3 10 1552 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1765e0dad8abc68f59ef9dc12e7c30ed.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=ImPsiT6s0kC-FHcCIyeNyZo61WqRxW4sCT2iLLmi2EbdZ-KYogGAd6EC8MuiJoTMrbCqn3LfbCowzb4Xos8a0KGsE0xj8kN%7EB42BaWtCFU%7EbbU5orpYj%7EHWnVDywltonfSkhsrI0HcDxkUpt4edMt0oHFIui9QF00GB9G%7EqdYlPEAsWakck9BOAQfDUfY7Kk%7E%7EzJ3ZBaIVi9OoT5QceTOvlAVPHlMT-dH7HFHpfRzTBuYlwx5yVCrND9gme0Qk4w5HpiEhhcrgA5S-p4WLRsvXe7m2k1arrM1Xdi8HXBTZ3UPG3%7EgjWi7OlSZAsWRXUWQaCnmzPTSckHefFB6cTagg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a0d0b294115746983cd069719d6cf28a PDF Text Text THOUGHTS ON DEATH. By “ ROSEMARY.” The idea of death being a consequence of man’s succumbing to evil seems untenable. The remains of pre-Adamite animals show that death reigned triumphant over them before man is said by his deed to have involved all the brute creation in his own doom. The passage from this to any other world must have been made denuded of the flesh (no matter what man’s moral state), for how can we banish gravitation? It is supposed by some that the act of dying in itself is not necessarily painful,—allow this to be the rule ; do away with bodily suffering, which may probably with truth be considered the conse quence of sin, let man choose the moment when he will quit this world for another, and we should pro bably see as many voluntary travellers to other worlds, by the conveyance called Death, as at present to other countries by any known means of transit. The endless diversity of earth’s flowers suggests the idea that each of the countless worlds around us, which have been aptly termed the “ flowers of the sky,” �2 may possess a beauty all its own and distinct from the rest. What exquisite colouring must the planet Jupiter possess with four moons of various hues! How revelling in light must Saturn be with his luminous bands, and what may not be the wondrous glories of Neptune with i attendant satellites ! If it be our high privilege to visit each, and find in each fresh cause to reverence our Maker’s wisdom and reciprocate His love, the undying Soul could bear unharmed the heights and depths of adoration never before called forth; but these poor bodies, for which even Earth’s emotions often prove too strong, would not the fate of the surcharged Leyden jar be theirs?—shivered by excess of what it-was meant to contain ? If so, where would be the use of carrying them with us ?—supposing it were possible they could traverse Space without the subversion of every known law of nature. How insupportable would be the idea of Eternity were it not for the counterbalancing one of Space! Unlimited Time may well be em ployed in learning the glories of unlimited Space. If we are destined to see the works of the Creator in various worlds, it follows as a matter of course that Death is an “ Institution ” whereby the Soul lays aside a covering, which its further requirements render useless, to take another more in accordance with them and with the specific gravity of whatever world is its next destination ; and, on quitting that world, Death must probably again be the Soul’s �3 mode of transit, and we need seek no further for the reason of Death than in the universal law, whereby everything no longer suited to its first purpose is put to another; hence, when by manifestations of Divine Wisdom and Love hitherto unimagined the Soul will be exalted by adoration never before called forth, a body suited to its higher requirements will doubtless be provided by the Creator; while thriftly mother Nature, after various revivifying processes; re-adapts these worn out frames to the requirements of her younger children. We all know that great dread—even though cause less—is intense agony. Those who have witnessed two children of different temperaments, led by their father, approach a frightful shadow thrown by the magic lantern, can realise this. Neither child could really be hurt by the ugly shadow; but how fearful is the suffering of the timid one, compared to that of him who feels perfect security, because it is his father*s hand which leads him. “ The Valley of the Shadow of Death” is a suggestive expression!* Perhaps we should derive more courage from it than we do; at any rate, if Death, once passed, should prove but a terrific Shadow, can it ever again excite fear; or will it not, perhaps, be hailed as the invigorator of the Soul, as Sleep is now of the Body ? or granted even that there may be aught of peril to the Soul in Death, * See “ Exposition of Twenty-third Psalm,” by Rev. John Stevenson.—Jackson ; London, 1847. �4 which is a proposition the Writer cannot for a moment entertain, still, if we have once passed in safety through it under shelter of the “ Everlasting Arms,” shall we ever again distrust their power? Therefore, though Life and Death may alternate through all Eternity, as Day and Night do through all Time, there is no reason why Death’s recurrence should ever again inspire dread. It is rare, however great a man’s troubles may have been, to hear him declare he would rather never have lived; then may we not trust the same Providence which ordered our lot in this world (so that at least it is bearable) without mis giving for the future ? WERTHEIMER, LEA AND CO., PRINTERS, FINSBURY CIRCUS. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Thoughts on death Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Yeates Crashaw, Rose Mary Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [s.l.] Collation: 4 p. ; 21 cm. Notes: "Rosemary" is the pseudonym of Rose Mary Yeates Crashaw. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Date of publication from KVK. Printed by Wertheimer, Lea and Co., Finsbury Circus, London. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1869] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5266 Subject The topic of the resource Death Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (Thoughts on death), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Death https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ae7e522409f4cdce3048660eeeae7fa4.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=jwHEnC74umYCTPBRPS-zMin3ouw18CEGO13GKMmksAhgPRXZ22-7ikk%7EB3vjETkTzXO5c0AE7q0SuX-5IngRZf0PQbUkt2CXe0SPPxU23iBHe717imdtt3oyXuZgNblP2We%7EJc5ls5iYdl8FDf3egHw4mBkmEjjJ7Dm%7EQ7POfFvT7x5-VqY51cyjGdNXe7dn2VHd0MmsKBEdLZcWIq%7EbTnenOMDGojPcXCOaOG8Lkxgp7ZF10KxCkiz-Bc7ZD4jf%7ErdKAHrAd2KJqB-s6qUp1P6q%7EQmP68g1DfEDl-D3zJedcwR92KNj8SsQfThZmpdf23QihFQf4KdCnb4TYjld-A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5bd9e03a55f1c808a4f0139339787c5b PDF Text Text EFFICACY OF OPINION IN MATTERS OF RELIGION BY THE REV. W. R. WORTHINGTON, M.A. , “ Est genus hominum, qui esse primos se omnium rerum volunt Nee sunt.” Terence. --------- • r •>_ PUBLISHED BY THOMAS. SCOT£, MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE. 1870. Price Sixpence. «' a �LONDON: PRINTED BY C. W, REYN ELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET, W. �ON THE EFFICACY OF OPINION IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. NCE upon a time there was a great controversy as to the comparative merits of knowledge and opinion. That controversy has been stirred again in onr own day ; or rather it has not been stirred at all, but judgment has been given upon it with but scanty regard to the arguments. The “ religious world ” has declared in favour of opinion. Theory rides in its coach, and Fact trudges on foot. This venerable error which so long discredited philosophy, and which it is the crowning glory of philosophy to have got rid of, is the besetting sin of the science (falsely so called) of theology, and is doubtless the chief reason why, with modern thinkers, the profession of theology has fallen somewhat into disrepute. Generally speaking, we profess to esteem truth above everything. If a man is on his trial for murder, the witnesses are sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to the best of their know ledge. But if the question is as to the sanity of the murderer, skilled witnesses are summoned to give their opinions upon the state of his mind. The value of their opinions is measured by their capacity to. form O �4 On the Efficacy of Opinion an. opinion, and their capacity is measured by their knowledge of cases in point. But often their opinions are opinions only ; they cannot be implicitly relied on; they are mere makeshifts which the court is compelled to put up with, so long as perfect knowledge is not to be had. This is an unsatisfactory state of things • and in this and similar instances (which are plentiful), opinion, compared with knowledge, appears to disad vantage. Its inferiority may be inferred in other ways. In some things, e.g., political questions, truth is evolved from the conflict of opinions ; and, beyond all contra diction, the end is more precious than the means. Further, when truth is known and established, all controversy upon it is at an end; there is no room for disputing ; men are of one mind about it who were at odds so long as it was a matter of opinion. The har monising power of knowledge is a circumstance greatly in its favour. Passing into the region of theology, we are sur prised to find a totally different set of principles at work. We find opinion to be the ‘ be-all and the end‘ all ’ there,—dissent from the reigning opinion counted for a crime—knowledge studiedly depreciated or valued only as it is subservient to opinion—reason, as it is absurdly cried down on the side where it is strongest, as absurdly cried up on the side where it is weakest— the oracle of society not the well-informed scholar, the shrewd observer, the original thinker, the candid reasoner (a kind of men who have a strong aversion to hazarding opinions), but the voluble man of ortho doxy, who for anything anybody knows belongs to no school, But that where blind and naked Ignorance Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, On all things all day long : and we naturally ask, “ How can such things be, and �in Matters of Religion. $ « what can orthodoxy have to say for itself? ” Its de fence will take some such line as this : That Revela tion is not like other things, and not to be judged ot by ordinary rules. That religious opinions, not being capable of demonstration, belong to the province not of knowledge, but of faith. That right faith and con sequently right opinions, are essential to holiness ot living. We will take these propositions in order. I From the position that Revelation, being a thing sui generis, is not subject to ordinary laws to the posi tion that it is subject towhatever laws orthodoxy may please to impose upon it, is but a step. Fruits of this doctrine we see every day. Who has ever attended to a controversial sermon or perused a controversial trea tise, and not been completely bewildered with the amazing arbitrariness that characterises them. t e violent associations of ideas, the axioms that are axio matic in nothing but their insusceptibility of proof, the foregone conclusions wrung from worse than doubtful premisses, the fallacious demonstrations of the truth of “the Gospel,” the imaginary exposures of the folly or the knavery of the captious objector r' Leaving such absurdities, let us ask these questions : Given that Revelation is a thing sui generisin what does its distinctive character consist, and how does that distinctive character affect the value of opinion as such ? . T The knowledge of divine things differs, I presume, from the knowledge of all other things either (a) in the method of acquiring it, or (/3) in the nature of the knowledge acquired—or both. . . (a). The way in which a thing is communicated to our knowledge has nothing whatever to do with the character, utility or importance of the thing itself. Knowledge is knowledge, however we come by it. Had the law of gravitation been revealed to Moses �6 On the Efficacy of Opinion instead of being reserved for the observation of Newton, it would have played the same part in the universe, and have afforded the same exercise for men’s faculties that it does now. Had gunpowder been a supernatural and not a natural invention, it would still have been subject to the same conditions, and have answered the same purposes for good and evil as^ at this very moment. Opinion gains nothing on this ground. . (/3). What is really distinctive in the knowledge of divine things is the transcendent importance of divine t mgs. Their interest is universal and everlasting. Moses was inspired and Newton was inspired; but whereas Newton was inspired to teach science, Moses was inspired to teach religion. The source of their teaching* was the same ; the channel by which it came to them may or may not have been the same too ; it is in the subject-matter of their teaching that we are conscious of so momentous a difference. Now, in every concern of life we observe that the value’ of knowledge rises, the value of opinion sinks, in direct proportion to the importance of the subject-matter. In proportion, therefore, as God is supremely great, so the knowledge of God, which in the intellectual signi fication of the words is theology, in their moral signi fication, religion, is not only of infinitely more impor tance than knowledge of any other subject, but of infinitely more importance than any opinion on the same subject. We find then, that, far from annihi lating the rule I contend for, the peculiar character of Revelation only intensifies its force. The New Testa ment speaks clearly enough to the same effect. As re gards opinion : “ Whosoever killeth you will 77m7>; he “ doeth God service.” “ I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth ”—things for which we read that the Apostle obtained mercy only because they �in Matters of Religion. 7 were done “ ignorantly in unbelief.” As regards knowledge : “ This is life eternal, that they know (1) “ thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” 44 Grod will have all men to be saved, and. “ come to the knowledge of the truth.” The reason why the unlearned and ignorant men who had been with Jesus were enabled to smite so effectively the philoso phies of heathendom was that their conflict was not between so many sets of opinions, in which they would possibly have been worsted, but between sets of opinions on the one hand and a set of facts on the other. The superior weapon won. II. The incurable uncertainty of so many religious opinions, which in the eyes of the philosopher is their weak point, constitutes, in the eyes of those who are not philosophers, their principal attraction. . The phi losopher would argue that an opinion being, as it were, a temporary implement, an endeavouring after truth, is good for nothing when it ends in itself, serves no ulterior purpose, does not further the discovery of the truth which it relates to, inasmuch as that truth is beyond the grasp of the human intellect. To the authority of the Church, in such a case, he would pay little regard, knowing that all the heads in the world put together are as incapable as one head of solving a problem which has been proved to be inso luble. No amount of gazing will avail to bring the invisible into sight, and why strain our eyes in vain, or, what were worse, shut them and pretend to see ? The religious world will reply, as one man, that these uncertainties and difficulties and impossibilities were intended to try our faith; that there is no room for faith where there is no room for doubt. Which, in the first place, is a begging of the question; for while (1) ^lyvdxTKovfft is the preferable reading in John xvii. 3. �8 On the Efficacy of Opinion allowing that there is something to be said in my favour, it supposes the question already decided in yours: in the second place, the founder of a religion who designedly leaves difficulties in the way of its being received must in all reason share the blame of its being rejected; as the master who leaves money about to try his servants’ honesty may thank himself to . some extent if they steal it: and, lastly, about the things which are really necessary to salvation, there is no doubt whatever. For religion in general is based upon certain fundamental principles which are beyond the reach of dispute; to which the Christian religion in particular adds certain historical events, the proof of which is to be looked for not in faith, but in history. HI. It will be alleged that much of what we have called the knowledge of God really is resolvable into opinion; and that so far we must admit opinion to be conducive to righteousness of life. Thus we have said that religion is based upon certain indisputable principles; e.g., that God is true. Supposing, then, a man to be of opinion that God is not true, he will, in all probability, either be a liar or be in a fairway of becoming one. But that God is true, I contend, is no more a matter of opinion than that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another is a matter of opinion. Truth is an attribute of God, which may have been for any number of ages unknown, butwhich being declared is instantly accepted ; it is seen at once to be an essential part of his being, an insepa rable concomitant of his name. To deny it, as to deny the axiom about equal things above mentioned, is not heresy but insanity, not to be argued either with or about. The same may be said in regard of any other of the divine attributes, justice, mercy, omnipo tence, omniscience. The same cannot be said in �in Matters of Religion. 