting the only passage in that book which can be said to
contain “ any indication of an insight into the real feelings and posi
tion of a true Sceptic,” Mr. Holdreth remarks on it thus :—
“ I presume that there is no thoughtful mind, which has ever been
truthful and honest enough to enter earnestly upon the quest of truth,
that has not very early in its career passed through the Slough of
Despond that is here described. But this is assuredly not the
language of a matured and deliberate scepticism; it is that of a mind
which has floundered about in the quicksands into which it first
plunged on quitting the barren rocks of Christianity, and which has
never succeeded in reaching the shore beyond. Those who have gone
through this state do not speak in this tone. They are satisfied either
that there is no God, or that there is, or that we cannot tell whether
there be or no. At any rate, they remain satisfied: if there be no
God, the crying after him is childish and unmanly; if we cannot
know him, it is futile and absurd; in either case experience soon
teaches us that what we cannot in course of nature expect to have can
be naturally dispensed with. It is only during the first stage of
mental progress, while still enfeebled by the habit of dependence,
still unaccustomed to love Truth as Truth, to pursue Duty as Duty,
to repose confidence in Law as Law, independently of a God and a
Lawgiver, that we hear these echoes of the bitter cry, 1 My God, my
God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?’ ”f
'
Thus it is evidently felt by the writer, that the crying after God
would not necessarily be childish and unmanly if He did exist; and
that it is only because we cannot have Divine sympathy, that we must
learn to do without it. Still further, our Atheist acknowledges that
it is only after a painful process that the heart weans itself from this
affection, and learns to cease “ sighing after such a comfort.” This
is resignation, but not satisfaction; it is the manly endurance of a
harsh necessity, but it is not a faith “ which can exercise complete
control over the affections, and wield their whole power in the
struggle."
How such a theory as Mr. Holdreth’s would work in actual life, is
a question which naturally suggests itself; and towards this we have
a partial approximation in his novelette of “ Conscience and Conse
quence,” designedly written to show what life would be to a genuine
Atheist. Our author has here endeavoured to realize his faith in
duty and his disbelief in God, side by side, in all their bearings, and
the result is so unique as to demand special analysis.
* “ Reasoner,” No. 535.
c
f Ibid., No. 603.
�18
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
The plot of the story is a bold interpolation into the history of
religious opinion in England. The hero, Ernest Clifford, is expelled
from Cambridge for Atheism; his father disinherits him in con
sequence, and he joins an Atheist propaganda in London, the leader
of which, Francis Sterne, is the model Atheist of the tale, and the
life and soul of a movement which would certainly not have been
forgotten if it had ever existed. The date of the story is about the
period of the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill (1829). At
that time the Carlile agitation was going on, and it certainly contained
many such adherents as the Hatherley and Carter whose coarse but
genuine earnestness Mr. Holdreth has here depicted; but the Freethinking newspapers of that day could boast of no such editor as
“ Arthur Clayton, the Melancthon of Atheism,” nor did they possess
among their contributors any such men as Francis Sterne or Ernest
Clifford. The whole tale is an arabesque, in which all the combina
tions of circumstance are nearly impossible. As the author must be
perfectly aware of this, we attribute to him the intention of aiming
at coherence merely in ideal respects. Conceding to him this liberty,
however, we see, by the elements of which he builds his world, which
are the points in the relation of theology to life that have most importance for him, either in feeling or observation.
In the first place, it should be remarked that, although the romance
has great faults as a work of art, it displays one characteristic which
many works of greater finish do not possess. It is a genuine attempt
to paint from life, rather than to construct from mere fancy or theory.
Although the dialogue is very defective in easy, natural flow, the
conception and description of character indicate close observation and
delicate perception. Especially does the writer’s attention seem to
have been given to the varying styles of character among Free
thinkers. Nearly all the dramatis personae are Atheists, yet all differ
from each other as people do in real life; they are not sketched from
their creed, inwards, but from their character, outwards. Perhaps
Sterne is an exception to this rule; but Ernest, Clayton, Seaton,
Louis, Arnott, and the rest, are clearly drawn from observation, and
not from theory,—and this is no small merit in a tale written to
exemplify a theory. It is a merit, too, in a deeper sense than at first
appears. For this endeavour to paint men as they are, under the
creed of Atheism, has thrown a light upon the effects of that creed
which no Atheist ever gave us before. The author has laid bare the
weak points of his own faith with the candour of one who has no
purpose to serve but the perfect truth. We have not space to
illustrate this as fully as we could wish, and must confine ourselves to
the more salient points alone.
The first “ consequence ” which the “ conscience ” of the Atheist
entails upon him is, of course, the external loss of friends and
position; but this is plainly subordinate in the author’s view to the
internal consequences resulting from the change. It is not only the
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
19
human affections that Ernest is called upon to renounce,—he has to
part with hopes that had outsoared death, and to forsake the peace
with which
“ the heavenly house he trod,
And lay upon the breast of God.”
“ He regretted keenly the old hymns of the Church, in which he
could never join again, as formerly, with simple, heart-felt faith. He
regretted the Incarnate God, dear for Ilis human love, and still
dearer for His human sorrow, who had gradually dwindled before his
eyes into a man, of the common stature of men, or at least less than
the greatest. He regretted the Bible he had trusted so implicitly, but
could never take up now without lighting on some page defiled by
blood or blotted with error and ignorance. He regretted the atoning
martyr, whose dying pardon to his enemies, and dying promise to the
penitent thief, had been the delight of his early meditations. He re
gretted the Heaven which his friend had resolved into its cloud
elements ; that beautiful Fata Morgana of Christianity,—or more
truly of Spiritualism,—where it is promised us that we shall meet
hereafter the loved and lost on earth. Above all, he regretted the
God who was vanishing into thin air before the opened eyes of his reason;
God, the avenger of human suffering, the Redressor of human wrong,
the Consoler of human sorrow; God, whose wisdom can never err,
and whose love shall never fail.................................... We must not
blame Ernest Clifford too severely, therefore, if, in the first bitterness
of this disappointment, when finding the most cherished visions of
his heart fade from the clear light of reason, he was hardly conscious
that there was aught left behind to make life worth living.’'*
Nor does the author give us to understand that this grief was
merely the dark transition-period leading to a happier, fuller, and
richer faith. The only growth of character which he depicts as
resulting from Atheism is a development of the power of endurance.
In his view, the allegiance to Truth not only entails many painful
consequences in its progress to a nobler life, but it is the inlet to a
whole world of suffering, unrelieved by any gleams of sunlight; it
excites the active impulses, but tortures the receptive side of our
nature with cruel starvation.^ We must give some illustration
of this from Ernest’s history. Expelled from his home, he is forced
to part from his sister, without any hope of a future meeting.
* “ Reasoner,” No. 632. The italics here and elsewhere are our own.
+ Those who know Keats’s Life and Letters may be here reminded of his
beautiful parable of human life (Vol. 1. p. 140), where the keen vision of the
world’s misery first assails the young soul,—“ whereby this Chamber of MaidenThought becomes gradually darkened, and at the same time on all sides of it
many doors are set open,—but all dark,—all leading to dark passages. We see
not the balance of good and evil; we are in a mist, we are in that state, we feel
the ‘ Burden of the Mystery.’ . . . Now if we live, and go on thinking, we
too shall explore these dark passages,”
�20
PHASES OP ATHEISM.
“A heavy weight lay on Ernest’s heart, which all the courage
given by a clear conscience, all the resolution of martyrdom, all the
strength of despair, barely sufficed to endure. He could say but
little to his darling sister; but the child knew the mood, and was
content to lie on his arms, dreaming not of the most terrible trouble
she had known, which was to come from those lips that had never
breathed anything but tenderness and peace to her.................... ‘ And
now, dear Alice, farewell. May you be happy, my darling, my
treasure, my first and last hope in life!’
“ How one misses, on such an occasion, the old Saxon ‘ God Hess you P
which consigns the loved one to a higher and stronger care, yet one as
tender as our own! He strained the child to his breast for one long
embrace. Then he unclasped her little arms from his neck, kissed
her once more, and was gone........................... ‘ Farewell!’ he re
peated, bitterly. ‘ And all this misery comes of doing my duty.
Certainly, then, there ¿s no God !’ ”*
“ But if Duty lead to destruction, what matters it ? Soldiers
sworn into allegiance to that sacred name, whither she commands,
thither are we bound to march ; ay, to Hell, if need should be.
‘ Ours not to make reply ;
Ours not to reason why ;
Ours but to do or die.’
There is more of martyrdom still in this world than the world dreams
of. Every step in advance that mankind makes, is made not only
over the bodies of fallen defenders of the ancient Evil. The road is
paved with the noblest, the truest, the bravest hearts that have
struggled or suffered in the good cause: and it is by trampling on our
wounded brethren that we advance to victory. It is the law; who
shall gainsay it ? Ask of the Almighty God, if there be one, why he
constructed the world so clumsily. Remember that Nature, working
ever by fixed rules, and with imperfect instruments, can only attain
the final happiness of the Many by constant sacrifices of the Few.
And will the Few complain of this sacrifice? If they do, it will be
neither wisely nor justly. Pre-eminent sorrow is the price of pre
eminence ; ■ ■ . the finest, noblest, loftiest minds of every age have it
as their assigned destiny—as the finest bull or ram was slain before
the gods of olden time—to be sacrificed at the altar of Progress.
The hemlock of Socrates, the cross of Jesus, the scaffold of More, are
not strange and unnatural accidents in the career of benefactors of
mankind, but only extreme and marked examples of the natural fate
of those whose moral and intellectual pre-eminence renders them
prominent marks for the hostility of the ‘powers of darkness.’
‘ Serve and enjoy,’ is Nature’s commandment to mankind; those whom
she deigns to honour with a special mandate are charged to serve and
endure.”f
* “ Reasoner,” No. 639.
f “ Reasoner,” No. 635.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
21
This is the first mention in Mr. Holdreth’s writings of “ the powers
of darkness,”—but it is not the last. In the following chapter of
“Conscience and Consequence,” we hear that Superstition is “the
worst and most terrible of all the emanations of the Evil Principle ;
the spirit on whom alone no holy name seems to have power, whom
no exorcism can cast out, and with whom no spiritual strength can
grapple.”* And at length we come to the following plain state
ment of the terrible alternative. Ernest is speaking to a Sicilian
patriot, who has been expressing his fervent faith in God.
“ But may we not ask, Signor, if there be a God, why are you
here, and Francis the poltroon on the throne of the Two Sicilies ? Is
this God’s world, or the Devil’s? Must we not rather say—when-we
look to the men who fill the thrones of Europe on the one side, and
to those who crowd her dungeons on the other—when we think of
the darkness that broods over the souls and minds of her millions of
inhabitants, and remember that here we have the best and highest
forms of human life—whether or no there be a Devil, assuredly there is
no God /”f
Thus our author’s keen sense of Moral Evil leads him to regard its
wide-spread existence as invalidating the reality of a Divine Purpose
in the world. That this bitter “ fountain of tears ” is the central
source of his Atheism, is evident from the whole tenor of his writings.
It will, however, be useful here to quote the exact form in which he has
summed up his view of the subject as a whole. We quote from a
letter of Sterne’s to Ernest.
“ Let me point out to you our arguments as against God’s existence.
“ First: evil exists. God, being omnipotent, could crush evil with
out diminishing good—that is, without causing any moral deteriora
tion on our part for want of something to contend against, or the like.
God, being utterly good, would do so. But it is not done ; evil is al
lowed to exist; therefore God either does not exist, or is deficient either
in power or goodness. If in the former, we cannot trust Him, since
we know not the limits of His power; and if in the latter, we decline
to worship an imperfect Being.
“ Second: God’s foreknowledge, being absolute, is incompatible
with Man’s free will.
“ But the Atheist’s grand argument is that the Theist has none.
There is no credible evidence whatsoever that God exists, and the
burden of proof rests with those who affirm that He does.”|
Every phase of disbelief must be viewed in relation to that belief
which it negatives. We see here what is the sort of Theism to
which Mr. Holdreth enters so decided an opposition. It is the faith
* “ Reasoner,” No. 637. This is said, not by any person in the story, but by the
narrator himself. We have carefully avoided quoting any passages as illustrative
of the author’s views, which are not clearly meant to be so understood.
f Ibid., No. 648.
X Ibid., No. 626.
�22
PHASES OP ATHEISM.
in an Autocratic Power, who is capable of creating good and evil by an
arbitrary fiat of volition,—a Power whose absolute and all-pervading
personality excludes all free and self-modifying existence in all His
creatures. No wonder that such a faith should strain and break down
under the pressure of life’s realities. This sort of Theism is a com
pound of two elements,—the Despot-God of Calvinistic Orthodoxy,
and the Law-God of physical science. The essentially immoral and
unphilosophical nature of the former conception renders superfluous
any argument against it on our part; but the latter idea contains a
partial truth. Inorganic nature indubitably bears the impress of
Cosmic Law. The stars in their orbits, the plants in their growth, ex
press rather than obey the changeless rules of Nature. Unconscious
of pain, undisturbed by temptation, their beautiful life is the incarna
tion of an Orderly Force, whose movements we can (within small, but
yet widening limits) calculate beforehand. Fascinated by this great and
apparently benevolent Power, philosophers have worshipped the God of
Nature as the Supreme. But when this conception of Deity is
carried into the regions of the human will, it is utterly inadequate to
interpret the most important of phenomena; it is dumb concerning all
those moral problems which are specially characteristic of human
life, and distinguish it from the inorganic or irrational departments of
nature. Some thinkers, like Mr. Buckle, fall back on the notion that
the fluctuations of good and evil in the history of individual man are
of small importance, and that the only permanent interests of
humanity consist in what can be generalised and classified. Not so
Mr. Holdreth: he stands fast by the moral realities of individual
life, as being far more important to us than mere general laws, and he
has the courage to maintain that, although, to him, all sight of a Divine
Purpose has vanished from the world,—though the Ordinances of
Nature ruthlessly crush the weak, and wrong the innocent,—yet
still, virtue and sin in man are now, as ever, infinitely opposed; and
that, even under the half-diabolic Shadow which saddens an im
perfect Universe, we should fight to the death for the sacredness of
*
Good.