9 regard of speculative opinions, Arian, Afhanasian, Sabellian, or what not, about the composition of the godhead. That which commends itself to the con science of mankind stands on a distinctly higher level than that which commends itself only to the intellects of particular men. In the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans the apostle denounces those heathen whose immoral practices had so blunted their moral sense as to render them indifferent to what by nature they knew of God. But of their theological opinions, if any they had, he takes no notice whatever. For opinions are not faith; “ Believe on the Lord Jesus “ Christ and thou shalt be saved,” does not and cannot mean, “ Hold my doctrine of the atonement, or you shall “ not be saved.” Not in this sense is practice founded upon doctrine: is it not nearer the truth to say that all human righteousness is founded upon, in other words, is a following of, the divine righteousness, by his con formity or non-conformity to which every child of man shall be judged ? Hitherto we have considered what may be called respectable arguments in favour of opinion. There are one or two more of a different character behind, unavowed indeed, but which, in practice, I believe carry considerable weight. It is curious to observe how the man who has made up his mind on a point invariably deems himself entitled to set at naught the man who keeps his judg ment in suspense. It is true the hesitation of the latter may be due to his knowing both sides of the question, the positiveness of the former to his knowing only one; but your thorough-going dogmatist does not care for that. He has his opinion, and with him opinion is a royal road to moral and intellectual superiority. All he wants to make him perfectly happy is to get a number of people about him to share his ideas, confirm one another’s convictions, �io On the Efficacy of Opinion and enhance one another’s conceit. The conceit of such cliques—the portrait of them in 1 Corinthians iv. 6-10 is unmistakable—is as unlimited as it is ridiculous. Now, the “ religious world ” is simply a big clique. How it hugs itself in its self-complacency ! how coolly, almost innocently, it passes its censures on those who are not of it I with what a thrill of pleasure it welcomes a stranger who unexpectedly speaks its language ! with what terror and disgust it listens to arguments tending to a conclusion it has rejected ! All the while “ understanding what it says “ and whereof it affirms ” as much as animalcules in a drop of water understand about the gulf-stream. A' little sound knowledge would abate its infatuation; what reason, then, it has to be in love with opinion, when opinion responds so heartily to its self-love ! There is yet another reason. Dethrone opinion, and what becomes of the privilege of persecuting ? The exercise of this blessed privilege is two-fold : as it pertains to persons in authority and to persons not in authority. Whenever the State has persecuted, it has done so for reasons of State. It is an error to suppose that in the good old times the State kept a conscience, and in that conscience believed it to be its duty to punish all who dissented from its religion. Thus in England, Romanists and Dissenters were persecuted simply because the State thought it impossible for Romanists and Dissenters to be loyal and peaceable citizens. As soon as it began to perceive that they both might be and were as good citizens as any English churchmen the persecuting laws were doomed, notwithstanding the efforts, the too-successful efforts, of ignorance and bigotry to prolong their sinful and despicable existence. Now in mental as in bodily concerns, individuals, like States, obey the same in stinct of self-preservation. Opinions, existing upon sufferance, are endangered by the presence of opposite �in Matters of Religion. 11 opinions. Hence the impulse to persecute opposite opinions. Persecution and dogma have ever been brethren in arms. For three centuries, during which the Church itself was the victim of persecution, the Christian conscience was satisfied with the apostolic regvda fidei, which, avoiding abstract dogmas, recited just such facts connected with the past, and such con victions respecting the present and the future, as were profitable for personal holiness. Heretics con travening the rule were fought with their own weapons. But in after-days, when the Church had won its way to empire, and was in a position not only to teach, but to enforce its teaching by the arm of the law, then heterodoxy was dealt with in another spirit, and orthodoxy regulated by other standards. Inevitable controversy conceived and brought forth councils, and councils being finished brought forth definitions of doctrine. These definitions were nothing else than encroachments upon common land, which, once enclosed, could never again be thrown open. And so, by degrees, the vast system of dog matic theology grew up, not so much by develop ment as by accretion, out of which it was as hard for the inquirer to disentangle the simple truths of the Gospel of Jesus, as it would be for a Yorkshire villager of the last century, if suddenly resuscitated in this, to identify the site of his cottage home in the stupendous manufacturing borough that has swallowed up the neighbourhood. Failing to find what he wanted, he must go where the authorities sent him. Failing to obey his orders he was speedily taught what prayers for magistrates, that they might have “ grace “ to execute justice and maintain truth,” meant. The Reformation, while it purged our Church of much that was Popish in detail, did not purge away what was worst in Popery, viz., that Popish spirit which speaks thus: “ Believe as I do, or take the conse- �12 On the Efficacy of Opinion “ queuecs.” In the place of one Pope it only set up a multitude. The result is, that while the State has abandoned the practice of persecuting, individuals, with rare exceptions, have not. True they have not such scope for their energies as they could wish, but they go manfully to work, considering “ the diversity “ of times and men’s manners.” If they cannot kill their brethren by way of doing God service, they can pick their pockets for the same pious object. If they cannot hang, they can give bad names. If they can not visit you with a sentence of the “ greater excom“ munication,” they can send you to Coventry, which does nearly as well. Now, that a clique, which would be nothing if not numerous and noisy, should have the power of subjecting its victims to so much unmerited annoyance, sometimes to the extent of ruining them in purse and prospects, is intolerable enough; but infinitely more intolerable, because so deadly in its effects, is the tyranny thus exercised over men’s minds. Right dear in the sight of the clique is the stifling of inquiry. The intellectual light of the world is put out in the blaze of its brightness. The intellectual salt of the earth, in all the freshness of its savour, is trodden under foot of the vulgar. The branch of original and independent and healthy and vigorous thought is by rude hands cut down and cast into the fire. Everywhere we are confronted with the miser able spectable of— art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, which made the soul of Shakespeare weary of his life. Why ? as Caesar says of the “ great observer ” who “ thinks too much,” such men are dangerous. Danger I danger I is the monotonous cry of the bigot who, in the same breath in which he professes �in Matters of Religion. 13 an unbounded confidence in his convictions, unwit tingly gives his profession the lie. To conclude. The pre-eminence popularly assigned to opinion, as it is false in principle, is detrimental in practice : detrimental to knowledge—for, to take but one instance, there is no more stubborn impediment to a right understanding of the Scriptures than a pre-conceived theory of inspiration; detrimental to charity—for while opinions are cherished for their own sake, opinions destined never to become certain ties, so long on their account will people bite and devour one another, until they are at length con sumed one of another. Thus do religious opinions defeat the purpose of religion 5 which is to lead us to the “ knowledge of the truth,” and to promote “peace “ on earth, good-will towards men.” �The following Pamphlets and Papers may be had on ad* dressing a letter enclosing the price in postage stamps to Mr Thomas Scott, Mount Pleasant, Ramsgate. A Lay Sermon, for the Benefit of Clergy. Price 6d. Eternal Punishment.' An Examination of the Doctrines held by the Clergy of the Church of England. By “Presbyter Anglicanus.” Price fid. Letter and Spirit. By a Clergyman of the Church of England. Price fid. Science and Theology'. By Richard Davies Hanson, Esq., Chief Justice of South Australia. Price 4d. A Few Words on the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and the Divinity and Incarnation of Jesus. Price Cd. Questions to which the Orthodox are Earnestly Requested to Give Answers. Thoughts on Religion and the Bible. By a Layman and M.A. of Trin. Coll., Dublin. Price 6d. The Opinions of Professor David F. Strauss. Price 6d. A Few Self-Contradictions of the Bible. Price Is., free by post. English Life of Jf.sus, or Historical and Critical Analysis of the Gospels; complete in Six Parts, containing about 500 pages. Price 7s. 6d., free by post. Against Hero-Making in Religion. By Professor Francis W. Newman. Price 6d. The Religious Weakness of Protestantism. By Professor Francis W. Newman. Price 7d., post free. The Difficulties and Discouragements which Attend the Study of the Scriptures. By the Right Rev. Francis Hare, D.D., formerly Lord Bishop of Chichester. Price fid. The Chronological Weakness of Prophetic Interpretation. By a Beneficed Clergyman of the Church of England. Price Is. Id., post free. On the Defective Morality of the Neyv Testament. By Professor Francis W. Newman. Price 6d. The “Church and its Reform.” A Reprint. Price Is. “The Church of England Catechism Examined.” By Jeremy Bentham, Esq. A Reprint. Price Is. Original Sin. Price fid. Redemption, Imputation, Substitution, Forgiveness of Sins, and Grace. Price fid. Basis of a New Reformation. Price 9d. Miracles and Prophecies. Price fid. Babylon. By the Rev. P. S. Desprez, B.D. Price fid. The “Sling and the Stone.” Four Series of Sermons preached by the Rev. Charles Voysey, Incumbent of Healaugh, Tadcaster. Price 6s. each Series of Twenty-four Sermons. The Nicbne and Athanasian Creeds: a Portion of a Speech by Bishop Clayton. Price fid. Thoughts on a Free and Comprehensive Christianity. By Professor I. VV. Newman. Price fid. The Church : the Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Price 6d. Modern Orthodoxy and Modern Liberalism. Price fid. Errors, Discrepancies, and Contradictions of the Gospel Records; with special reference to the irreconcilable Contradictions between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel. Price Is. • TnE Gospel of the Kingdom. By a Beneficed Clergyman of the Church of England. Price fid. . “The Meaning of the Age.” By the Author of “The Pilgrim and the Shrine.” Price 6d. . “ James and Paul.” A Tract by Emer. Prof. F. W. Newman. Price fid. Layv and the Creeds. Price fid. Genesis Critically Analysed, and continuously arranged; ivith Introduc tory Remarks. By Edward Vansittart Neale, M.A. and M.R.I. Price Is. A Confutation of the Diabolarchy. By Rev. John Oxlee. Price 6d. The Bigot and the Sceptic. By Emer. Professor F. W. Newman. Price 6d. Church Cursing and Atheism. By the Rev. Thomas P. Kirkman M.A., F.R.S., &c., Rector of Croft, Warrington. Price ?s. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource On the efficacy of opinion in matters of religion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Worthington, William Robert Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Ramsgate Collation: 13, [1] p. 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1870 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5496 Subject The topic of the resource Theology Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (On the efficacy of opinion in matters of religion), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Christianity-Controversial Literature Conway Tracts Doctrinal Theology https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ade536944d8a98cbebfc2899e3a32f44.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=l-2T8MUzVgjb1q8DjO1lUnTLgwPizCwuGHuBLu3S9kiWkiD%7EvbexpMh8sJ%7EVxXwSZoONOsHee8hbjMGjxAkGx%7EGaLI2ZokF280dpaDSfArl5GG-f6yMKQ8q-qsJIOXji13LTuGgamf4m2u%7ETspRPXcppTXSugRaawz6ADzaW6uIA93weAc28LIZQGHYIspj1zzNbzWQHiqEvQD8LdXnkfTorUZz96hQ0kKo3P2FZcT25P7OM4IpVGTh5-Xn0wq22k9lpL0AS1uX3Fsu1J4t5Kk2GYzS%7EfGNA7Qrp965cglY5t3gxA38oFXaJzuk8sfTXpl5iuVEUmBzYMSGlbc0Ulg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e047870a582a18b3dff365f51a1d12ab PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The history of nonconformity in Plymouth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Worth, Richard Nicholls Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [Plymouth] Collation: 40 p. ; 21 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. 'Read November 2nd, 1876. [title page]. Reprinted from the Transactions of the Plymouth Institution, v. 6, p. 44-83. Lists of ministers, Extracts from Corporation accounts, The Hebrew Committee. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1876] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT66 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Plymouth Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (The history of nonconformity in Plymouth), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Nonconformism Plymouth (Devon) Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d7b3fdac5c94b650140e879ffd231b2a.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=ib--VRgUVCWp%7E2rzmzhxa9Ot2svzmCnTuSBi1pcp%7Eds40NcqnpninenCitjwp%7E1ZsXvAlhYG-uFkdyK4JlpHWM-tZnOpwM5raCZQeB%7EANlzqJoQraKyg3dvgAW%7EoIL5C5Gx8HjDLLT%7EmUCqp4AB7btUK%7Emp70E601EW-hPMk-CWjlAqa4rGViJ6IEe8vPfjaShLJo%7EY8kOischFRSYcRyxNFfyYqb0T2VvmS938ejh1yZ3gu9RqtGxAPKbdICmzGJJN4NdSivCGB7kbvnynS%7ETQZ9HSTbLFQ2uY0IziEOYOcMcKuPJiZWsM0DgOzlIPmrS6l1vMx4tO29jMYgll7hA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 68d475a67e6e95592299bcb0c701d723 PDF Text Text •w ORKMEN’S’CLTSTB CROWN HILL, CROYDON. A CONCERT WILL BE GIVEN ON^TUESDAY. JULY 10th. 1866 In Aid of the Funds of the O R K ME N 3S BY A PARTWIF LADY AND GENTLEMAN AMATEURS. 4- Conductor-HARRY TAYLOR, Esq. 4- Admission:—Members (on producing their Cards of Membership) with the privilege of introducing a lady friend, at the same price, 3d.; Non Members, Gd. ♦ — 4- Doorsvpen at 7.30, to commence at 8.15. 4- Tickets can be obtained at the Doors; at the Club ; or of any Member of the Committee. EICHA.EBSON, PEINTEE, CEOYDON. �PART I. Part Song Duett Solo “ I love my love in the Morning ” “ The Sea Nymph’s Home ” “ Fair Annie ” Mr. A. Lester. Glee “ Spring’s Delights ” Solo “ Queen of the Sea ” Part Song “ Blanche ” Septette “ Blow gentle Gales ” Part Song “ The Sea hath its Pearls ” Solo “ The Village Blacksmith ” Solo and Chorus “Now, Tramp, Tramp.” G. Allen. MoliqueMuller. Schoesser. Thuchen. Bishop. Pinsuti. Weiss. PART II. Part Sono c * The Bluebells of Scotland.” arranged by Neilhardt. Randegger. “ I Naviganti ” “ Irish Ballad ” Mr. A. Lester. Part-Song “The Cookoo sings in the Poplar tree ” Macfarren. Four-part Song “ When evening’s twilight ” Hatton’ Solo “ The Bailiff’s Daughter.” Part-Song H. Smart. “ Ave Maria ” Trio “ I’m not the Queen ” Balfe. Four-part Song “ The Soldier’s Love ” Thuchen. Solo “ Scroggins’ Ghost.” Part-Song “ Hunting Song ” Mendelsshon. arranged by Solo and Chords “ God Save the Queen ” Novell o Trio Solo �0 z • Part I. G. Allen. I love my love in the morning, For she like morn is fair, Her blushing cheek, Its crimson streak, Its clouds her golden hair ; Her glance its beams so soft and kind Her tears its dewy showers, And her voice the tender whisp’ring wind, That stirs the early bowers. Oh ! I love my love in the morning, For she like morn is fair. I love my love in the morning, I love my love at noon, For she is bright as the lord of light Yet mild as autumn’s moon, / Her beauty is my bosom’s sun Her faith my fost’ring shade, And I will love my darling one Till even the sun shall fade. Oh 1 I love my love in the morning I love my love at noon. I love my love in the morning I love my love at even, Her smile’s soft play is like the ray That lights the western heaven, I loved her when the sun was high I loved her when he rose, Yes, but best of all when evening’s sigh Was murmuring at its close. Oh ! I love my love in the morning] I love my love at even. Part Song. Duetts “ THE SEA NYMPH’S HOME.” Oh, who can tell the beauties— The beauties of the ocean ; The many things that dwell there, And have both life and motion, Hundreds of fathoms down below, Where mortals ne’er attempt to go, Except to ne’er come back again, But stay to hear the sea nymph’s strain. �4 This is no place for mortal eye, To see the beauties which here lie. Tra, la, la, la, la— But stay to hear the sea nymph’s strain, Tra, la, lai, la, la, la. Down, down among the choral rocks, The water-sprite and mermaid Dance all through their sparkling halls Which were for mortals ne’er made; Singing so merrily as they go upon the light toe, With skins so fair and flowing hair; Free from sorrow and from care. This is no place for mortal eye, Ours are the beauties which here lie— Tra, la, lai, la, la, la. But stay to hear the sea-nymph’s strain, Tra, la, lai, la, la, la. Song. FAIR ANNIE. Moligue. The maidens of Germany all are so sweet, More beautiful none can be shown ; And when in the dance you just see the small feet, ’Twould move e’en the heart of a stone. But none look so brightly, and none dance so lightly As Annie, sweet Annie, dear Annie, my Annie alone. The maidens of Germany never coquet, As over the Rhine they are known ; They are all so coy, and so modest and neat, The heart is as gay as the gown. But she that grows daily more modest and gaily Is Annie, sweet Annie, dear Annie, ray Annie alone. The maidens of Germany all are so good, And if a sweet wife yon would own, Go take a fair maiden of German blood, Your fate you will ne’er have to mourn. But as there are many, I beg you’ll let Annie, Fail' Annie, sweet Annie, dear Annie, my Annie alone. Glee SPRING’S DELIGHTS. Muller. Mr. A. Lester. Spring’s delights are all reviving Verdant leaf-lets clothe each spray, Hawthorn buds give joyful tiding, Welcome news, ’tis blythe May Day. �5 Rural pastimes, grateful off’ring, Hail the promise for the year, Village swains their pains disclosing, Maidens lend more willing ear. These delights but last a season, Fading quickly with the year, Still these hours, if spent with reason, Surely brings us Autumn cheer. Come then dearest, hear my pleading, Turn not from my suit away, But my honest heart receiving, Make me bless this bright May Day. Song QUEEN OF THE SEA. Schloesser. Away on the sea, away on the sea, With the wild waves dashing around. To a life that ever is merry and free, Where true hearts are sure to be found. Whenever the call of his country rings, The bold British sailor will be As true to the last, as his guiding star, To Britannia, the Queen of the Sea. But, victory won, he thinks of his home, And lov’d ones, that absence endears; Fond faces, sweet smiles, seem to hover around, And eyes shining brightly through tears. Such men are the boast and pride of our land, The noble, the hearty, the free, And true to the last, as needle to pole. To Britannia, the Queen of the Sea. BLANCHE. F. Kuchen. My love is gone to battle, The drum has beat adieu, My foot-steps fain would follow That youth so brave and true ; With banners proudly