But now, starting from the point of Man’s Free Will, in which Mr.
Holdreth vehemently believes,f why should this exclude the possible
existence of a God ? Is no other conception of Him possible than the
mere Law-God of Science, or the Arbitrary Despot of Orthodoxy?
* Nor is it only an external warfare that he urges ; he speaks of moral conflict
as one who knows the meaning of temptation, and who has recognised the need
felt by every sensitive conscience of coercing internal as well as external foes. And
it is from this point that his ideal of a faith is conceived, as may he seen in the
first extract we have given from his writings.
+ “The doctrine of Necessity is contradictory to instinct, to reason, to ex
perience. It is a renunciation of morality, a blasphemy against duty, an Atheism
to Nature. . . . My instinct revolts against such degradation. I feel that I
am free, as I feel that I think, that I move, that I exist,” etc.—“ Theism the
Religion of Sentiment,” “ Reasoner,” No. 537.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
23
To merely speculative intellects, who care only to hold “views” of
theology, no satisfying insight into the truth is attainable. But to
those in whose minds, as in Mr. Iloldreth’s, moral action forms an essen
tial part of that life of which speculative thought is but the exponent,
there is a vision possible, which we will attempt (however imperfectly)
to indicate.
1. We believe that God, by giving us Free Will to use or misuse
our faculties, has put into our hands a large amount of independent
power, which precludes His possession of that absolute foreknowledge
of our individual course which many popular theories attribute to
Him. But by confining our capacities to a certain range in relation
to the other forces of the universe, lie has insured that our individual
aberrations shall never pass beyond a preordained limit, after which
the compensations of nature restore the general equilibrium. With
respect to our capacity, therefore, we are governed by the necessity
of God’s ordinances; with respect to the use we make of our capacity,
He leaves our individuality in our own hands. What He seeks from
us, there, is not the mechanical acquiescence of a plant or a bird, that
must obey the laws of its nature; but the free service of the Eternal
Right, the unconstrained love of the Infinite Goodness. Now such
freedom cannot be given without the power to choose wrongly. What
is virtue ? Not the mere absence of Evil, but the preference of Good,
—the devotion to Good as Good. Were there no distinctive
differences between right actions and wrong ones, no perception of
excellence could exist. Were there not in man a capacity for choosing
and following evil, no struggle of the will could arise at all: the
very existence of the idea of Duty—the Ought—implies that there is
a course which we ought not to follow. Some thinkers maintain that
this doctrine implies the subjection of God to an extraneous Fate; but
surely such thipkers overlook the true state of the case. Can we
conceive of God as creating a square circle, or as causing rain to fall
and not to fall at the same time and place ? These are self-contra
dictory requirements in physics, and the inability to combine them
does not imply any want of power. And is it not our greater inex
perience in Morals which alone renders it possible to us to conceive of
them as not amenable to fixed consistencies, and capable of being
moulded at pleasure by the caprice of an arbitrary Will? “If
Wisdom and Holiness are historical births from His volition, they are
not inherent attributes of His being.”* To resolve the conception of
God into the single attribute of volition, is to lose the substance of
Deity for an impossible phase of Omnipotence. For if we imagine
Him to be without a consistent manner of existence, we lose all that
makes Him the Object of our reverence and trust. “ Let Him
precede good and ill, and His Eternal Spirit is exempt alike from the
one and from the other, and recedes from our aspirations into perfect
moral indifierence.”j’
2. God has established a limit to the “ powers of darkness.” Beyond
* “ Prospective Review,” November, 1815. Review of Whewell’s “ Elements
of Morality.”
f “ Prospective Review,” ut supra.
�24
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
a certain point, crime leads to the destruction of its agents; the con
tact with nature and reality is fatal to evil in the long run. Death
and Birth perpetually tend to restore the balance of things, by re
moving the incurably corrupt, and filling the world with new life,
capable of healthier development. Thus much God grants to us as
“general law
more complete salvation we cannot have without our
own individual exertions. Now, that mankind have in many direc
tions gone very near the limit of human capacity to do evil, there can
be no doubt. The state of the Roman Empire for several centuries,
the horrors of religious persecution in all ages, the present state of
American slavery, are all testimonies to the awful capacity in man for
deliberate and consummate wickedness. But however wide may be the
shadow which human guilt can cast, it can never exceed the measure
of those faculties which occasion it, and consequently it must always
be possible for the right exercise of those faculties to attain an
equally wide development. It may be replied, that to do wroDg is
easier than to do right; or, in other terms, that our powers of action
and enjoyment tend to an over-selfish degree of gratification. That
they have such a tendency is most true ; but we have another tendency,
of an opposite nature. “ It is not more true that the flesh lusteth
against the spirit, than that the spirit lusteth against the flesh.”*
And it is this power of choice between the lower and the higher ten
dency, that makes us moral beings. The perennial alternative is,
whether we will cultivate our faculties for the sake of self alone, or
whether we will train them to be ministers in the service of that Pure
Goodness which can alone set our hearts free. And that there is an impulse
in man which seeks the pure, unselfish service of Goodness and Right,
and that this impulse ought to be the ruling authority of man’s heart,
is no secret to the best Atheists; indeed, it forms the acknowledged
groundwork of Mr. Holdreth’s faith. What is required for the salva
tion of mankind is this,—that the souls of men should love the Right
above all else, and promote it personally and publicly, with all their
strength and mind and heart. Of individual heroism and holiness the
experience of the race already affords many bright examples; but
these qualities have yet to be developed in social forms. Something
of this has been approached when a great moral enthusiasm has com
municated itself to a large body of men, animating them with one
common sentiment, burning up their littlenesses, and developing them
into a new life. Partial and incomplete as such results have been, they
have sufficiently manifested the fact that mankind are capable of a
social conscience, in the development of which individual excellence
may attain its ripest fulness. And “ if” (as Mr. Iloldreth says) “ we
were all now to begin to do our duty,”—if every single individual who
is troubled by the shadow of moral evil were to exert himself to the
utmost to assail it,—the combined efforts of so many workers would
assuredly, before the lapse of many generations, visibly diminish the
* Francis W. Newman, “ The Soul,” Chap. II I. “ The Sense of Sin.’
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
25
extent of that shadow. It is Action that we want,—moral devoted
ness to realise what moral and intellectual study have shown to be
the true needs of man.
3. Now comes the question, what light would such combined social
action throw upon the problem of the Universe? We believe it
would reveal much. For, although discouragements abound, from
the stubbornness of sin and the waywardness of passion, yet there is
an under-current of hope which persistent and faithful souls can
scarcely miss. There is, underneath the accumulated refuse of past
errors, a real thirst in human nature for right, and truth, and good
ness, which gradually becomes visible to genuine explorers, and which
is capable of infinite expansion. For we are so constituted that, how
ever long we may wander in darkness and falsehood, we can only
thrive in light and reality. The world is based on truth. Good and
Evil are not coequal powers, but Goodness, because it is Goodness, is
the mightier of the two when once fairly fledged. Evil may indefinitely
delay the advent of Good in the rebellious human heart; but directly
we turn to clasp and serve the Good in real earnest, we gain some of
its own power in addition to our own—a power which, if we are
faithful, will increase in us ever more and more, freeing us from the
bondage of selfish desires, and inspiring us with strength, peace, and
blessedness.
4. But, asks Mr. Holdreth, why should the consequences of guilt
be allowed to fall upon the guiltless ?
“ We that have sinned may justly rue,
Sin grows to pain in order due—
Why do the sinless suffer too ?”*
Without assuming to fathom the whole depth of the difficulty, we
would reply, that there is one obvious reason for this ordinance. The
tie of a common sensibility is the necessary postulate of social life,
which could not even exist, if the pains and pleasures of separate
individuals did not extend beyond themselves. If our actions affected
ourselves alone, what would become of all the relations of family,
friendship, country, and race ? We might as well be dwelling in
solitary and separate worlds. And it is not, in the nature of things,
possible that we should receive joy from our human sympathies,
without being also capable of receiving sorrow from them. The same
constitution which makes us open to improvement from the influences
of virtue, renders us liable to contagion from the contact of vice. Is
this an immoral doctrine ? Far from it. By testifying to the great
ness of social influences, it indirectly suggests how widely they may
minister to human improvement. Like all other extensions of our
sensibility and capacity, its consequences for good only demand our co
operation to outweigh infinitely its consequences for evil. One of the
first incitements that can move a sympathetic nature to self-discipline,
is the perception that his failures in virtue cazmoOnjure himself alone,
but must inevitably bring mischief and misery upon others also. To
* “ Shadows of the Past,” p. 36.
�26
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
see the untamed evil in their own hearts reflected back upon them in
the marred lives of the innocents whom they love, is a punishment
■which may recall many self-willed natures, who, in the recklessness
of passion, care but little for such consequences as only affect them
selves. Even the best of us continually need to see the right and
wrong of our actions illuminated by the well-being or injury of the
human creatures around us, in order to realise the full responsibility
imposed by that just and awful law, “Whatsoever thou sowest, that
also shalt thou reap.”
And when guilt seems to have passed beyond the human chances
of redemption, when long courses of evil-doing have hardened vice
and crime into “ established institutions,” then is it not our pity for
the victims that moves us to seek redress ? Probably the tyrants of
power, in all cases, are more fearfully injured by sin, than their
victims by suffering. Yet, clearly as we may perceive the degrada
tion caused by slavery and tyranny to the oppressing races or rulers,
human nature is not so constituted that this perception can act as a
sufficient motive-power on the general heart of man to induce the
reformation of the offenders. It is our pity for the innocent that
moves us to overthrow the oppressor. True, the arresting his career
is the best service we can do lor him ; but it is not for his sake that
we do it. He has, by wilful persistence in evil, put himself beyond
the pale of direct human service; it is only indirectly that we can
benefit him, by destroying his power to do evil. That indirect
service, however, shows that the tie of human brotherhood still
remains, and the blow which breaks the chain of the sufferer restores
the balance of the world, and gives another chance even to the oppressor.
The “ Innocents ” were said to be the earliest of Christian martyrs,
and their place is yet sacred in the roll of the world’s benefactors.
When, therefore, we see that the power to distinguish and choose
between Good and Evil is essential to the perception and service of
Good, both in the life of individuals and in the wider sensibilities of
social existence; when we see that, however terribly our choice of
Evil may injure ourselves and others, we have, all of us, chance upon
chance of redemption offered, and natural limits placed to our
capacity for evil-doing; when we see that the service of Good is
capable of being made as wide as the service of Evil has too often been,
and moreover that the inherent vitality of Good excels that of Evil,
in being capable of an infinite expansion and development in harmony
with nature, instead of in discord with it—surely, however much is still
hidden from us on this subject, we see enough to reassure us that the
Great Mystery is not a maleficent one.
*
* Probably it requires Infinite Perfection to formulate the whole truth concern
ing Good and Evil. The humblest efforts of conscience enable us to see clearer
in morals than the most acute intellect can ever penetrate without them; and it
may well be, that, as moral insight increases with moral worth, it can only be
complete where Goodness and Intellect are both entire and coequal, in the mind
of the Only Perfect One.—See Appendix C.
�PHASES OP ATHEISM.
27
Here it is necessary to take up Mr. Holdreth’s conception of
“Nature” from another point, and to examine his reason for main
taining that cosmical harmony does not imply a Personal Unity. Mr.
Holdreth adopts Mr. Holyoake’s doctrine on this point, which he thus
briefly re-states:—
“ The Atheist looks to the universe, under the guidance of the
divine; and the divine points to the traces of law, and cries, ‘ There
you behold the finger of God.’ The pupil asks why this is known to
be a finger-mark of Deity; and the reply is, when reduced to a logical
form, ‘ Fitness proves design, design an intelligent author—and this
author we name God.’ Objects his auditor, ‘ Then the fitness of God
proves an author of God ?’ ‘ Not so.’ ‘ Then how came you to say
that the universe must have an author ?’ ‘ How else comes it to
exist ?’ says the theologian. ‘ How comes God to exist ?’ is the natural
retort. ‘ An eternal universe is as easy of conception as an eternal
God.’ ”*
In this argument there is a mixture of truth and error which
requires to be carefully disentangled. The Theist does not, or at any
rate should not, affirm that the mere fitness or perfection of any
object indicates its design from another hand. What he maintains is
this : that when we see the exercise of Force in the direction of a
urpose, we, by an inevitable inference, attribute the phenomenon to
some conscious agent. You may call this an assumption, if you will,
but it is the necessary postulate of all our conceptions of consciousness.
What other test of consciousness can we imagine but this ? And how
can we dissever the perception from the inference? Now when the
purpose attained by any existence is clearly not resultant from forces
consciously exerted by it—as in the motions of the stars, the growth
of plants from their seeds, the propagation and support of animal
life from the exercise of blind instincts, etc.—we say that such results
must have been intended by some Intelligence extraneous to the
objects themselves. And when we see such exercise of purposeful
force pervading the Universe with a coherent harmony which implies
an unmistakable Cosmical Unity, we cannot but attribute to that
force a consciousness of the results which it produces. In spite of
their rejection of this inference, Atheists perpetually speak of
“ Nature ” as a causal source, both of force and order. Mr. Holdreth
does this most markedly, as may be seen in the following passages
from his “ Affirmations of Secularism : ”—
“ To be saved from perdition, moral and material, we must have
faith in the laws by which Nature has provided for our deliverance,
and upon that faith we must act. . . . Nature demands from us
that we should believe in her, obey her; and she will not fail to
enforce belief by moral penalties, and to punish disobedience by
material sufferings. . . . Nature’s government is a despotism,
* “ Reasoner,” No. 627.