streaming, They gaily marched away, Oh ! well shall I remember, The parting of that day. “ When loudly raves the din of war, When thund’ring cannons peal afar, My heart,” he softly said, “ will be, My own sweet Blanche, with thee. Then adieu, fare thee well, Part Song. �6 For the drum has beat, Fare'thee well, my own true love ! Adieu, adieu, adieu, my love!” My love has gone to battle, To win a soldier’s name, If Fortune smile upon him, She’ll crown his brow with fame ; The token that I gave him, When we our troth did plight, Will nerve his soul to duty, And guard him in the fight; li When home,” he said, “ again I see, My bride, sweet Blanche! thou then shalt be ; So, courage ! wipe that tear away, And for thy soldier pray. Then, adieu, fare thee well, For the drum has beat, v Fare thee well, my own true love, Adieu, adieu, adieu, my love !” Gle®. BLOW GENTLE GALES. Bishop. Blow gentle gales, and on your wiBg, Our long expected succours bring ! Look, lobk again, ’tis all in vain ! Lo, behold a pennant waviug, ’Tis the sea-birds pinions laving, Hark ! a signal fills the air, ’Tis the beetling rock resounding, Now fills the air, Wild as our hope, and deep as our despair ! THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS. Part Son©. Pinsu&i. The sea hath its pearls, The heaven hath its stars ; But my heart, my heart, My heart hath, its love. Great are the sea and the heaven ; Yet greater is my heart, And fairer than pearls and stars Flashes and beams my love. Thou little, youthful maiden, Come unto my great heart; My heart, and the sea, and the heaven Are melting away with love ! �7 Song. /' - . Weiss. THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. > Under a spreading chesnut tree The village smithy stands, The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands ; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. Week in, week out, from morn to night, You can hear the bellows blow ; You can hear him swing his heavy sledge With measured beat and slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell, When the evening sun is low. The children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from the threshing floor. He goes on Sunday to . the church And sits among his boys He hears the parson pray and preach He hears his daughter’s voice Singing in the willage choir?,-’ And it makes his heart rejoice. It sounds to him like her mother’s voice Singing in Paradise ! He needs must think of her one more How in the grave she lies, And with his hard rough hand he wipes '* A tear out of his eyes. Toiling—rejoicing —sorrowing,Onward through life he goes ; Each morning sees some task begun, Each evening sees it close ; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night’srepose. NOW TRAMP, O’ER MOSS AND FELL. Bishop. Now tramp, tramp o’er moss and fell, The batter’d ground returns the sound, Chanters proudly swell ; Clan Alpine’s cry is “ Win or die,” Guardian spirits, of the brave 1 Victory o’er my hero wave. Chobus and Solo. �8 Part II. THE BLUE BELLS OF SCOTLAND. Part Song. Arranged by A. Neithardt. O where, and O where, is your Highland laddie gone ? He’s gone to fight the foe, for Victoria on the throne ; And, ’tis O in my heart, I wish him safe at home! O where, and O where, did your Highland laddie dwell ? He dwelt in merry Scotland, at the sign of the Blue Bell, And, ’tis O in my heart, I love my laddie well! Suppose, and suppose, that your Highland Lad should die ? The bag pipes should play o’er him, and I’d sit me down and cry ; And, its O in my heart, I wish he may not die ! Trio. I. N AVI G-ANTI. JRandegger. TRANSLATION. • The winds are steeping, calm is the sea, And all is silent from lea to lea, But though the tempest rages no more, The mariner, watchful, must ply his oar. Oh waves deceitful, treacherous winds, No peace nor rest, the sailor finds; For, though tho’ tempest rages no more, The mariner, watchful, must ply his oar. Wherefore, wherefore, this quarrel with wind and wave ? Is it not wiser their frowns to brave, Let lazy silence reign there no more, To songs united let’s ply the oar. Bright stars are sending, Their rays are lending, Soft and sweet light, To calm and still the night. And sigh and greeting, O’er waves are stealing, Sent by hearts beating, Full of love’s feeling, Then row in measure, To songs of pleasure, The waves dividing, In moon’s rays gliding. Our bark is steering, The shore swift nearing, Then on our landing, Loved ones are standing. Then row etc. �THE CUCKOO SINGS IN TH E POPLAR TREE. Macfarren. The Cuckoo sings in the poplar tree, But his carol is not gay, For he knows that spring, Like himself’s on the wing By the ricking of the hay ; Little we heed his pensive note, High on the poplar spray. While in the new-naown meadows swete, In sunshine we make hay. Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! Old women tell us, in mournful tone, That our merry days will pass, And that death will soon, ' Come and mow us down, Like the flowers in the grass. But if so swift the moments fly', Let us drive cares away ; Better it is to laugh than cry, In sunshine then makeTiay. Cookoo ! Cookoo ! Part Song. WHEN EVENING’S TWILIGHT. Hatton, When evening’s twilight gathers round, When every flower is hushed to rest, When Autumn leaved ^breathe not a sound, And every bird flies to it’s nest ; When dewdrops kiss the blushing rese, When stars are glittering from above ; Then I think of thee, my love— Then, 0 then, I think of thee. Four-part Song. THE BAILIFF’S DAUGHTER, There was a youth, and a well-beloved youth, And he was a Squire’s son ; And he loved a bailiff’s daughter dear, Who lived at Islington, But she was coy,—and never would To him her heart bestow; So he was sent to London town, Because he loved her so. When seven long years had past and gone, She put on mean attire, And off to London she wouM go, About him to enquire. �10 As she was going along the road, The weather being hot and dry, She sat her down on a grassy bank, And her love came riding by. “ Oh ! give me a penny, kind sir,” she said ; “ Relieve a maid forlorn.” “ Before I give you a penny, sweetheart, Pray tell me where you were born ? ” “Oh! I was born at Islington.” “ Then tell me if you know The bailiff’s daughter of that place ? ” “ She died, sir, long ago.” “ If she be dead, then take my horse, My saddle and bridle also ; And I will seek some foreign land, Where no man may me know.” “ Oh stay, oh stay ! my goodly youth ; She standeth by Ihy side ; She is not dead, but here alive And ready to be thy bride !” AVE MARIA. Henry Smart. Ave Maria, ’tis the hour of pray’r, And quiet reigns o’er earth and sky and ocean, The chime of bells falls-on the charmed air, Awak’ning thoughts of peace and calm devotion. Ave Maria. Oh! snatch an hour from earth-born toil and care, And let thine heart on spirit wings ascendings, Pour forth the tide of mingled praise and pray’r, With never, ceasing songs of angels blending. Ave Maria.j Part Song. THE LAUGHING TRIO. Balfe. Elvira — I’m not the Queen, ha ! ha ! I must have been, ha ! ha ! The maid you’ve seen, ha I ha ! ha! ha ! Manuel —Or maid or queen, ' In shape or mien, You both have been. Elvira*— Tho’ anger now should move me, I can’t for mirth reprove you, Ha, ha ! ha, ha, ha ! ha ! Manziel —I’m sure ’twas you, I know ’twas you, Yes, you ! Yes you ! ’twas you. �11 Carmen—What’s passing here, Manuel — Great heaven ’tis he ! Elvira — What he ? a peasant hoy. this Lady ! Carmen —Me ! Manuel—I’m not the dolt I seem to be, This the peasant boy, I saw with thee last night. Oh, yes, the boy is to an angel changed, But still I recognise, I’d know you under any colours ranged. Carmen—You compliment. Manuel —Such was not my intention. Carmen—Oh, how spiteful! Elvira — ’Tis delightful; Oh, truly I must long this jest enjoy, He takes a maid of honour for a boy. Carmen—So I’m a boy, a pretty boy, A roguish boy, ha himaI ha 1 ha! Manuel— Yes, yes, laugh on ’tig true I You were the boy, you were the maid, Laugh on ’tis true quite true. Elvira — Tho’ anger now should move me, I can’t for mirth reprove thee. Thuchen. SOLDIERS LOVE. Before the morning sun is beaming, And soldiers of their conquests dreaming, The drums resound to arms, to arms ; Dearest maid now fare thee well. And while the call to arms is pealing^, Each soldier to his true love stealing* Perhaps to bid the last farewell, J| Dearest maid. Farewell dear maid and cease thy weeping, We all are here in heaven’s keeping, The soldier’s bride will true remain, Dear maid. Four Part Song. ' ' SCROGGINS’ GHOST. Giles Scroggins courted Molly Brown, Ri fol de riddle ol de da ; The prettiest lass in all our town, Ri fol, &c. He courted her with a posy true— “ If thou loves I as I loves you, No knife can cut our love in two.” Ri fol, &c. But scissors cut as well as knives, Ri fol de riddle ol de da; �12 And quite uncertain’s all our lives, Bi fol, &c. The day they were to have been wed, Fate s Scissors cut poor Giles’ thread, So they could not be mar-ri-ed. Ri fol, &c. Molly laid her down to weep, Ri, fol, &c. And cried herself quite fast asleep, Ri, fol, &c. Of a sudden she saw beside the bedpost, A figure tall her sight engrossed, And it cried, “ Ah ! I’m Giles Scroggins’ ghost,” Ri fol, &c. The ghost he said all solemnly, ■Ri fol de riddle ol de da; “ Molly, thou must come with I, Ri fol, &c. All in the grave your love to cool.” She cried “ Yah 1. I’m not dead, you fool!” Said he, “ My dear, why that’s no rule 1” Ri fol, &c. The ghost he seized her all so grim, Ri fol de riddle ol de day ; All for to go along with him, Ri fol, &c. 11 Now come,” said he 11 ere morning beam,” “I can’t,” she cried, and screamed a scream, But she woke and she found she’d drearn’d a dream! Ri fol, &c. HUNTING SONG. Mendelsshon Now morning advancing, looks over the hill ; Her radiance is glancing on valley and rill. Horns gaily are playing the call to depart; The coursers are neighing, now they start, n ow they start. Now rapidly bounding, the hunters are seen ; The full cry resounding, sheds life o’er the scene. Hounds eagerly flying, rush after the prey ; The huntsmen are crying, “ Hark, away, hark away,’> See, pow farther and farther, they bound along, The woodlands and valleys re-echo their song, Like gales o’er the heather, they sportively stray : Hearts bounding together, while steeds bound away Part Song GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A concert will be given on Tuesday, July 10th, 1866 [programme] Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Workmen's Club, Croydon Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 12 p. ; 23 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1866] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5716 Subject The topic of the resource Music Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /> This work (A concert will be given on Tuesday, July 10th, 1866 [programme]), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Concerts-London Conway Tracts https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d2ad8b731145bc2996b3733d3d7a0aff.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=mEGJGZ3r9MJ1hegHUByUbQb2BUOtytfU6KY06v2AJTqMUNgK7QwYwFVoRCAee-BQa3C6TgQJ8cSgT5VZ21kfeMa-WhCfa5LvgSFjexhGifROsOCGc98mVz2BJt0sv7N1gzd29xR1yPd-aXX0E8QgeoKcuMK7Vo%7EMidEvqp0iVpfyTPJl6K89ZO3hsKRQqfv6N9ns2VHpd5Ri2QpI65d4QPiZkErLYhL2UVoH8nu53ZzLSlFtWiHmlBUdV--JqBtxAtTyRZy4KOqfSfiz9iaS0p7fJzGnrGRR1%7EQx1FX42AlPbqa683tJfyen4pFOvdQB%7EEdM6c-SGH3nJBkuV09H%7Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e0933e8608f8f50a6388e3e8d90658bf PDF Text Text 97 Art. IV.—Shelley. 1. The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1853. 2. Essays; Letters from Abroad; Translations and Frag ments. By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited bv Mrs. Shelley. 1854. 3. The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. By Captain Thomas Medwin. 1847. 4. The Shelley Papers. By Captain Thomas Medwin. 1833. O write well on any theme requires not only a knowledge of the subject, but a deep sympathy with it. The first requisite is more commonly fulfilled than the second. Men can, after a fashion, master a subject—know its bearings and its details—and still have no real attachment for it: men, too, if they are at all suspected of this indifference, will lash themselves into a spurious love, which may be detected by its very absurdity. But true love springs from the heart, can admire the virtues of its friend without exaggeration, and yet not be hoodwinked to his faults ; has the sincerity to praise where praise is deserved, and the courage to reprove where reproof is wanted. Hence is it that true love is the same as thorough knowledge, for it sees both sides of the matter. Shelley’s critics, as well as his biographer, have been of all kinds except the last. Captain Medwin should remember that as it is the fault of a bad logician to prove too much, so it is of an indiscreet friend to praise too much. He has, however, in his “ Life of Shelley” contrived to fall into both mistakes. But he is also wanting in the higher qualifications of a biographer. It has now become, somehow or another, an esta blished axiom that nothing is so easy to write as a biography. Jot down a few facts, reckon them up like a schoolboy’s addition sum, and you have a Life ready-made. Nay, perhaps save your self even this trouble, and, in these days of mechanical aids, take a “ Ready Reckoner,” and you will find it done for you. An other popular receipt is, to sketch in a few lines here and there— never mind if they are a little blurred—paint them in watercolours, and you have a portrait at once : the critics will clean your picture for you gratis. Perhaps nothing is so difficult as a biography; but of all biographies, a poet’s most so. You have in his case not only to trace the mere liver of life, but all those back currents and cross eddies in which his stream of poesy has flowed. Every little action has to be examined to see what effect T [Vol. LXIX. No. CXXXV.J—New Series, Vol. XIII. No. I. II �98 Shelley. it has had upon his life and his poetry, for the two are inter woven as w7oof and warp : not only this, hut the biographer must bring a congenial and a poetic spirit to the task—must show in what new realms of poesy our poet has travelled, what new beauties he has discovered, what new Castalian springs he has drunk of; should show, too, what new views of life he has opened up, how these views originated, and what their ultimate aim is—for this is the important point—and what real value they have in their practical bearing upon this earth ; and how far they are likely to affect and improve it. But in Shelley’s case the dif ficulty is tenfold increased. His character, in one sense one of the most simple, is in reality one of the most complex. So shy and reserved in many matters, yet speaking forth so boldly and uncompromisingly; so inconsistent at times, yet ever the same in the cause of truth ; so impulsive in most matters, yet so firm in behalf of liberty; so feminine and so susceptible, yet so heroic and resolute, he presents a medley of contradictions. All this must be accounted for by his next biographer. Nevertheless, we are thankful to Captain Medwin for what he has accomplished; he has done it to the best of his endeavours, and with a certain species of enthusiasm which will atone for many defects. But a Life of Shelley is still wanted—so much remains that is still obscure about him. Any little facts, as long as they are genuine and upon undoubted authority, would be welcome; for it is these little facts and traits—little they are wrongly called—which help us to judge of a man’s character, and give us such an insight into his life and poems. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” said Byron; yet, we suspect, without knowing why. The one is Nature’s real infinite order of things; the other, only man’s worldly finite arrangement. We talk of sober truth and wild fiction; but it is truth in reality that is wild, and fiction sober. “ As easy as lying,” says Hamlet, but truth is hard to imitate. Hence to thinking men the romance of history is more exciting than any novel; a biography more inte resting than any fiction. Shelley’s life, with all its pathos, is an example. The imagination of no novelist would ever have dared to have drawn such a character. It would have been scouted at once as impossible in the highest degree. Let us endeavour to give some sort of a brief sketch of it, trying to fill in, with what cunning we have, the lights and shades. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, in Sussex, on the 4th of August, 1792, related through his family to Algernon and Sir Philip Sydney, heir to a baronetcy and its rich acres. Novel readers would be delighted in such a promising hero; young ladies would have fallen in love with him at once, or with his ten thousand a year. He was brought up, it appears, with his sisters until he was �At Sion House, Brentford; and at Eton. 99 seven or eight years old, and then sent to an academy at Brent ford, and subsequently, at thirteen, to Eton. At neither schools did he mix with the other boys, but like Novalis and many other boy-men, took no part in the sports. This shyness and reserve he never threw off during life. It appears even in his poems; they seem to shun the light of the common world, its din, its noise ; they fly away to the realms of imagination for peace and quietness. We can fancy Shelley walking by himself with that delicate feminine face and quiet dreaming eye, glooming moodily over his supposed wrongs, which, by-the-bye, he might have easily cast away, had he but set to work and bowled round hand, or played at fives with the rest; they would have dropped off, as lightly as the bails, with the first wicket he took. But it was not so, and he ever afterwards looked back with pain upon those early days. Writing of them in the Dedication of the “Revolt of Islam”— “ I wept, I knew not why; until there rose From the near schoolroom, voices that, alas! Were but one echo from a world of woes— The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.” At Sion House, Brentford, Shelley was a great reader of blue-books,” so called, says Captain Medwin, from their covers, and which, for the moderate sum of sixpence, contained an immense amount of murders, haunted castles, and so forth. When the “ blue-books” were all exhausted, Shelley had recourse to a circulating library at Brentford, where, no doubt, as at all circulating libraries, plenty more “ blue-books” were to be ob tained, and where he became enchanted with “ Zofloya, or the Moor,” whose hero appears to have been the Devil himself. No doubt, to this source may we trace Shelley’s love for the morbid and the horrible, which happily, under better influences, disap peared from his writings. Here at Sion House, too, was exhi bited Walker’s Orrery, which even surpassed “ Zofloya” in its attractions, and which first turned Shelley’s thoughts in a better direction than circulating libraries generally point to. At Eton, an old schoolfellow of Shelley’s gives the following account of him:—“ He was known as ‘ Mad Shelley,’ and many a cruel torture was practised upon him. The‘Shelley! Shelley! Shelley!’ which was thundered in the cloisters, was but too often accom panied by practical jokes—such as knocking his books from under his arm, seizing him as he stooped to recover them, pulling and tearing his clothes, or pointing with the finger, as one Nea politan maddens another.” We often look upon a school as an epitome of the world—a perfect microcosmos. And the above is as true a picture of the world’s treatment of Shelley, as of Eton. A few more years, and it was the world itself, with stronger lungs h 2 �100 Shelley. and with bitterer tones, crying out “ Mad Shelley;” it was the world, a few years after, that seized his books with Chancery decrees; it was the world, that is to say, these same boys, now “ children of a larger growth,” that pointed at him with its finger. Shelley felt all this in after-life as much as he did now at school; not the mere insults, but that these boys, now men, should never have outgrown their weaknesses. One more point in his Eton career. He was there condemned to that most distasteful of all tasks to true genius, to write Latin verses, that poetry of machinery. Shelley, condemned to the Procrustean bed of longs and shorts, wishing to enter the promised land of science—Shelley, who hereafter should be the true poet, scanning with his fingers dactyles and spondees, asking for a short and a long, that great desideratum to finish a pentameter with, and all the time thirsting to drink from springs that might refresh his mind, is a pitiful spectacle, well worth pondering over. How many promising minds this insane custom, still continued at our schools, has blunted and sickened, cannot well be computed, we should say. We wonder boys have not yet been practically taught the Pyrrhic dance or the evolutions of a Greek chorus; they would be quite as mechanical and far more amusing. In one person alone at Eton did Shelley at all find a congenial spirit, a Dr. Lind, of whom Mrs. Shelley writes, that he supported and befriended * Shelley, and Shelley never mentioned his name without love and reverence, and in after years drew his character as that of the old man who liberates Laon from his tower-prison, and tends on him in sickness. This is touchingly like Shelley’s nobleness, which never forgot a kindness. Most poets have ever looked back upon boyhood with joy; it is the storehouse of many an old affection, full of many dear memories. Shelley’s was blank enough of all such things ; this one old man, a green spot in its sandy wild. And now, since Eton would do nothing for Shelley, he betook himself to reading Pliny’s “Natural History,” puzzling his tutor with some questions on the chapters on astronomy. He next commenced German. The fires of such an ardent spirit could not easily be smothered out. Chemistry and Burgher’s “ Leonora” were now his two engrossing themes; and about this time he wrote, in conjunction with Captain Medwin, “ The Wandering Jew,” the little of which that we have seen is poor enough; but Shelley’s ideas are described by the gallant captain as “images wild, vast, and Titanic in which remark we suspect that Captain Medwin is like the Jew, rather “wandering.” And now we are approach ing a great event in Shelley's life. A Miss Grove, a cousin of his, of nearly the same age, who is described as very beautiful, * See Mrs. Shelley’s note on the “Revolt of Islam.” �At Oxford. 101 captivated him. We like to dwell upon these two child-lovers. The frost of the world must have thawed away for the first time to poor Shelley; a spring, full of fresh thoughts and hopes, were springing up in his heart. He had found some one in this wide, wild world to love him, and to love. Upon his dark night now came forth the evening star of love, trembling with beautv and light. Surely it was not the same old world, with its haggard nightmares and its feverish dreams ? The dew of love fell soft upon that wild brain of his. It was the first love—that first iove which comes but once in a man’s life. You may have it again ; but, like many another fever, it is slight and poor in comparison. Of her and himself did he write in after years— “ They were two cousins like to twins, Ancl so they grew together like two flowers Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers Lull or awaken in their purple prime.” To her, too, did he dedicate his “ Queen Mab — “ Thou wast my purer mind, Thou wast the inspiration of my song ; Thine are these early wilding flowers, Though garlanded by me.” And now, in conjunction, these two child-lovers wrote the romance of ‘ Zastrozzi. We would fain linger here on these happy days. But there is already a third party in the number— it is a skeleton. Shelley, now not much more than sixteen, went up to Oxford, engrossed with his chemistry. But Oxford did not, any more than Eton, encourage his pursuits. Acids and Alma Mater did not agree. Galvanic batteries and portly dons were not likely to be on the best of terms. Why, a Head of a College might mistake one for some infernal machine. So Shelley betook himself to philosophy; Locke was his professed guide, but in reality the French exponents of Locke, which is a very different matter. Hume, too, became his text-book ; and the poet, now a convert to Materialism, rushed on to Atheism; and in a moment of enthusiasm conceived the project of con verting Alma Mater herself. We don’t well see what other course that venerable lady, with the means she possessed, could pursue but the one she adopted. So Shelley was expelled. It is worth considering, however, that there was no other weapon left against Atheism but the poor and feeble one of expulsion. On Alma Mater we need waste no reflections; but turn to Shelley in his utter desolateness, for unto him it must have been an hour of great darkness. The old traditional guide-posts were gone, and he had to walk the road of life alone. New world-theories he must construct; the old eternal problems he must now solve �102 * Shelley. for himself. Other griefs from -without pressed upon him. His cousin deserted him, or rather, we should suppose, was made to desert him. His treatise on Atheism had deeply offended his relations, though we are surprised at its preventing his marriage. An expected baronetcy in this world, like charity, can hide a multitude of sins. A baronet’s blood-red hand could easily, we should have thought, have covered up even Atheism, since it gene rally can conceal so many faults. So Shelley left Alma Mater, and matriculated at the university of the world, where he should some day take honours, though from thence some would have expelled him too. He appears to have gone up to London, living with Captain Medwin, speculating on metaphysics, and writing letters under feigned names to various people, including Mrs. Hernans. To show in what a state of mind he was at this time, we may give the following anecdote in Captain Medwin’s own words :—“Being in Leicester-square one morning at five o’clock, I was attracted by a group of boys standing round a welldressed person lying near the rails. On coming up to them I discovered Shelley, who had unconsciously spent a part of the night sub dio.” We read of him, too, sailing paper boats on the Serpentine, as he did years after on the Serchio, just as he describes Helen’s son— “ In all gentle sports took joy, Oft in a dry leaf for a boat, With a small feather for a sail, His fancy on that spring would float.” (“Rosalind and Helen.”) He returned home, where, however, he did not remain long, in consequence of his falling in love with a Miss M estbrook, a schoolfellow of his sister’s. This was productive of another breach with his family, more serious than that caused by his Atheism. Miss Westbrook, it appears, was the daughter of a retired innkeeper; and Shelley’s father, the baronet, with proper aristocratic notions on all points, had long been accustomed to tell his son that he would provide for any quantity of natural children, but a mesalliance he would never pardon. So when Shelley married the daughter of the retired innkeeper, his father very properly cut off his allowance. Anything in this world, we believe, will be forgiven, except this one thing. You may take a poor girl’s virtue, and it passes for a good joke with the world; but if you make her the only reparation you can, you shall be an out cast from society. Such doctrines are a premium upon vice, and do more harm to a nation than Holywell-street: and we are more in clined to place many of the griefs of Shelley’s first marriage, with its sad results, at the front door of fashionable society, -than to any other cause. The retired innkeeper and Shelley’s uncle, Captain �His and Schillers Love for the Storm. 103 Pilford, however, found the requisite funds, and Shelley and his young wife went off to live in the Lake District, where Mr. De Quincey gives us the following picture of them :—“ The Shelleys had been induced by some of their new friends (the Southeys) to take part of a house standing about half a mile out of Keswick, on the Penrith road. There was a pretty garden attached to it; and whilst walking in this, one of the Southey party asked Mrs. Shelley if the garden had been let with their part of the house. ‘ Oh, no,’ she replied; ‘the garden is not ours; but then, you know, the people let us run about in it, whenever Percy and I are tired of sitting in the house.’ The naivete of this expression, ‘run about/ contrasting so picturesquely with the intermitting efforts of the girlish wife at supporting a matron-like gravity, now that she was doing the honours of her house to married ladies, caused all the party to smile.”* Ah ! could it, indeed, have been always so; and we think of another poet who says of himself and his wife, “I was a child—she was a child;” and we sigh as we think over their tragic fates. Shelley did not stay here long. We find him flitting, spirit-like, about from place to place. We meet with him at one time at Dublin, which he was obliged to leave on account of a political pamphlet he had published. Soon afterwards we dis cover him in North Wales, helping to assist the people to rebuild the sea-wall which had been washed away. All this time, too, was he suffering bitterly in spirit—the struggle was still going on within. In addition to this, his wife was by no means a person suited for him, and after a three years’ union they were separated. In July, 1814, conceiving himself free, we find him travelling abroad with Mary, the future Mrs. Shelley, daughter of Alary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, well known for their antimatrimonial speculations. They crossed the Channel in an open boat, and were very nearly lost in a gale. Shelley’s chief enjoy ment seems to have been on the water; and in this expedition his greatest delight seems to have been in sailing down the rapids of the Rhine on a raft. He is in this particular very like Schiller; in fact, a portion of Schiller’s biography might be applied, word for word, to him :—“At times he might be seen floating on the river in a gondola, feasting himself with the loveliness of earth and sky. He delighted most to be there when tempests were abroad; his unquiet spirit found a solace in the expression of its own unrest on the face of nature; danger lent a charm to his situation; he felt in harmony with the scene, when that rack was sweeping stormfully across the heavens, and the forests were sounding in the breeze, and the river was rolling its chafed waters into wild eddying heaps.”t And we find this love for water and * “Sketches, Critical and Biographic,” p. 18. f "Life of Schiller.” �104 Shelley. the storm in Shelley’s poems. He now returned to London, where he suffered from poverty and absolute want. Nothing daunted him. He now betook himself to the study of medicine, and com menced walking the hospitals. Gleams and visions of liberty lighted him upon his path ; but they were all mere will-o’-the-wisps, and went quickly out, leaving him in blacker darkness than before. Doubts still surrounded him on all sides. It is a pic ture worth studying—that delicate, womanly face, thoughtful and sad, with its long curling hair, and its genius-lighted eyes, brood ing painfully in poverty over its woes. We look on him, and he seems as some flower that has bloomed by mistake in winter-time —too frail to cope with the blasts and the falling sleet, but yet blooms on, prophesying of sunshine and summer days. The year 1815, however, brought him relief. It was discovered that’the fee-simple of the Shelley estates was vested in Shelley, and that he could thus obtain money upon them. The old baronet was furious at the discovery, but was ultimately persuaded to make his son an allowance. Shelley, now freed from his pecuniary difficulties, again went abroad in May, 181G, this time to Secheron, near Geneva, where Byron was living; and here the two poets kept a crank boat on the lake, in which Shelley used “ to brave Bises, which none of the barques could face.” How much Byron profited by his intercourse with Shelley let the third canto of “ Childe Harold,” which was written at this period, testify; and let us at the same time remember Byron’s own words—“You were all mistaken about Shelley, who was, without exception, the best and least selfish man I ever knew.” After an absence of more than a year, Shelley returned to England; and now per haps the bitterest trial of all awaited him. His wife had drowned herself. Woe seems to have shrouded him as with a garment. How bitterly he feels it, these and many other verses tell— “ That time is dead for ever, child, Browned, frozen, dead for ever; We look on the past And stare aghast, At the spectres, wailing, pale and ghast, Of hopes that thou and 1 beguiled To death on life’s dark river.” Nay, the strain on his mind was too much, and he became for a time insane, and so describes himself in “Julian and Maddalo.” And now, as if his bitterness were not enough, the Court of Chancery tore his children away from him. “ Misfortune, where goest thou, into the house of the artist ?” saith the Greek pro verb. And still the struggle was going on within, embittered by woes from without. Life’s battle-field is never single. We cannot stop to inquire whether trials and struggles may not be �His Friendship with Keats. 105 in some way essential to the education of genius, and whether there may not be some as yet unrecognised law to that end. The old fable is certainly a true one of the swan singing only in its death-agonies. But there must be an end; and now the scorching day was melting into a quiet eve : the stormy waves were subsiding. We have dwelt at some length on the previous details, but must now be more brief. We do not so much regret this. It is in the storm only that we care to see the straining ship brave out the danger—any day we can see plenty of painted toy-boats sailing on the millpond. Shelley now married his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and led a quiet life at Marlowe, writing “ Alastor” and the “Revolt of Islam,” and endearing himself to the villagers by his kindnesses. He here contracted severe ophthalmia, from visiting the poor people in the depth of an un usually cold winter. About this time, too, he became acquainted with Keats, and nothing can be finer than the friendship between the two poets—nothing nobler in literature than Shelley taking up the gauntlet for his oppressed brother poet against the re viewers, and writing afterwards to his memory the sweetest of all dirges, the “ Adonais.” So dear did he hold his friend, that when Shelley’s body was washed ashore, Keats’ poems were found in his bosom. In 1818, Shelley left England, never to return. Life now was becoming unto him as a summer afternoon with its golden sunshine. He had found a wife whom he could love: that passionate heart, ever seeking some haven, had at last found one—little voices now again called him father. The mists of youth wrere clearing away; gleams of light were breaking in upon him. He had betaken himself to the study of Plato ; and perhaps there was no book in the world that was likely to do him such good. In one of his letters he writes, “ The destiny of man can scarcely be so degraded, that he was born only to die.” But even now he had his troubles, as we all shall have, be the world made ever so perfect. He lost one of his children; was still troubled with a most painful disease; was still the mark for every reviewer’s shaft. And now, when everything promised so fair and bright, on one July afternoon the waves of the Mediter ranean closed over that fair form, still young, though his hair was already grey, “ seared with the autumn of strange suffering.” The battle of life was past and over. We have thus given a hurried sketch of Shelley’s life. Impul siveness was no doubt the prominent feature of his character. Love for his fellow-men, hatred against all tyranny, whether of government or mere creeds, combined with kis ardent and poetic spirit, hurried at times his as yet undisciplined mind away. No doubt he struck at many things without discretion. But it re �106 Shelley. quires older men than Shelley to discriminate what is to be hit. Strike at the immorality of a clergyman, and he screens himself behind the Church, and there is instantly a cry you are assailing Religion itself. Many stalking-horses, some of them with huge ears and broken knees, are there walking about on this earth, which we must worship, even as the ^Egyptians did cats, and the Hindoos cows. Animal worship is not yet extinct. Shelley, too, was one of those whose nature is their own law; who refuse to be cramped up by the arbitrary conventionalities of life which suit ordinary mortals so well, which fact is such a puzzle to commonplace minds that they solve it by setting down the unlucky individual as a madman; an easy solution, in which we cannot acquiesce. One of those few, too, was he “ Whose spirit kindles for a newer virtue, Which, proud and sure, and for itself sufficient, To no faith, goes a begging.” An isolation of spirit, too, he possessed, often peculiar to genius. He found no one to sympathize with him; hence his mind was turned in upon itself, seeking higher principles, newer resolutions than are yet current. He found himself, even when amidst the throng, quite alone; though jostled by the multitude, quite soli tary. Society to such a one is pain; the very noise of human voices, misery. Hence, in his despair, he is tempted to exclaim to his wife, “ My greatest content would be utterly to desert all human society. I would retire with you and our child to a soli tary island in the sea, would build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the floodgates of the world: I would read no reviews, and talk with no authors. If I dared trust my imagination, it would tell me that there are one or two chosen companions beside myself whom I would desire. But to this I would not listen.” That Shelley should have been misappreciated is only natural. To a proverb, the world likes its own, and Shelley was not amongst that number. High-minded, he despised the inanities of life; sincere and earnest, he hated the hollowness of the day. Too sensitive, he turned away to bye-paths. The flock of sheep herd together; he was sick at heart and wandered by himself. Poetic and ideal, he felt more than most of us the heart-aches and brain-aches of life, and ever seeking, ever hoping, found no cure for them. Speculative and philosophical, he felt the burden of the world-mystery and the world-problem, which he was ever trying to solve, and which every time lay heavier on his soul. Weak and physically frail, he felt life’s pack more than others, and knew not how to carry it without its galling him. A loving, sympathizing soul, he found but little affection, little love in the world ; for the most part a cold response and hard hearts, and so he uttered his wail of misery and then died. �His Critics. 