�28
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
with the eternal accident heureux of a beneficent ruler. And I, for
one, am glad that it is so. I, for one, have more faith in the order
and harmony of Nature than in the justice or wisdom of men, and am
rejoiced that it is not left to the latter to arrange the politics of the
ethical world at their will.”*
Mr. Holdreth is, however, far from being consistent on this point.
The foregoing passage implies the attribution of a higher and firmer
morality to Nature than is to be found in man ; but elsewhere our
author maintains that “ the one appalling fact stands every day more
and more clearly visible before the eyes of every thoughtful inquirer,
that Nature is not governed on principles of moral equity; that good
is only attained through evil, and that the justice which is exacted
from just men is not dealt to them ; in a word, that the Author of
Nature, if there be one, is not a Moral Governor, but a stern and
ruthless Machinist.”f
Being pressed with this discrepancy by a Theistic correspondent of
the Reasoner, Mr. Holdreth gave the following explanation:—
“ The Cosmist sees in Nature a machine, which works according to
definite laws which it did not create, and which were not created, but
which it cannot violate. . . If the machine crushes his child or maims
himself, he blames but his own folly, or pities his own misfortune, but
still recognises the value and beneficence of the mechanism. The
Theist, believing Nature an instrument in the hands of a conscious
Being, must see in her workings the designed operations of that Being,
and the evidence of His character. And since those workings often
operate injustice and cruelty in individual cases, he ought to suppose
that Being careless of justice and benevolence, or unable to execute
His own will. Seeing a disregard of morality (which the Cosmist
considers the consequence, not the cause of natural law) in Nature’s
operations, he is bound to believe the operator devoid of moral
character.”!
Thus, then, we come to this point. The general laws of Nature
are “ ever active and ever beneficentbut, as we see the welfare of
individuals perpetually sacrificed to that of the whole, we must
“ believe the operator devoid of moral character,” unless we resort to
the darker theory that the individual injustice was itself planned by
a Designing Devil—an idea which certainly seems to present itself
occasionally to Mr. Holdreth’s mind, though it would scarcely appear
that he actually believes it. In contrast to these theories, we have
endeavoured to show that the capacity for individual sin and suffering
is the indispensable postulate of all our virtue and happiness—the
material out of which all sensitive and active life is moulded, and
through which alone we can attain the truest good of which our
nature is capable. Moreover, we believe that those apparently
exceptional phenomena of our lives, which to the human judgment
* “ Reasoner,” No. 583.
t Ibid., No. 594.
Î Ibid., No. 607.
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
29
appear most inexplicable and distressing, are often the very means of
leading us into nobler and richer fields of life, not otherwise attainable.
If we faithfully meet the new trouble in a spirit of obedience and
trust, it gradually unfolds its hidden meaning, and reveals to us beyond
our bounded imaginations and imperfect efforts, the presence of
One whose Reality transcends our highest ideals, and who, in His
exhaustless love, is ever seeking our perfection, and pleading with us
for the free devotion of our hearts to Ilis service. Among the earliest
tokens of this filial relationship are our longings after an inexhaust
ible Source of love and truth, who shall guide and respond to us
where man’s help must stop short. There are some striking illustra
tions of this tendency in Mr. Holdreth’s novelette. One of the most
prominent is the depiction of the way in which the hero partially
fills up the void in his heart caused by the loss of his religion, with
an intense devotion to his “ Master,” Sterne, who does, in fact, take
the place of a God to him. He accepts the whole responsibility of
Ernest’s life, for which Ernest gives, in return, an almost childlike
obedience. Thus, such comfort as he does find is gained by reposing
on a higher and stronger will than his own. Any such need in
Sterne’s own character is obviated by the coldly-calm temperament
ascribed to him. “ Having no passionate love for any other object
than his sister, having no cause to serve in whose success his soul was
absorbed, and serving the cause of Atheism simply from a quiet, un
impassioned conviction of its truth and necessity, he felt no need of
any assistance or protection from without. He was sufficient to him
self, and his conscience was sufficient to him.”
Yet, with a perceptiveness which singularly contrasts with the
author’s admiration for his ideal Atheist, he has painted Sterne’s
inability to train his wayward sister Annie, with a verisimilitude that
is only too painfully real. The need of influences beyond humanity
to solve such problems of character as hers is so clearly manifested in
this little episode of Atheist life, that we must extract enough to show
its main features. Sterne is the guardian of his two orphan sisters.
A scene of contention with the elder child has just taken place, in
which Sterne has tried in vain to bring her to reason.
“ The child understood ; that much, -at least, was clear. But she
would not seem to feel. And Sterne bit his lip, and turned away
sadly to take the hand of his favourite, as she danced into the room.
.... Annie sat by the window, where she could see them depart,
and notice her brother’s tenderness towards the tiny creature, who
in the midst of her laughter, was even then murmuring a word of pity
for ‘ poor Annie,’—more needed than Emily could know. The sullen
girl bowed her head on her hands, and gave way to a passionate burst
of grief and vexation. ‘ How be loves her! and I—no one loves me!
Well, I won’t care ; I hate them;’—but the word was sobbed forth
with an intensity of rage which belied it; and it was long ere Annie
could resume her usual quiet and sullen behaviour. Pity that her
�30
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
brother had’not'seen those tears, and heard that bitter cry of desola
tion, ‘ No one loves me.’ He who knows no Father in heaven is doubly
bound to be tender toward the fatherless on earth. Sterne knew and
felt this. He had done his duty by his sisters nobly and kindly;
and Annie would have had no reason to complain, were it possible for
Duty to command love, despite all the faults and unloveliness of its
object. Sterne did his duty; and here his task ended. He could
not love one so thoroughly unamiable.”—Chap. VI.
“ She returned to her seat (after doing a kindness to Emily), not
unnoticed by her brother, whose conscientious vigilance seldom
missed a single trait of character in either of his wards. ‘ Thank you,
Annie,’ he said, in a tone of more gentleness, and even tenderness,
than it was his wont to use towards the wayward and vexatious
child. What a pity that the shadow of the fireplace screened the
light of the candle from Annie’s face, and forbade her brother to
notice the glow of momentary pleasure which illumined it. It was
but for a moment; then came the thought, ‘ If it had been his
favourite, he would have said, Thank you, darling,' and all the
sullenness returned to her face and her demeanour, as she resumed
her old attitude and her solitary musings. It is a fearful power that
the words and tones of one human being exercise over the mind of
another; a power so inevitable and yet so incalculable that it is
hard for him or her who wields it to have the slightest clue to its
right use. Indeed, it is perhaps as well that we have in general so
little ability to direct our use of this influence; for one who could
calculate beforehand the effect his every word and gesture would pro
duce might be a despot of no common kind. Yet it is grievous to
think that an accidental variation of phrase or tone, which we could
not possibly remember or foresee, should affect so fatally the peace or
the character of another. A single word of affection then spoken
might have saved years of discomfort, sorrow, and self-reproach; yet
could Sterne have known that it was wanted, or would be felt, it bad
certainly not been withheld.”—Chap. VIII.