107 He was slain accidentally in the battle of life—a mere stripling fighting manfully in the van. Still the army of life, like a mighty billow, rushes on; still the battle rages, still the desperate charge of the forlorn hope—here it gains, there it wavers, then is swept away—and still fresh ones follow on: the individual fighting in the first place for himself and his own necessities; and then, if a noble soul, doing battle for his fellow-creatures, helping the weak, raising up the down-trodden. The years sweep on like immense caravans, each of them laden with its own multitude, brawling, striving, fighting. We look out from the windows, and see behind us the earth covered with the monuments of mighty men, with nameless mounds where sleep the dead. Let us linger round the grave of him who lies beneath the walls of Rome, near the pyra mid of Caius Cestius, “ in a place so sweet that it might make one in love to be buried thereand see what epitaphs have been written over him, and what, too, we have to say. In plainer words, we will proceed to look at Shelley as exhibited by others, glancing at his religion, his politics, and poetry, by all of which we may be enabled to learn something more, and to form a completer estimate of him; and we would here remark that whatever censure or praise we may bestow on him, the one should be laid on, the other doubled by, his youth. We have now passed away from the old reviewing times of Gifford, when difference of opinion was added to the sins usually recognised by the Decalogue, when it actually could taint the rhymes, and make the verses of too many or too few feet, accord ing to the critic's orthodox ear. This old leaven has long since died out of all respectable Reviews, and can only be seen in its original bitterness in a few religious publications, where vitupe ration so easily supplies the place of argument. The world luckily sees with different eyes to those it did thirty years ago. Most people can now give Shelley credit for his noble qualities of generosity and pureness of moral character; and even those who may differ widely from his opinions, are willing to admit the beauty of his poems. Most people, we said; all certainly except those connected with a few religious publications, and the author of “ Modern Painters.” Mr. Ruskin seems to be seized with some monomania when Shelley’s name is mentioned. In the Appendix to his “ Elements of Drawing,” he calls Shelley “ shallow and verbose.” In a note in the second volume of“ Modem Painters,” part iii. sec. ii. chap. iv. § 6, he speaks of Shelley, “ sickly dreaming over clouds and waves.” As these objections are mere matters of opinion, we shall pass them by; it is hopeless to try to make the wilfully blind see. But in the third volume, part iv. chap. xvi. § 38, he talks of Shelley’s “ troublesome selfishness.” Facts are said to be the best arguments, and we will �108 Shelley. give Mr. Ruskin, as an answer to his libel, the following pathetic story in Leigh Hunt’s own words :— “ Mr. Shelley, in coming to our house at night, had found a woman lying near the top of the hill, in fits. It was a fierce winter’s night, with snow upon the ground—and winter loses nothing of its severity at Hampstead. My friend, always the promptest as well as the most pitying on these occasions, knocked at the first houses he could reach, in order to have the woman taken in. The invariable answer was, they could not do it. He asked for an outhouse to put her in, while he went for the doctor. Impossible. In vain he assured them she was no impostor—an assurance he was able to give, having studied something of medicine, and even walked the hospital, that he might be Useful in this way. They would not dispute the point with him ; but doors were closed, and windows were shut down. Time flies; the poor woman is in convulsions; her son, a young man, lamenting over her. At last my friend sees a carriage driving up to a house at a little distance; the knock is given; the warm door opens; servants and lights put forth. Now, thought he, is the time; he puts on his best address—which anybody might recognise for that of the highest gentle man—and plants himself in the way of an elderly person who is step ping out of the carriage with his family. He tells him his story. They only press on the faster. ‘ Will you go and see her ?’ ‘ No, sir, there is no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it—impostors swarm everywhere—the thing cannot be done. Sir, your conduct is extraordinary.’ ‘ Sir,’ cried Mr. Shelley, at last assuming a very diffe rent appearance, and forcing the flourishing householder to stop, out of astonishment, ‘ I am sorry to say that your conduct is not extra ordinary ; and if my own may seem to amaze you, I will tell you something that may amaze you a little more, and I hope will frighten you. It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the patience of the poor and wretched ; and if ever a convulsion comes in this coun try, which is very probable, recollect what I tell you—you will have your house, that you refuse to put this miserable woman into, burnt over your head.’ 4 God bless me, sir! Dear me, sir!’ exclaimed the frightened wretch, and fluttered into his mansion. The woman was then brought to our house, which was at some distance, and down a bleak path; and Mr. Shelley and her son were obliged to hold her till the doctor could arrive. It appeared that she had been attending this son in London, on a criminal charge made against him, the agitation of which had thrown her into fits on their return. The doctor said that she would have inevitably perished had she lain there only a short time longer. The next day my friend sent mother and son comfort ably home to Hendon, where they were well known, and whence they returned him thanks full of gratitude.” This was an action worthy of a descendant of Algernon and Sir Philip Sydney, and may perhaps remind Mr. Ruskin of a certain parable of the good Samaritan. Again, in the same volume and part of “Modern Painters,” ch. xvii. § 26, Mr. Ruskin calls Shelley “passionate and unprincipled;” and again, in §41, �Mr. Ruskin on Shelley. 109 lie speaks of his “ morbid temperament.” It is only charitable to suppose that Mr. Ruskin has never read Shelley’s Life ; and, again, in the same volume and part, ch. xvi. § 34, he writes, “ Shelley is sad because he is impious.” This sort of reasoning reminds us of a story told in Rogers’s “ Table Talk,” which, as it affords us some further insight into Shelley’s character, may be given:—“One day, during dinner, at Pisa, where Shelley and Trelawney were with us, Byron chose to run down Shakspeare, for whom he, like Sheridan, either had, or pretended to have, little admiration. I said nothing; but Shelley immediately took up the defence of the great poet, and conducted it with his usual meek yet resolute manner, unmoved with the rude things with which Byron interrupted him—‘ Oh, that’s very zvell for an Atheist,’ ” &c. Byron, however, did not approach Mr. Ruskin’s absurdity. Atheism here did not altogether spoil Shelley’s defence; it only made it pretty good. Orthodoxy, we must suppose, would have rendered it perfect. But Mr. Ruskin boldly asserts, “Shelley is sad because he is impious;” or, in other words, because Shelley happens to differ from Mr. Ruskin’s notions on religion. It is true that Shelley is sad—not, though, because he is “ impious,” but from mourning over the wrongs that he sees hourly committed —the day full of toil, the air thick with groans. A solemn tone of sorrow pervades his poetry, like the dirge of the autumn wind sighing through the woods for the leaves as they keep falling off. We are ashamed and mortified to find Mr. Ruskin using such a coarse and vulgar argument—he who is ever complaining of the unfairness of his critics. But perhaps Mr. Ruskin may find this out, that when he has learnt to respect others, his critics will be in clined to treat him more leniently; and, furthermore, whilst he deals so harshly and so uncharitably with Shelley, we would in all kindness remind him of the line, “ who is so blessed fair that fears no blot?” And now for our orthodox reviewers, and their treatment of Shelley. “Queen Mab” is generally selected by them as the piece de resistance. We are far from defending the poem as re gards its tone and spirit, nor do we uphold Shelley in any of his attacks upon the personal character of the Founder of Chris tianity ; he finds no sympathy with us when he calls Christ “ the Galilean Serpent.” Much more do we agree with the old dra matist, Decker, when he writes— “ The best of men That e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer, A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil Spirit; The first true gentleman that ever breathed.” Shelley himself afterwards thoroughly disclaimed the opinions �110 Shelley. of this early and crude production. Upon an attempt being made to republish it, he thus wrote to the editor of the Examiner: —“ A poem, entitled ‘ Queen Mab,’ was written by me at the age of eighteen, I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate spirit—but even then was not intended for publication; and a few copies only were struck off, to be distributed among my personal friends. I have not seen this production for several years; I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition; and that in all that concerns moral and political speculation, as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical and reli gious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature.” And he goes on to say that he has applied for an injunction to stop its * sale. Shelley, in after life, was the last man to speak slightingly of religion or religious matters—no true poet can ever do that; he, above all men, venerates religion. By him, as Shelley says in the Preface to the “ Revolt of Islam,” “ the erroneous and de grading idea which men have conceived of a Supreme Being is spoken against, but not the Supreme Being itself.” But why “ Queen Mab” should ever be picked out as so peculiarly blas phemous by its assailants, we have ever been surprised. We are, we repeat, far from sympathizing in the least with Shelley’s ex pressions; but we equally abhor the tenets of his orthodox reviewers. They are far more open to the charge of blasphemy than Shelley. It is they who degrade God, and God’s creatures, by representing him as the God of vengeance, and all His works vile and filthy; this glorious world as the devil’s world, and all the men and women in it chosen vessels of wrath, unable to do one good deed of themselves. They call Shelley an Atheist, in deed ! Rather call all those Atheists who deny liberty and all rights to their poorer brethren; who would trample them still deeper in the mire of ignorance, who would desecrate God’s Sab baths with idleness, and who make God in their own images piti fully sowing damnation broadcast on his creatures. Call them, too, Atheists, yes, the worst of Atheists, who lead a life of idleness and aimless inactivity; for the denial of God (a personal God, in the common sense of the term) does not constitute Atheism; but spending a life as if there were no God, and no such things as those minor gods—Justice, or Love, or Gratitude. Shelley was, at all events, sincere in his creed, which is more than can be said for most of his opponents. He suffered for it, and suffered bitterly; not, indeed, the tortures of the rack, but those more painful ordeals which we in this nineteenth century are so skilful to inflict. All ages have very properly allotted special punishments to their greatest spirits. The Greeks gave * See also a letter to Mr. John Gisborne—“ Shelley’s Letters and Essays,” vol. ii. p. 239. �Religion at the Present Day. Ill hemlock to Socrates; the Jews rewarded Jesus with a cross. Galileo received a rack for his portion. But we English have found out the greater refinement of cruelty, which may be in flicted by hounding a poet down by Reviews and Chancery-suits. Contrast Shelley, and his fervid eloquence, and poetry, and zeal, with his opponents. Go into an English church, and there you shall too often see but an automaton, now in white now in black, grinding old church tunes of which our ears are weary. It—for we cannot call that machine a living human being—finds no re sponse in the hearts of its hearers. Notone pulse there is quickened, not one eye grows brighter. If it would but say something to all those men and women, they should be as dancers ready to dance at the sound of music. But no voice comes, unless you call a monotonous drawl a voice. The farce is all the more hitter, because that figure to our knowledge leads a life quite contrary to the words upon his lips. How few of these Automata in white or in black would, in days of darkness and of trouble, stand up for their Bible and their Gospel, and dare to pull off the surplice and gown, and wear the martyr’s fiery shirt! One of them comes into the Church for the family living, and makes God’s house a place for money-changers and traders in simony; the other, because he has not capacity enough for any other pro fession. And these are the men that are to lead us in days when science and knowledge are fast advancing in every direction! these the men to sing of God’s wondrous works ! Do they not rather dishonour God, and prostitute religion to the worst form of Atheism ? That Shelley, or any one else, should become wearied with our present religious condition, we are not surprised. Our wonder is, that there are not far more of the same class. We have for years been lying under a tree which is long past bearing—waiting, alas ! for fruits, and not finding even a green branch, or a shady place. The once pure water of baptism is now turbid, the very sacramental bread mouldy. We must sorrowfully say with Jean Paul—“The soul which by nature looks Heavenward, is without a temple in this age.” So the old religious roads of thought are being torn up; the old via sacra being levelled. As it has been said a thousand times, no one need fear that religion will ever die. While there is the blue unfathomable sky above us, in which swim golden sun and moon and stars, and the comets trail along like fiery ships, there will ever arise a sense of mystery and awe in the breast of man; and while the sweet seasons come round, there will spring from his heart, like a fresh gushing fountain, a psalm of thankfulness to the Author of them. The deep spiritual nature of man can never die. And it is no sign of the decay of religion, but quite the reverse, when men refuse to be fed on the �112 Shelley. dry husks and chaff of doctrines. Yes, we will hope that a new and a brighter Reformation is dawning; that fresh Luthers and Melancthons shall arise, and that we shall have a Church wherein Science shall not fear to unfold her New Testament—wherein poets and philosophers, and painters and sculptors, may be its priests, each preaching from his own pulpit—when every day shall be equally holy—when every cottage shall be a temple, and all the earth consecrated ground—consecrated with^ the prayers of love and labour. And now let us turn to Shelley’s politics. Most poets have ever been the supporters of Liberty. And the reason is, as Words worth says, “ A poet is a man endowed with more lively sensi bility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, and a more comprehen sive soul than are supposed to be common among mankind.” They feel “ the sweet sense of kindred” more than others, and cannot bear to see some of their brethren chained like galleyslaves to the oar of labour—earning their bread with tears of blood, without time for leisure, or meditation, or self-improve ment ; working like the beasts of the field, with this difference, that they are less cared for by their masters. As Milton says— “ True poets are the objects of my reverence and love, and the constant sources of my delight. I know that most of them, from the earliest times to those of Buchanan, have been the strenuous enemies of despotism.” The remark is true. Tyrtaeus singing war-strains, and the old Hebrew prophets rousing Israel from its sleep of bondage, are instances of what is meant. All poets have felt this love for Liberty. Even Mr. Tennyson can turn at times from his descriptive paintings, and give us such a lyric as “Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,” so full of noble hopes and sympathies. A little time ago we had a novel with a Chartist poet for its hero ; and by-and-bv a living poet, the son of a canal bargeman, risesup among us—no fiction this time—uttering strains of woe to that same often invoked Liberty. But the feeling is most vivid in early youth ; the cares of the world soon grow round us, and many of us find out it is to our apparent advantage to remain silent; and we become to our shame dumb, ignomi niously content to accept things as they are. Some even turn renegades, as Southey. But in Shelley the flame every day burnt brighter. Liberty with him was no mere toy to be broken and laid aside, but the end and aim of his life. He kept true to the dream of youth, and the inspiration of early days, when injustice has not yet clouded our vision. But, on the face of it, is there not something supremely ridiculous in the son of a wealthy baronet coming forward to delineate the woes of men about which he could really know nothing ? Why not have written �The Times in which Shelley lived. 