It would be impossible to depict more clearly the inadequacy of the
bare sense of Duty to compass all the work which is given us to do.
What Sterne needed was to break up the ice round his sister’s heart,
by penetrating to the human feeling underneath her pride and
waywardness. And what could have enabled him to do this so well
as a faith in an Infinite Causal Love beyond, within, and around them
both ? Failing this, all the most delicate and tender growths of
affection are (as our author sees) at the mercy of the slightest physical
accident, and continually liable to waste away in aimless wanderings,
or to fester in morbid pride. Yet in one of the few cases where the
novelist has allowed an Atheist to love happily, we see that even
when affection is mutual and satisfying, it can never be relied upon
by an Atheist as a permanent and integral part of his being. In the
touching chapter entitled “ The Valley of the Shadow,” narrating the
�PHASES OF ATHEISM.
31
death of Emily Sterne, we see the point from which the author
endeavours to deal with this poignant grief of eternal separation, from
the principle supplied by “ the Religion of Duty.”
“ Ernest could not leave his friend in this great sorrow, and his
presence was evidently a diversion to Sterne’s melancholy, and a
pleasure to the dying child. For dying she certainly was,—fading
away from life like a gathered rose-bud, but slowly and quietly, her
self half conscious but fearless, sorrowful only for the misery which
all her adored brother’s self-command could not conceal from her
loving eyes. And she would make him sit close beside her, and clasp
her little hand in his, while his thoughts were darkened by the
shadow of the coming day, when he should never clasp that loving
little band again. Few of us know what is the anguish of the
meaning he had uttered in those bitter words, ‘ my all in life.’ She
—this beautiful and innocent little one—was the object of dll his care,
dll his labour, dll his hope. When she should be gone from him,
what would he have left but a dreary, dark, cheerless path to a goal
of utter nothingness? In those hours of torture, few could have seen
further than this, even of men less capable of passionate love, filling
the inmost recesses of existence; but Sterne was of a few. Men of
his mould are not to be found in the every-day walks of life, though
one or two such there are on earth, perhaps, if we but knew where to
seek them when we want heroes to lead us and martyrs to die for us.
Dark and waste and dreary indeed his after-life must be, but it might
be trodden boldly and faithfully; for the darkness was not all.
Even amid that long and cruel agony he remembered the work that
lay before him ; and knew that he would not do it the less bravely
and constantly, because he had no other love on earth, no other hope
on earth or in heaven. For him Duty was God and Nature was His
prophet; and though the God’s mandates were hard, and the prophet
prophesied no smooth things, Sterne was not one to lose hold of his
faith because of tribulation, nor to fling it aside in madly clasping at
a staff which, in the utmost need of those who lean thereon, cannot
but prove a broken reed................
“ ‘ What advantageth it us, if the dead rise not ? Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die.’
“ Sterne sat by the side of his sleeping sister, who, lulled to rest for
a short time by heavy opiates, was not to be roused by their lowtoned conversation. He was bending over her, and his face was
hidden. But as his proselyte spoke these bitter words, he looked up;
and the first harsh sentence Ernest had ever heard him speak was his
reply.
“ ‘ Ernest Clifford, look at your own life, and at mine ; look here,
where all I have to love or hope in the universe is passing away from
me; and remember that I, in this utter desolation, have never
forgotten that I have no right to die with my work undone. It may
be, when you have known what such wretchedness as this is, that you
�32
PHASES OF ATHEISM.
will learn a better faith than that borrowed Epicureanism of Paul,
and bethink you that those who have so much to do before they die
to-morrow have need to make the utmost use of to-day.’
“Ernest was somewhat abashed, yet could not but recognise the
justice of the rebuke. If this man did not sink into utter despair,
what right had he to murmur ?”
Thus, one by one, fade the stars of love and hope from the Atheist’s
sight, and he is left alone, with nothing but the work which Duty
prescribes. “ He would not do it the less bravely and constantly,
because he had no other love on earth, no other hope on earth or in
heaven.” But if it be possible for all love and hope on earth or in
heaven to be thus destroyed, what work remains possible, and what
objects remain to be worked for? What is then the value of life—
not merely its relative value to this or that sufferer, but its absolute
value to man as man ? How can such a mutilated and benumbing
conception of duty “ exercise complete control over the affections, and
wield their whole power in the struggle ?" “ Nature” must be not only
“devoid of moral character,”—she must be absolutely Diabolical, if
she condemns her truest children to this terrible crushing of their
noblest yearnings. The universal heart of man refuses to believe in
such an anomalous dissonance, and, springing to the embrace of the
Infinite Goodness, echoes the cry of St. Augustine,—“ Thou hast
made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it resteth in Thee1”
Here we must close our remarks, although we have but touched
the mere outline of the subject. Our aim has not been to furnish a
short and easy guide to the mysteries of this infinite Universe, but
simply to indicate a few of the clues to the great underlying Reality,
which no worshipper can ever wholly comprehend, but which unfolds
itself ever more and more to wise and patient hearts. That Reality
must be sought by each soul singly and alone. That such a mind as
Mr. Iloldreth’s cannot seek it in vain, we feel assured. It may be
nearly impossible for any one to help such seekers in solving a
problem w’hich so largely depends on the individual experience of
life. But our task will not have been valueless if we have succeeded
in showing that there is, in these recent forms of Atheism, a faith in
truth and in virtue which commands the sympathy of religious
thinkers, and which is in itself a hopeful sign of the times. “ When
people assume that an Atheist must live without God in the world,”
■f says an able and generous writer, “ they assume what is fatal to their
own Theism.” And those who recognise in all human goodness the
sustaining hand of the Creator, will hold fast to the faith that no
genuine truth-seeker can ever be forsaken by the tender care of Him
of whom it is said that the pure in heart shall see God.
�APPENDIX.
THE RELATION OF SECULARISM TO THEISM.
Note A,page 8.
I. In illustration of this, it may be mentioned that in July, 1857, a
Society of Materialists was formed, “ for a union of Freethinkers for a more
definite object than appeared possible under the diffusive principles which
were represented under the name of Secularism.”* In the first meeting
called to consider the proposal, all the speakers in favour of the new
Society lamented the admission of “ persons of spiritualistic tendencies ”
into the Secular body, as a drag upon the efforts of Freethinkers. Soon
afterwards, Mr. Holyoake and “ Iconoclast ” held some discussions on the
position of Secularism, in which “ Iconoclast ” “ denied that there was any
middle standing between Atheism and Theism,” and maintained “ that
Secularism was impracticable when separated from Atheism, urging that
the plan of Secularism was essentially Atheistic.”! To the same class of
views belong the well-known “ Religious Confessions ” of Mr. Joseph
Barker, who, from having been successively a Methodist, an Unitarian, and
a Theistic Secularist, became an Atheistic Secularist, holding Secularism
“ as the sole concern and business of mankind,” and blending it inex
tricably with Atheism, which, according to him, “ occupies the position of
positive science, and is a mighty reformatory principle.’’J On the other
hand may be quoted the numerous articles of Mr. Holdreth, who has
always maintained that “ it is both better and easier to win for Secularism
a front place among religions, than to obtain respect or tolerance for
irreligión :”§ and who has lately (since the first edition of this Essay was
sent to the press) withdrawn himself from the public advocacy of Secu
larism, because “ his views of it differ so widely from those which have
determined the aspect it has recently assumed.”||
II. Mr. Holyoake, however, still believing in the possibility of a neutral
faith, has lately published a little pamphlet, entitled “ Principles of
Secularism,” in which he endeavours to define and consolidate his owr
position. He there maintains the following points.
1. That Secularism is a “ synonym of Freethought,” in harmony with
“ the hereditary characteristics of Freethinking” (p. 4); that “Secularism
is the name given to a series of principles of Positivism, intended for the
guidance of those who find Theology indefinite, or inadequate, or deem it
unreliable” (p. 7).
2. That a Secularist “ concerns himself with present time and materiality,
neither ignoring nor denying the future and spiritual, which are indepen
dent questions ” (p. 6).
3. That, “ occupying, as Secularism intends to do, the ground of Nature,
it may refuse to engage itself with Atheism, Theism, or Biblicism. So long
as he [the Secularist] chooses to remain within the sphere of his own
principles, he simply ignores all outlying sectarian systems, and is no
more to be put down as opposed to any such views than the geologist is to
be cried down as the enemy of music, or the chemist as the opponent of
geometry, because he ignores those subjects, and confines his attention to
his own. Honour those who advisedlv, and for the public good, com
promise themselves ; only take care that associates are not affected by
this conduct of others. And this will never take place so long as the
simple and pure profession of common principles is kept intrinsically in
dependent and unassailably neutral ” (p. 18).
But this is precisely what the Secularists have never done. It is as
a “ synonym of Freethought,” i.e., of unfettered speculative inquiry, that the
very name of Secularism is put forth: and not only are five-sixths of the
* “ Reasoner,” No. 582.
§ Ibid , No. 584.
f Ibid, Nos. 584, 591.
t Ibid, Nos. 646, 649
|| Ibid, No. 690, August 14,1859.
�34
APPENDIX.
Secularists thorough-going Atheists, but by far the greatest amount of
their activity as a party is given to the discrediting of religion. It is even
one of Mr. Holyoake’s own definitions of Secularism, that its principles
“ are intended for the guidance of those who find Theology indefinite, or in
adequate, or deem it unreliable.” How, then, can Secularist principles be
ever regarded as intrinsically independent, and unassailably neutral?
How can a Secularist claim that he is no more to be put down as opposed
to religion, than the geologist is to be cried down as the enemy of music, or
the chemist as the opponent of geometry? The researches of the geologist
in no way assail the theories of the musician, nor does the chemist discredit
the principles of the geometer. But Secularism, if it does really “ neither
ignore nor deny the future and the spiritual,” and claims Theistic adherents
on that ground—must be in direct opposition to Atheism, by which the
affirmations of religion are necessarily either ignored or denied.
III. Is it, then, impossible for Theists and Atheists to combine together for
purposes of practical usefulness which both may have equally at heart?
God forbid. It is only impossible when a speculative theory is made the
condition of union. The Association for the Promotion of Social Science
may be regarded as a happy instance of a true Secular Society, in the only
sense in which that term can be accepted by both parties, t.e., its stand
point is the importance of earthly work, not the doing it from merely earthly
motives. Consequently, the Association exacts from its members no defi
nition of the relation of work to faith, nor of this world to the next, but
leaves the human and the Divine to find their natural and ever-varying
proportions in the mind and life of each individual. Mr. Holyoake’s
Secularism, on the other hand, “ draws the line of separation between the
things of time and the things of eternity;” “selects for its guidance the
principle that ‘ human affairs should be regulated by considerations purely
human,’” and regards the beliefs of religion as “ supplementary specula
tions.”* Now there are stages of suspensive Atheism and of imperfect
Theismf with which these declarations may consist; and it is important
that such intermediate stages of belief should be clearly distinguished from
dogmatic Atheism. But, nevertheless, the views held by these inter
mediate thinkers are not those of a mature and consistent Theism. To a
true Theist, the Being of God is no “ supplementary speculation,” but the
underlying Reality of the Universe; and so far from seeking to regulate
human affairs by considerations purely human, he regards the life of
humanity as perpetually needing to be interpreted by the light of the
Divine. And while the Secularist “inculcates the practical sufficiency of
natural morality, apart from ” any spiritual basis, the Theist holds that that
“ natural morality ” only exists by virtue of His existence who is the
fountain alike of nature and of grace. But, on the other hand, a consistent
Theist will never deny that a man may himself be morally estimable and
reliable who does not hold this belief. For Character and Speculation
are by no means co-ordinate in their development, and a man’s character
is the man himself, while his speculations only give us the conscious pro
gramme adopted by him. Frankly should we say to those Atheists who
command our respect, “ We will work with you wherever we can
agree, because, believing in God as the source of all human goodness
and truth, we recognise every good impulse and true thought in you as
coming from Him, and therefore as equally sacred with our own.” But
* “ Principles of Secularism,” pp. 6, 7.
t See an interesting letter, signed “ Truth-Seeker,” in “ Reasoner,” No. 588,
from a correspondent who professes himself to be “ a believer (at least pro
visionally) in the being of a God and the immortality of the soul,” and who
earnestly contends that Mr. Holyoake’s Atheism does not assume any certainty
of negation. See also, the criticisms of some Theistic Secularists (“ Reasoner,”
Nos. 650, 651, 659, 668) on Mr. Barker’s Confessions.
�APPENDIX.
35
this is essentially different from giving our adherence to a system which
regards the main foundations of our faith as “ supplementary speculations,”
“ indefinite, inadequate, or unreliable.”