113 odes of the Minerva-press stamp, which could have been read to aristocratic drawing-rooms ? The answer is, that this thing genius is strong and earnest, and, luckily, will not bend like a reed before any fashionable breeze from Belgravia or St. James’s. Society is a costly porcelain vase, wherein the poor plant genius is cramped and stunted, and artificially watered and heated, in stead of living in the free open air, enjoying the breeze and the showers of heaven; it must either break its prison or wither. Shelley adopted the former course. Let us rejoice it was so— that there was one man who, though brought up in luxury, had the heart and the courage to pity the misfortunes of the poor. Let us remember, too, the days Shelley had fallen upon, when the nation was suffering all the distresses a long war could entail; when a Parliament of landlords enacted the Corn-laws for the benefit of their own rents; when prosecutions were rife for the most trifling offences ; when Government actually employed spies to excite starving men to violence; when “ blood was on the grass like dew.” It was the dark night that preceded the dawn of a better day. Since then, schools have sprung up ; free-libraries and museums have grown here and there; parks have been opened; baths and wash-houses built; crowded districts drained and ventilated; cheap and good books diffused. Within the last few months “The National Association for the Advancement of Social Science” has held its first meeting, and there is a general wish, except perhaps amongst a few, to improve the condition of the working classes. A man who, in Shelley’s position, should now write as Shelley did, could simply be regarded as a misguided enthusiast; and we can only pardon Gerald Massey in some of his wild strains, by knowing how galling is the yoke, and how bitter the bread, of poverty. Still much, almost everything, yet remains to be done. The life of the labourer still, as Shelley would sing, “ Is to work, and have such pay As just keeps life from day to day.” Not even that, as the poorhouse in the winter’s night can testify. But, after all, what is this image of Liberty which Shelley has set up for us ? We can answer best in his own words :— “ For the labourer thou art bread, And a comely table spread, From his daily labour come, In a neat and happy home— Thou art clothes, and fire and food For the trampled multitude: No—in countries that are free Such starvation cannot be, As in England now we see.” [Vol. LXIX. No. CXXXV.J—New Series, Vol. XIII. No. I. I �114 Shelley. This surely is rather a material view; no one can well see treason in the loaf, or impiety in the well-filled cupboard; and yet an important one. The soul of man can never be fed, while his body is racked with hunger; his mind can never be warmed with any spark of the higher life, while his limbs shiver with the cold; his spiritual faculties can never be raised, while be is sunk in physical uncleanness. But rising to a higher strain, Shelley proceeds:— “ To the rich thou art a check; When his foot is on the neck Of his victim, thou dost make That he treads upon a snake. Thou art Justice—ne’er for gold May thy righteous laws be sold, As laws are in England:—thou Shieldest alike the high and low. Thou art Wisdom—freemen never Dream that God will doom for ever All who think those things untrue Of which priests make such ado. Thou art Peace—never by thee Would blood and treasure wasted be As tyrants wasted them, when all Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul. ***** Science, and Poetry, and Thought, Are thy lamps ; they make the lot Of the dwellers in a cot Such, they curse their Maker not. Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All that can adorn and bless, Art thou; let deeds, not words, express Thine exceeding loveliness.” (“ The Masque of Anarchy.”) This, we must confess, is superior to most of his delineations of Liberty. In a great many places he doubtless runs very wild in the cause of Freedom. He had not yet attained that true calm ness which is requisite for any great movement. Youth has it not. The green sapling cracks and explodes in the fire, yet gives no heat; the seasoned log burns bright and quiet. It is not by fiery declamations, by mere impulse, that anything in this world is ever surely gained, but by calmness, clearness of vision, and deep insight. The still small voice makes more impression on us than the loudest shouts, for the latter are, through their very noise, quite inarticulate. Still the question remains to be answered, �Happiness, how obtained. 115 how is this and other visions of Liberty to be realized ? Was Shelley himself in the right way to bring about the desired reform ? Certainly, as far as his hand could reach, he did his utmost. He poured what oil he could on the raging waters round him. But these attempts, and all others like them, are, it is very obvious, only palliatives, not real remedies. Shelley’s views as to Reform and Liberty are very vague. He seems to have had some idea that with a hey presto, everything could be changed. Pantaloon had only to strike the floor three times, and the whole scene vanished; the old witches, who caused all the trouble, were to be changed at once into beautiful sprites; Columbine should come dancing on, and a general return to Fairyland, everybody paying for every one, and nobody taking anything. He himself was willing to make any sacrifice. In this respect he seems to have been like some innocent child, wandering into a garden, singing as he went, plucking with its tiny hands the flowers and fruits, willing to share them with any one—wishing, perhaps, that men could live upon them altogether, and not a. little vexed and surprised when told that they would not bloom in the winter time—wishing, too, that the beds might be kept trim, and the grass might be cut without human labour—and then sitting down, musing, melancholy, and sad, on the first falling leaf. To us it appears that liberty and happiness—if it be liberty and happiness we want—depend upon no legerdemain, no shuffling of cards. Once let us learn that our well-being depends not upon external circumstances, but upon the riches of moral goodness, and that our mind, like a prism, can colour all events, and we shall then be on the true road to a higher reform than our politicians have yet dreamt of. To teach men their duty, and what love and what justice mean, seems to us just now the one thing needful. Gold, perhaps, is the medicine least wanted to cure human ills—the worst salve for human bruises. The mere kind look and the kind action will be treasured up with its own interest, not to be counted at any poor per cent., whilst the money will have been foolishly squandered—how much more the word which shall kindle a new idea, a fresh truth, another life. The mechanic earning his few shillings a week, enough to support himself, may find pleasure, if he has but learnt to take an interest in the few green grass blades beneath his feet, and the few opening flowers in his garden, which no lord in his castle can surpass. Nothing is so cheap as true happiness: and Providence has well arranged that we may be surrounded by ever-flowing springs of it, if we will but choose, in all humility, to drink of them. Shelley, unfortunately, fancied that there was some one specific to be externally applied to the gangrene of wretchedness, i2 �116 Shelley. and cure it at once and for ever; but we must go far beyond the surface, and the application must be made, not to the diseased part only, but to the whole body of society. And as to the sorrows and contradictions of life, we take and accept them, believing that there is a spirit at work for good, which will bring them out to a successful issue. And we are proud to be instru ments in working out so grand a principle, believing that the pain and the loss to us will be gain to the human race; that these days of sorrow will be a gain to coming years; that this sadness of a part will be a gain to the whole. In this is our un faltering trust; and secure in it we can go joyfully along, enduring patiently whatever sorrow or whatever conflict we may encounter, striving to help our weaker brethren, giving them what aid we can. Painful as it may be to think of a number of fellow-creatures toiling early and late, yet labour has its own claims on our grati tude. Labour seems to be man’s appointed lot here, and it is foolish to quarrel with it; still more foolish to call it a curse; the thistles and the thorns have been, perhaps, of more benefit to the human race than all the flowers in the Garden of Eden. They have called forth man’s energies, and developed his resources. All those chimneys in our factory-towns—are they not as steeples, veritable church steeples and towers of the great temple of Labour, pointing, with no dumb stone fingers, up to heaven, saying, by us, by labour, is the road up there ? Does not the flame and the smoke-wreath look as if it came from some vast altar, the incense of sacrifices—yes, of noble human sacrifices, daily offered up; and do not the clank and clash of a thousand hammers and anvils sound sweet upon our ears, as the music of bells calling us to our duty—trumpets sounding us to the battle of life, that battle against evil and wrong ? So it must be: out of darkness cometh light, and from the cold frosts and bitter snows of winter, bloom all the beauteous flowers of spring; and from all this grime, and dirt, and sweat of labour, who shall prophesy the result ? Even now are there giants in the land; even now may we see cranks, and wheels, and iron arms, tethered to their work instead of men; even now do wre hear the music of the electric wires across the fields, telling us other things than the mere message they convey; even now may the hum of the engine, and the breath of its iron lungs, be heard in our old farm-yards, and the reaping-machine seen cutting down the golden wheat, and the steam-plough furrowing up the fields, taking away the heaviest burdens from the backs of men. Shelley would have hailed such a time with delight—when there should be some margin of the day given to the ploughman and the mechanic for rest and recreation—for re �The Power of Love and Justice. 117 member, a man is ever worthier than his hire. Had Shelley ever seen a railroad, he would, perhaps, have exclaimed with Dr. Arnott, “Good-night to Feudality.” It is curious to notice what an in terest he took in endeavouring to establish a steamer on the Gulf of Genoa. But all the leisure in the world, all the instruction that can be had, will avail us nothing, if we do not build on higher principles than we are at present accustomed to—if we do not rest our foundations upon Love and Justice. “Ah !” sighed Shelley to Leigh Hunt, as the organ was playing in the cathedral at Pisa, “ what a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.” This, then, is a part of Shelley’s creed—a creed which is beginning at length to be felt; the creed of Jesus and of Socrates ; of poets of to-day and of yesterday; the law of laws; the doctrine of charity—that charity which Paul preached as greater than faith. Let our poli tics and our religion be built upon love and justice for their foundations, and once more will man live in harmony with the rest of the creation—will smell sweet with “ his fellow-creatures the plants,” and his voice will be attuned with the love-songs of the birds. He will then understand how he was made in God’s image, for God is love; the world will then once more bloom a Garden of Eden, and Selfishness, that evil spirit—call it the devil if you will, for it is this world’s devil—be ousted from our planet. But it requires something more than a poet’s strains to break the spells that bind us—to exhume the people from their present sepulchre of ignorance. A Tyrtaeus is of no use, unless we will fight; his strains of no avail, unless we will work, man to man, shoulder to shoulder. The walls of prejudice and selfishness will not fall down by any mere trumpet-blast. If any one thinks us too ideal, let him know we are purposely so. The ideal is better than the real, and it is something to be ideal in these practical days of ours. “ Equality ” and “ love ” may per haps never be known, as they should be, amongst men. Riches have been well compared to snow, which if it fall level to-day, to-morrow will be heaped in drifts. But surely there is an equality apart from money, and a love which knows not bank-notes; we will hope for, and aid forward, too, the day when there may not be the present gulf betwixt the peer and the peasant, and when that simple commandment shall be better observed, “ Do unto others as you would be done by.” In a note to “ The Prometheus Unbound,” Mrs. Shelley thus writes:— “ The prominent feature of Shelley’s theory of the destiny of the human species was, that evil is not inherent in the system of the crea �118 Shelley. tion, but an accident that might he expelled. This also forms a portion of Christianity. God made earth and man perfect, till he, by his fall— ‘Brought death into the world, and all our woe.’ Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no evil, and there would be none. That man could become so perfect as to be able to expel evil from his own nature, and from the greater part of the creation, vras the cardinal point of his system.” There is much truth in this. Our misery arises from the in fringement of natural laws; and as long as those laws remain broken, our misery will still continue. But Hope is by our side, and she tells us, with the unmistakeable voice of truth, that men will some day grow wiser and less selfish than at present—when most of the present suffering shall pass away—when none need be long unhappy, except through their own fault—for the earth was created for a good and a happy purpose, though it take myriads of years to accomplish it. And now let us not be one-sided, but view Shelley as a whole —the unripe as well as the sunny side of the fruit—the dark shadow on his orb as well as the sunlight. His impulsive character prevented him from laying enough stress on the grand principle of duty. Its infinite worth we cannot over-estimate. Duty is a pillar firmly fixed in rock of adamant, round which we climb heavenward; round everything else we only twine horizon tally, crawling along the ground. How far a stronger sense of duty in Shelley would have saved him from the wretchedness which he suffered, and his first wife from the terrible catastrophe consequent on his leaving her, we shall not attempt to estimate; but certainly it would have impelled him, as it did Milton, to return from Italy when his country was in danger, and like him also, if need were, to support himself even by keeping a school. We have already noticed his want of a due appreciation of the im portance of Labour. He forgot also that the energies of man are tempered to an iron hardness by adversity; that our strength springs up fresher and stronger under the clouds of trials and sufferings; that our souls are braced by the keen, cold winds of poverty; our faculties purified by the fire of affliction. Hence was he ever planning Utopias, where the idle should batten upon the earnings of the industrious — cloud-cuckoo-towns, where idleness and the take-no-thought-for-to-morrow principles should become the laws of our being, which are all of them impossibili ties on this toiling planet. Again, too, Shelley erred in being too ready to pull down instead of to build up. Greater harm has "been done, both in religion and politics, by men whose capabili ties have been of the destructive order, without the constructive �Shelley, and the Arrangements of Society. 119 faculty, than by all tlie bigots that ever breathed. It is worse than cruelty to take away the bread of life and the waters of life, however adulterated they may be, from a man, and offer his hungry and thirsting soul nothing in their place. But the grand mistake of Shelley’s was the idea of revolutionizing the course of things by a simple change of institutions. The best form of government can do but little, unless the reform begins with the individuals themselves. Govern ourselves well, and we need not then talk so much about governing others. It is not the form of government, so much as the men and women, we must care for— not this or that institution, but the first principles of honesty and justice amongst ourselves, which we must regard. That men should be severe upon Shelley we can well under stand—good, easy people, whose skins are luckily so tough and insensible that the harness of life can make no raw on them— whose heads are but moulds for so many cast-iron opinions and creeds. That an over-sensitive poet should break away from all the rules of life, and betake himself to the wilderness of his own doubts and speculations, is to them a most incredible, not to say a most wicked thing. To leave a home fireside, with its six o’clock dinner and port wine, in exchange for a doubtful supper on bread and cheese, and a certain one on metaphysics—to form your own world-theory—to found a fresh morality—is to them the height of madness. They forget that the arrangements of society are made, and rightly too, for the mass—that is, for such people as themselves—and that a poet is something very different from themselves, and that these laws which operate so well for them, will in all likelihood work fatally on the poet. So the poor poet must be hooted and brayed at by all the chorus of human owls and quadrupeds. He plunges away madly into the darkness beyond, solitary and sad, endeavouring to steer by the compass of his own thoughts. The world looks on him in his struggles and his toils with the same quiet indifference, not to say pleasure, that a boy does at a cockchafer spinning in agony on a pin’s point. That Shelley’s views were often wild and crude, no one for a moment will deny. Enthusiastic and impulsive, he jumped to all sorts of conclusions on the most important points. The value of a young man’s experience—and Shelley died at nine-and-twenty—is not worth much, and it is only by expe rience we can test anything in this practical world. He himself found this out at last. Circumstances also had a great effect in his case, as they have upon all of us. We perhaps can never rightly weigh the balance of any man’s actions, because we never allow enough for the circumstances which should be placed in the other scale. Here was Shelley, the son of a man who was , �120 Shelley. entirely different in his whole nature, sent to school where he * was brutally treated and discouraged in his studies, marrying a peison who was in no respects fitted for him. On the other hand, suppose that he had had a father who could have judi ciously sympathized with him, been sent to a school where masters would have encouraged his studies, and have married a suitable wife, who shall say what Shelley might have been ? But we are dealing with things not as they might be, but as they were and are. One small pebble in the way of a stream shall make the river flow in another direction, and water quite other lands and countries to what it does now. Yet man, perhaps, should not be a stream, as weak as water. Be this as it may, it is certain that before Shelley s death the mists that had long obscured the rising of his dawui were already melting, and his day was just breaking, all calm and pure; the bitter juices were all being drawn up, and converted into sweetness and bloom; the fruit of his genius was fast becoming ripe and mellow. We have gone thus far into Shelley’s life and opinions, without touching upon his poetry; for we think that if a person cared nothing at all about poetry in the abstract, he must be struck with that still higher poetry of kindness and generosity which so inspired Shelley. His written poetry, in our mind, is quite a secondary affair to that. There is a poetry of real life which is grander than any yet sung by minstrel. The man is greater than his poems. The critics have plenty of stock objections to find with Shelley’s poetry. The most common complaint is, that he is too metaphy sical ; that the air is so rarified in his higher regions of Philoso phy, that ordinary beings can’t breathe it; that his verse is like hard granite peaks, brilliant with the lights and the shadows of the changeful clouds, robed with white wreaths of mists, and touched with the splendours of the setting and the rising sun, but not one flower blooms upon it, not one living creature is to be seen there, only ethereal forms flitting fitfully hither and thither; and we must, to a certain extent, admit the truth of the charge. Shelley exhibited to a remarkable degree the union of the metaphysical and the imaginative mind. Philosophy and poetry prevailed over him alternately. For a long time he was doubtful to which he should devote himself, f It is from an overbalance of philosophy that there is such a want of concrete ness in his poems. He was for ever looking at things in a meta * “As like his father, as I’m unlike mine.”—Letter to Mrs. Gisborne, f See Mrs. Shelley’s note on the “ Revolt of Islam.” �The Cause of Shelley s Poetry. 121 physical point of view, projecting himself into Time and Space; regarding this earth as a ball, with its blue robe of air, “ As she dances about the sun,” instead of parcelled out into rich farms and sprinkled with towns, and solid three and four-storied bouses, and walls fourteen inches thick, tenanted by Kit Slys, Shylocks, Iagos, Falstaffs, and the whole company of humanity, who play on alternate nights and days the tragedy or the comedy of life. That he should have taken this abstract view of life is not at all wonderful. All great minds are ever attracted by the problem of life. This world riddle is of all things the most fascinating to the ardent and inquiring spirit. The reason why Shelley sang of the things he did, was simply that they both interested and pained him more than others. Living in an age, which gave birth to the French Revolution, which was agonized with the throes of all sorts of speculative theories, his verse naturally echoed them. Every true artist—whether by poetry, or painting, or architecture, it matters not—gives us the great questions of the day, with his attempted solution of them. Hence is it that Shelley is really a poet, be cause in his verse he truly sympathized with the wants of the day. Before a man can write well, he must have felt. It is not fine phrases, or similes, or fine anything else that make a poet, any more than fine clothes make a man. Shelley found out that the old-established customs, the old morals, the old laws, did not suit him. The every-day maxims of low prudence sounded to him very much like baseness; the common religion to him was synonymous with uncommon irreligion, and public morality looked to him merely a mask for private immorality. He felt all this, and felt it bitterly, and sighed after nobler aspirations; hence his poetry. His great failing is a certain amount of queru lousness, instead of calmly reposing amidst all his conflicts in an eternal Justice, which, though it may be far from visible to com mon eyes, is still the foundation of the world. He had before his death passed through only one stage of the conflict which most great minds undergo. Before belief, there must be doubt; before the fire, the smoke. Shelley never attained that perfect repose which the greatest poets have possessed, and his poetry consequently does not rise to the highest order. Now, Shelley defines poetry as “ the expression of the imagination,”* and he has Shakspeare on his side— “ The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact.” * “ A Defence of Poetry.” �122 Shelley. Strangely does that word “ lunatic” sound now, as we think of that tale of “ Mad Shelley.” But this is exactly what Shelley’s poetry really is—“ the expression of the imagination,” unmodi fied by experience, and any knowledge of this world of men and women. Imagination, though doubtless the first requisite of a poet, is far from all. As Novalis would say, “ a poet is a Tnie.rocosmos.” The great poets are all of them many-sided. Their poetry is both /ztjtnjtTtc and 7to' ]<tiq. They illustrate both the u Aristotelian and Baconian theory of poetry, as well as much more. They are like lands which bear crops of all kinds. They possess, in fact, the united faculties of all other men, and these faculties serve to check and balance one another. Every part working in unison, nothing unduly developed at the expense of another, are the characteristics of all great poets, and, in fact, of all great men, who are only poets in another way. Shelley’s imagination, unluckily, galloped away with him, instead of his reining it in. Take some of the most imaginative pieces that have ever been written, and we shall find how they are all of them more or less ballasted. There is that most fairy-like of all things, “ The Birds” of Aristophanes, brilliant with imagination, yet still occupying our interest by its wit and humour. Again, “The Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “ The Tempest,” with all their scenes from Fairyland, and their spirits, are balanced by the human creations, and the interest and incidents that arise from the plots. Shelley seems never to have anchored his imagination to anything. There was no clog to it. Nothing to tie it down. Hence his weak, shadowy drawings, his want of substance, an absence of reality. Hence his characters are too often mere personified abstractions; thoughts which have been only half-clothed in human bodies. For we cannot agree with Lord Macaulay in thinking that they cease to be abstractions, and interest us as human beings; for common experience tells us that they do not. * Shelley had in him none of the elements which made Shakspeare essentially popular. He was a vegetarian, a water-drinker. In philosophical moods he doubted the existence of matter; but then he was always in philosophical moods. He is, in short, too spiritual, too subtle for ordinary men with good appetites, who are not troubled by the theories of Berkeley. We cannot fancy him at one of those “ wit-combats” at The Mermaid, drinking sherrissack, and joining in the chorus of a song. He wanted the faculty of humour, though Captain Medwin assures us he possessed it strongly. We have looked in vain; we cannot find * See some incidental remarks on Shelley, in the Essay upon “ The Pil grim’s Progress.” , �if q ja dt <1 His Poems as illustrated by his Life. 123 a spark of it in his letters, which, on the contrary, are marked hy his usual melancholy spirits. He was too metaphysical to he humorous. He had more of the Jaques and the Hamlet vein than Falstaff’s in him. Hence his bitter outbursts of sarcasm. We must, however, turn to his Life to account for the peculiarities of his poetry. We find there that it took him only a few weeks to write “ The Prometheus Unbound,” whilst he laboured at “ The Cenci” for months; that he forsook his drama of “ Charles I.” in disgust, for “ The Triumph of Life,” one of his most abstruse poems. A curious trait, which gives us no little clue in the matter, is mentioned by Captain Medwin, that Shelley was in the habit of noting down his dreams. “ The first day,” he said, “they made a page, the next two, the third several, till at last they constituted far the greater part of his existence, realizing what Calderon says, in his comedy of ‘ La Vida es Sueno’— ‘ Sueno es Sueno.’ ‘ Dreams are but the dreams of other dreams.’ ” What could be expected of a poet to whom dreams were the only realities of life ? And yet there is something peculiarly pathetic in the story; to many of us, as well as to Shelley, probably our sleeping and our waking dreams are the happiest parts of our ex istence. We build our air-castles, those dreams of the day, and take refuge in them from the toil and uproar of the world. There are times when all of us become disheartened, when the spirit within us faints, when we sigh in our hearts— “ 0 cease ! must hate and death return ? Cease! must men kill and die ?” Shelley was, notwithstanding his sanguine hopes, subject to such fits of despondency; no wonder that he should write down his dreams. After all, we live far more in our world of thoughts, and fancies, and dreams, and spend a happier existence, too, in them, than on the real material world. Shelley, too, seems to have known that the abstract nature of his poetry would be a bar to his popularity, and says, in a letter to a friend, that there are not five people who will understand his ‘‘Prometheus Unbound;” and in his prefatory lines to his “ Epipsychidion,” he writes:— “ My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Who shall conceive thy reasoning.” And this might be said, with some limitation, of all his poetry. Again, when his wife complains of his want of human interest and story, he wishes to know if she, too, has become “criticbitten.” As he said of Keats, he himself can never become popular; his effect upon men will be, not to make them applaud, �124 Shelley. but to think. Popularity and fame were not the things Shelley cared for. It would be well if our young poets would remember this. No great thing ever did become popular at once. The fact of its becoming popular at once, shows it is not worth much. If you care for popularity, then write songs which can be played on street-organs, and by sentimental young ladies in drawing rooms, and which commonplace critics can understand. But if you respect yourself—and that’s the only respect worth anything —never mind if only five people understand you; these five are worth five millions of others, nay, are worth the whole of the rest of the world. As to Shelley being difficult to understand, we apprehend that this is far more the reader’s fault than the poet’s. Plato, instead of saying “ poets utter wise things which they do not themselves understand,” should have said, “ which their readers do not try to understand.” We are not amongst those who look upon poetry as a mere amusement, as a light recreation. The office of the poet is the highest in the world. As Shelley finely says, “ poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world;” and he himself was the Laureate of Freedom. The poet comes as spokesman between nature and the rest of his fellow-men: he is the true priest—the true prophet; extending the tent of our thoughts, enlarging the horizon of our ideas, teaching whatever is lovely, whatever is holy and pure, revealing the unseen things the common eye cannot see, and the melodies the common ear cannot hear, interpreting the mute symbols of [flower, and cloud, and hill, drawing his inspiration from the depths within his own soul. There is another point in connexion with this want of human interest in his poems—that though Shelley experienced at times all the hardships of poverty, yet he was not born poor. Unlike the Burns and the Shakspeares, he never mingled with the crowd, never learnt human life in that rough, coarse way, which tinges their poetry with common every-day experiences, and invests their characters with a flesh-and-blood reality. At school he was always reserved, and in after-life much the same. Hence it is that Sheliey never draws upon our feelings, like the great masters, in his longer pieces ; there is none of the pathos of life, except, per haps, in the “ Cenci.” He is too cold ; his characters are like statues of white marble ; no warm blood flows in their veins, no tears trickle down their cheeks. They might be inhabitants of another planet, for what we know, giving us the benefit of their views on various social problems. Again, as we are criticising, we must find fault with those dulcia vitia of overloaded imagery and similes. His verse too often flows not in a clear, deep, rolling stream, but more like a moun tain current, swollen and impetuous from rain, jostling together �The Past, Present, and Future. 125 ■ everything that floats upon it. His imagery is often so rich that, E- like the fruit on too luxuriant branches, it completely weighs k the verse down and requires propping up. A very curious ex|t ample of this may be seen in “ The Skylark,” where, after comk paring the bird to all beautiful things, having said that its song t is sweeter than the sound of showers, he closes by— L r r e “ All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.” He cannot, in fact, heap simile on simile fast enough, though the verses are even now overflowing with them, like flowers overpowering with their sweetness. Again, we must notice an opposite vice—a love for unpleasant situations and things— “ At whose name the verse feels loath ”— as in “ The Cenciand a disagreeable love for the details of madness and hospital-life, as in “ Julian and Maddaloand we have finished the catalogue of his principal offences. We dare say there are plenty more minor faults, but we wont deprive other critics of the pleasure of exposing them. Shelley’s imagination was both his stepping-stone and his stumbling-block. It unfortunately mars his poems by its over-excess, yet it gave him wings, with which he could soar aloft above the 8 grovelling views of our everyday life. The fault of the literature of E the day is that it is too retrospective ; thinks that the Golden Age « is in the Past, and not in the Future. It has its eyes fixed in the a back of its head, and if it ever attempts to look forward, squints s most abominably. This is the worst sign of the day, or of any fl day. Let us, if we will, praise the dead Past, and crown its grey a temples with a wreath of glory; but let us look forward to the A Future as a happv youth, holding a cornucopia of all good things 9 in his hand. Shelley, at times, when a film came across his w eyes, sank into this wild sea of despair, but his imagination soon m buoyed him up. There is a good Scottish proverb which it • would be well for us to remember—“We maun live with the « present, and no’ with the past.” Our duty lies with the present, m and it is simply by making it as good as possible that we can < mould the future. Shelley’s imagination, too, prevented him from js- sharing in our English insularity. There was nothing local in •H his mind. It was as catholic as the universe. Hence he was w ever looking forward with courageous hope. Golden gleams of -fl the future flashed before him. He could conjure up new Edens, ai and see Liberty again with Justice walking hand in hand upon a i® new earth. Shelley’s poems will not bear studying as a whole, nor will his ar characters bear analysing. They are, in fact, all representations ■ c ij k 8 w V �126 Shelley. of Shelley. The reason of this is that Shelley sought to give his own views to the world, and he had no medium to give it through hut himself. He had no resources from experience 'to draw upon, no character but his own that he really knew. His life was a poem, his poems his life. Alastor sailing in his boat, is Shelley ; Lionel in his dungeon-walls, Shelley; Laon, with his visions of Liberty, Shelley. So his female characters are only Shelley over again with long dresses and short sleeves. In one poem only, “ The Cenci,” does he make any effort to get behind the mask of his creations. But even here Count Cenci is only the reverse of former characters ; he is only their antithesis, as im pulsive towards evil as they were towards good. Shelley should have remembered an axiom of his favourite author, Plato—kcckoc JJ£V fytoV OV^UQ. Turning to Shelley’s poems, we perceive at once the instinctive feelings of the true poet. Thus he begins “Alastor” :— “ Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ! If our great mother have imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast I consciously have injured, but still loved And cherished these my kindred.” Mr. Leigh Hunt, in his “Recollections of Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries,” speaks thus of Shelley—“ He was pious towards nature, towards his friends, towards the whole human race, towards the meanest insect of the forest.” But he was more than this. He felt that we are all akin, not men alone, but the cloud above our heads, and the flower beneath our feet. He felt that man is related to the world as a Part to the Whole. He felt how all things mysteriously influence us, and how to these influences we are akin. Such natural stepping-stones as these lead us to Heaven, to which also we are allied. This rela tionship it is, above all things, the poet’s office to show. Dearly, too, does Shelley love Nature, who gives to us all alike her beau ties, trying to read us the lesson— “The simple life wantslittie, and true'taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn.”