I am especially anxious to clear up this point, because it is one Hpon
which there has been considerable misapprehension on both sides. Many
Theists have hesitated to give full scope to their natural liberality of feel
ing, from the fear lest they should, in some sense, be obscuring their
fidelity to religion by co-operating with Atheists, even in matters involving
no profession of disbelief. Surely, where such a fear exists, the true
difference between Theism and Atheism cannot have been clearly dis
criminated, still less can the true relation between Theists and Atheists
have been explored in all its fulness of light and shadow. The true difference
between the Theist and the Atheist (to borrow the words of one of the most
spiritual of living preachers “ is not that the one has God and the other
)
*
has Him not, but that the one sees him and the other sees him not.” Our
charge against speculative Atheism is not that it necessarily cuts men off
from the teaching, still less from the tenderness, of God; but that it pre
vents them from consciously seeking and cherishing that teaching and tender
ness, and thus confines the voluntary range of character to that growth
alone which can be self-evolved.f But we can never bring the question up
to this point, which is the real heart of the matter, until we have, by word
and deed, made unmistakably plain that the goodness which we seek for our
selves is essentially one with that to which right-minded “ Freethinkers ”
also aspire, and that when we decline to subscribe the creed of the Secu
larist, it is in allegiance to a faith which can never prohibit our human
fellowship with the Atheist.
Note B., page 14.
Upon this point, I cannot forbear from quoting the following suggestive
passage from a review of Theodore Parker’s “ Theism, Atheism,” etc.,
which appeared in the Inquirer for Nov. 12th, 1853.
“ It is a favourite maxim with physiologists and secularists, that no
physical conditions of health and strength can be disregarded without
causing the pain which always indicates that something is wrong. It is
clear that such pain, not being self-caused, but being forced upon us by
those rules of our bodily constitution which we have no power to alter, is
a sign that physical tendencies within us are checked or thwarted, that
constant forces are not allowed their normal play. Keep the body bound
in one position, and violent pain soon ensues. Of what is that pain the
sign? It indicates that physical impulses tending to motion and change of
posture are disregarded and restrained—that a vital force, not under our
own control, is asking for its natural liberty, and is denied it. So far the
Atheist concurs. He says that so it is, but that the vital force, not under
* “ I never can believe that God retires from a man who is perplexed and unable
to discover Him. Is a man deserted by his God because he cannot find Him ?
For my own part, I believe there is a secret grace of God in the heart of every man,
and that God is there, whether he sees Him, or whether he sees Him not. The
difference between a Christian and an unbeliever is not that the one has God and
the other has Him not, but that the one sees Him and the other sees Him not.”
Speech of the Rev. James Martineau at Stourbridge, reported in the “Inquirer”
for Nov. 6, 1858.
f See an earnest and able paper on Self-knowledge (entitled “ A True Prophet”)
in “Reasoner,” No. 683,in which the writer maintains that “ Self-knowledge is to
the Secularist what grace is to the Christian.” He does not take into account
that self-knowledge is only an intellectual pre-condition of moral progress,
and that its value in any case wholly depends upon the moral use to which it is
put, and especially on the power of self-coercion or self-surrender to the desired
ideal. Now “ grace ” not only shows us our errors and dangers, but leads us out
of them by pouring into us a new life, and uniting us to an All-conquering Love.
’
�36
APPENDIX,
our control, is a development of the eternal, blind, dead forces of the
universe. But apply the same reasoning to our moral constitution. Let a
man try to descend from his own conceptions of right to a lower moral
level. What is the result?—that a moral misery, the sense of a moral
resistance, not under our own control, not of ourselves, immediately results
checking us in our own efforts to do wrong. Now, what is the meaning of
saying that such a resisting force is part of ourselves? We have no means
of getting rid of it, we cannot ignore it, we cannot cause it. It is in us,
but not of us; it is a force eatmg into our nature, and yet it is a moral
force, it cannot be identified with mere physical tendencies, it must be from
a mind, for matter could not plead with us, and rivet our gaze to the sin
we are committing. We are in actual conflict with a power, which it is
mere self-contradiction to call a material power, and which yet we know to
be other than our own will If it be replied that it is one part of our
nature contending against the other, still here are two powers, both of
them moral and spiritual, one subject to our control, and ope not so subject,
of which we call the former, ourself; what, then, are we to call the other
which we recognise as intruding its suggestions upon us from sources we
cannot fathom? This is but the very essence of the meaning which a Theist
expresses by the word ‘ God.’ ”
Of course, all our ideas of duty are necessarily relative rather than abso
lute, and it is only a comparative goodness that can be suggested, even by
God Himself, to creatures of limited and progressive capacity. But were
all our ideas of right merely self-evolved, without contact (more or less
conscious) with a Higher Personality, we could not experience this sensa
tion that, in wilful wrong-doing, we are resisting the pleadings of an
Infinite Moral Being. (See this theme treated at length in Mr. F. W.
Newman s “ Theism,” Book I., Sect. 5. “ God in Conscience.”)
Note C., page 27.
Since this Essay was sent to the press, Mr. Holdreth has published a
short paper on “ The Existence of Evil,”* stating that “ after mature con
sideration, he feels called upon to qualify ” his argument on that subject.
“ It is (he says), logically conceivable that matter may have an independent
existence and laws of its own, of which it was as impossible for the
Creator to make a perfect world, as it would have been for Him to make
two and two equal to five. Therefore, all that is really proved by the
argument from the suffering and sin around us, is, that the world was not
formed by a Creator at once perfect in power, and -perfect in beneficence
it is not shown that it might not have been framed by a God of perfect
goodness but limited power. ... Of course, this in no way affects the
grand argument of Atheism—the total absence of evidence of Creation.”
What is here.meant by ‘‘creation” is not clear, and in none of Mr.
Holdreth s writings has he done more than touch the subject incidentally.
I therefore confine myself to remarking that the theory which he does accept,
under the name of Cosmism, appears to stop short of Theism for a moral
reason only. It is because the Cosmist sees “ a disregard of morality in
Nature s operations,” that “ he is bound to believe the operator devoid of
moral character.” But if it be granted that, in the very nature of things,
it may have been “as impossible for the Creator to make a perfect world,
as it would have been for Him to make two and two equal to five,” that
moral objection becomes sensibly diminished. It cannot, however, disappear
entirely, until it be also granted that the moral perfection which God could
not make in the human world, He can, and does enable us to approximate
to more and more for ever, by the joint action of our free will in accord
with His grace.
THE END.
* “ Reasoner,” No. 686.
�
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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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Phases of atheism, described, examined, and answered
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Collet, Sophia Dobson
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 36 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Inscription in ink on page 32 "R. H. Hulton. National Review, No. 3. "Atheism". Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. 'The relation of secularism to theism.' Printed by John Watts, Fleet Street, London. "The following Essay is reprinted, with revisions and additions, from the American Christian Examiner for November, 1859". [From Preface]. Discusses four works by Holyoake and three by Lionel H. Holdreth. Sophia Dobson Collet was a 19th-century English feminist freethinker. She wrote under the pen name Panthea in George Holyoake's Reasoner, wrote for The Spectator and was a friend of the leading feminist Frances Power Cobbe.
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Holyoake & Co.
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1860
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CT20
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Atheism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Phases of atheism, described, examined, and answered), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Atheism
Conway Tracts
Secularism
Theism
Theism;Secularism