—(“ Epipsychidion.”) How long it will be before we shall find out that we can live without our present costly tastes, that our food will be as sweet from clean earthenware as from silver dishes (many of them, by the way though, only plated), that our sleep will be quite as re freshing from a plain bedstead as one that suffocates us with its unpaid-for hangings, we cannot undertake to say. The sooner, �His Love for Personification. 127 however, the better. Very fine is the old fable of Antaeus, who, when he touched his mother earth, received fresh strength. Nature is the true corrective of the false bias which our minds insensibly contract from the present sordid state of the world. A walk in the woods acts as a tonic. A landscape fills the senses not only with mere material visions of beauty, but these react again upon us with a precious moral spirit. We must not pass over Shelley’s love for personification of in animate objects, a result of his strong imagination. Take, for instance— “ Our boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars and the sails, but 'tis sleeping fast, Like a beast unconscious of its tether.” (“The Boat on the Serchio.”) There is another well-known example in the “ Cenci,” of the rock hanging over the precipice, clinging for support, as a dying soul clings to life. This propensity it is that leads him to humanize the objects of nature. He cannot see a stream, but he forthwith converts it into a personage, as the old heathen poets would have into a god or a goddess. He gazes upon Arethusa ; it is no longer a stream, but a beautiful nymph with crystal feet leaping from rock to rock, her tresses floating on the wind, and wherever she steps, the turf grows greener and brighter. And then comes Alpheus, no longer a stream but a river-god, with his fierce beard and glaring eyes, chasing the nymph whom the earth tries to rescue from his embrace ; and so they rush along in .their mad pursuit. This is quite in the spirit of the old Greek my thology. In these prosaic days we are ever analysing the old Divinities; we put Venus into a crucible and melt her down, and look at Jupiter through a microscope like any other specimen of natural history. We will, however, continue our quotation, as it developes many of Shelley’s characteristics in a few lines :— “ The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there; To tower and cavern, rift and tree, The owl and the bat fled drowsily. Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes, And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of airy gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled,^ �128 Shelley. JShelley’s love for the mountains amounted to a passion. Long before Mr. Ruskin wrote—who seems to arrogate for himself the priority of seeing any real beauty or use in them—had Shelley sung their praises. So fond was he of them, that Captain Medwin tells us he was continually sketching them in his books. A claim, too, has been put in for Wordsworth, that he first gave us the scenery of the sky, and all the glorious cloud-scapes and air tones, which earlier poets had so strangely neglected. Shelley may at least share this glory with him; though the critics have forgotten that Aristophanes has a still prior claim. Shelley is continually alluding to them. His lyric on the “ Cloud” paints them as they move in their huge battalions across the sky, in all their colours, from red sunrise to crimson sunset; or as they come sailing along with their black wings, as if they were Titan ships waging war one with another; or in the night lying as if they were silver sands lippled by the waves of the wind, and lighted by the moon. In all Shelley’s pieces there is a strange melancholy feeling, which we have alluded to before; not the result, as Mr. Ruskin foolishly thinks, of any impiety, but from the poet’s affection for Humanity, and his sorrow at its ills. Take this picture of Summer and Winter”:— “It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, Towards the end of the sunny month of June, When the north wind congregates in crowds The floating mountains of the silver clouds From the horizon—and the stainless sky Opens beyond them like seternity. All things rejoiced beneath the sun—the weeds, The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds; The willow leaves that glanced in the bright breeze, And the firm foliage of the larger trees. It was a winter such as when birds die In the deep forests; and the fishes lie Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes A wrinkled clod, as hard as brick; and when, Among their children, comfortable men Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold; Alas! then, for the homeless beggar old.” Shelley, with all his love for Nature, could no longer dwell upon the last scene. The wind sowing the flakes of snow on the earth, the frozen grass lying on the bald fields like grey hair, and the icicles hanging like a beard from the rocks, had no charms for him. He was thinking of all the frost-bitten, homeless, breadless wanderers. So through all his poetry he is ever musing �His Melancholy Feelings, and their Causes. 129 on the wrongs and sufferings of poor humanity. This gives it a peculiar melancholy tone, not morbidness, but a true deep pathos. He writes more of the fall of the year, than of its birth. He sings the dirge over its bier, rather than the marriage-song of the Spring. The wild wind, “the world’s rejected guest,” moans among his verses, and there finds a home. Ever does he say, “ the sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” Another reason is there for this feeling with Shelley, his habit of looking at the world from a metaphysical point of view. The very grandeur and might of the Universe casts a shadow upon the heart of man. All great minds have ever known this profound gloom. Whether CEdipus interprets or not the world-riddle, he shall die. Mark how in “ Alastor” Shelley writes— “ The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams.” How much is conveyed in that word “ homeless.” The streams wandering along, seeking rest and finding none, until they reach the haven of the sea, and then are snatched away again into the air, seeming to say, “ we change, but we cannot die;” here we are condemned to be for ever, restless, shifting, changing. So with all things. And Shelley felt this strongly. The mountains which seem so firm, and “ all that must seternal be,” are after all but as changeful as the clouds which rest upon their brows. Many minor points are there which we might discuss, such as Shelley’s particular fondness for a certain class of images, and particular words. On one of these in particular, taken from the green fields, he seems to dwell with great affection. Thus he writes— “ Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms, or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame.” (“ Sonnet on Political Greatness.”) So he speaks of Arethusa "‘shepherding her bright fountains of Adonais, “ whose quick dreams were his flocks and of the West Wind— “ Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed on air.” So, again, in the “ Witch of Atlas,” he calls the wind “the shep herdess of ocean flocksand he speaks of the earth itself as “ the last of the flock of the starry fold.”* Even in his prose * It is curious to notice how the “ one miud common to all individual men,” as Mr. Emerson would say, repeats the same idea. Thus Edward Bolton, a poet but little known, writes thus:— “ Lo! how the firmament Within an azure fold Theflock of the stars hath pent.”—(“ Hymn for Christmas.”) [Vol. LXIX. No. CXXXV.]—New Series, Vol. XIII. No. I. K �130 Shelley. he returns to this metaphor, and calls Dante “the Lucifer of the starry flock.”* And even in his translation he uses it, thus expanding eXar^pa (3oG>v, i]yhTOp oveipwv Nvktog, (“ The Homeric Hymn to Mercury.”) into “ a Shepherd of thin dreams, a cow stealing.” Other favourite words, such as “winged,” “islanded,” will readily occur to every reader. Space fails us, and we must he brief. Much more is there that might be said about Shelley’s poems, showing how, in the first place, they were inspired by his early reading, how they next yielded to German influences, how these developed themselves into Materialism, and how this, too, was merging into a sort of Spiritualism at the time of his death; marking each era accu rately, and showing, too, what effects the French and Italian schools of poetry had upon him. Especially, too, should we like to dwell on some of his lyrics; nothing approaches them for sweetness and melody, except some of Shakspeare’s songs, or some of Goethe’s minor pieces. But we must turn to the man himself. Poetry he loved with a religious spirit. Noble was he in work ing at it as his profession. Noble, too, was he in his choice of life. On one hand lay ten thousand a-year and its game pre serves, and its bright smiles of courtly women, its soft-cushioned and soft-carpeted drawing-rooms, its dinners with endless courses, its revenue of salutations and bows, its faithful army of faithless toadies; on the other, poverty with its bleak sharp rocks, where yet a man may find a cave to live in; its rude angry sea, yet to which if a man shall listen he may hear the eternal melodies; with its black clouds overhead, which, though so dense, will sometimes open out spaces of the clear, blue, unfathomable sky in the day, and the bright keen stars in the night. Shelley made no hesi tation which he should choose; and nobly done, we say to him, and all such. Noble, too, was he that he wrote on fearlessly and boldly in spite of party-reviews and party-critics. Fame was not his mistress. He worshipped not at the shrine of that most fickle of goddesses. Ever higher, was his motto. He was ever quoting this sentiment from the second volume of St. Leon— “ There is nothing which the human mind can- conceive which it may not executeand again, “ Shakspeare was only a human being.”t His face was ever upward—up the steep hill of poesy, whose rarest flowers bloom on the highest peaks. What he might And every one will recollect how Bloomfield’s “ Farmer’s Boy ” so naturally speaks of the stars as— “The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest.” * “Defence of Poetry,” p. 35. f See Mrs. Shelley’s note on “ The Cenci.” �His Personal Character. 131 have been, had he lived, we can never tell. Dying at twenty-nine, we are judging him only by his weaknesses. What could we have told of Shakspeare or Goethe, if the one had only lived to write his “ Pericles,” and the other his “ Werter” ? Let us not forget,- too, the pureness of Shelley s morals. His life in this respect was as pure as crystal without one flaw, one stain on it. Many scenes are there in his writings, one especially in the “ Revolt of Islam,” which could have been treated by no other man with the same pureness of thought. Above all things, too, do we prize his letters to his wife; they are so full of genuine affection and kindness. Well was it that he should die in the great ocean, pure as he himself was, that ocean which he so dearly loved. Above all men, too, is Shelley religious, strange as it will seem to many readers. Love for all that is good and beautiful and truthful, reverence for all that is great and noble, a spirit of humility, had their roots deep in the depths of his soul. What matters it about names and sects ? Let us hear no more about them; they are all but roads and lanes and paths, more or less straight, more or less wide, to the great Invisible Temple. We must place Shelley amongst the world’s Master-Spirits and Master-Singers; a younger brother of that grand blind old man, Cromwell’s secretary. Shelley, too, was one of the world’s Forlorn Hope; one of those generous martyrs who now and then appear at such rare intervals, and fill us with undying hope in the cause of Humanity; one of those who would willingly lay down his life in the trench, if his body would but bridge over the chasm for his comrades to pass. Such a man makes us prouder of our race; and his memory makes the earth itself a richer world. There is a light flung round Shelley’s life, though so marked with griefs and disasters, which has never shone on the most victorious king or Icaiser—a light that shall burn for ever as a beacon to all Humanity. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelley Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: p. 97-131 ; 22 cm. Notes: Includes bibliography (p.97) and bibliographical references. Reviews of four works about Shelley: The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1853 -- Essays; Letters from Abroad; Translations and Fragments. by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1854 -- The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, by Captain Thomas Medwin. 1847 -- The Shelley Papers by Captain Thomas Medwin. 1833. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Westminster Review 13 (January 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wise, John Richard de Capel Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Subject The topic of the resource Poetry Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (Shelley), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT44 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts English Poetry Percy Bysshe Shelley Poetry Poetry in English Romantic Poetry https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/cc8ab460d1f68ca7d6fc8bc2e3e76fbf.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=VQV3QDHhVppJb93ZCaieeL2Zg9Q4QvO3oiE9IDAyzyO075yaiovE8ly%7ECmu683ehO6kcxVft%7ErptDWfo4AHTljT37g4RumHY7vapmTQp7aWbsEmlOPbPXmeWyofLrMidAqWiwO7GwpokBsI4TgP5vSxHFiIhCPvw1kbZjSxlAOI8cOs31Js9KZ47qCOq3BQajBzLId9MPqJkrDaTR7ALFj6AqMLgN4Ukn7AbFJqcvQxvopZxIOXDTEmGML5zvoDkVzcfJ72rlKCYmd6VAuD-NCOHMzSs6rRIzbgcHFhHUr9bRuoQzqxY7ajxW92V88%7EHchyfUOlRm9YH4zOrifS%7EWw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM acc369f1f24576bb7e304380c560c38f PDF Text Text B3S NATIONAL secular 5 conex- THERE IS A GOD. ’• “ This Plea for Atheism,” writes Mr. Bradlaugh in conclusion to the pamphlet bearing that tit le, “ is put forth as a challenge to Theists to do battle for their cause.” The challenge we step forward to accept, but wish beforehand our intentions to be clearly understood, and our mode of warfare as well aB our plan of battle, briefly explained. If we accept, it is not with even the remotest fear as regards the strength of our cause, which is in no want of a champion, and has stood for ages by its own unassailable force. Nor do we dread that our adversary may succeed in imbuing the minds of his numerous hearers and readers with anything like the Atheism of which he professes to be so profoundly convinced. In so momentous a question, however, as that of the existence of God, were he to succeed only to raise the shadow of a doubt in the minds of his hearers, that shadow would, we feel certain, be attended with the most fatal results. There are moments when men, urged onwards by the torrent of their pas sions, would not—even though sure of eternal torments immediately following their act—hesitate to commit crime; and much more numerous still are the occasions on which they would act, if they could only imagine that they doubted of the existence of a Supreme Avenger of guilt. We do not here intend to affirm that Mr. Bradlaugh upholds a system of direct immorality; we only point out the reasons which make it worth our while to oppose him. The apparent doubt* he may too often raise • We employ purposely the words, apparent doubt, to mean a pretext for acting as if there were a real doubt. Whether we admit or no that there can be a real doubt as to the existence of God, will appear in our answers to the objections. �THERE IS A GOD. fig minds of uninstructed men removes a check to crime ®jB»<'heck which, however powerless it may be in the great ^^■xysms of passion, is most certainly of continual use in rne ordinary circumstances of life. So, in endeavouring to ’confute Mr. Brad laugh, and prove the existence of God, we are actuated by the hope of destroying the mists he may have raised in some minds, of hindering them from being raised in others, and thus, of contributing indirectly to public morality and virtue, by defending the strongest of all checks to immorality and vice. In this essay we shall oppose Mr. Bradlaugh’s theories in one way, and in one way only, i.e., by appealing to common sense. We are convinced that the common sense of a moderately intelligent and earnest man suffices amply to solve the problem,—and for a good reason too. If God’s existence could be proved only by abstruse meta physical demonstrations, the immense majority of mankind would never understand, and consequently would have a right to doubt them. But one cannot at the same time be a doubter and a believer; so iu that case the immense majority of men would have a right to be practically Atheists. That, of course, is what we must necessarily deny ; and our denial supposes that the fact of God’s existence can be made clear, even to the uninstructed, by the only method of reasoning which they possess,—com mon sense. We therefore, keeping as closely as possible to this plan of action all through,* except where the arguments of our adversary oblige us to follow him on to metaphysical ground, intend firstly to state the objections against Theism, which have led Mr. Bradlaugh to reject that doc trine, expounding his arguments, not of course at length and in his own terms, but with their full force of argument, and indeed trying rather to add strength to them than to * We must make an exception for one of the proofs of God’s exist ence, based upon the existence of eternal truth ; but this proof is so beautiful and so conclusive to a reflecting- mind that we could not leave it out. As for the others, if they are found too metaphysical, we can only say that we have done our best to make them plain, clear, and intelligible to all. ’ �THERE 13 A GOD. 5 lessen their power. We shall then set forth the con clusions to which he has arrived, or, in other words, ex pound the Atheistic system set up by him. All this part of the discussion is required by the commonest sense of fair play and impartiality ; and our side being the side of truth, we feel free to give the opposite party the first innings. We then, of course, proceed to point out the shortcomings of his system, and then to demonstrate the truth of our own. After the demonstration, we might leave Mr. Bradlaugh’s objections unanswered ; when the truth of a proposition is proved, the arguments against it are evidently false. Still, it would hardly be just or polite to refuse answering such easily solvable objections; for we may inform Mr. Brad laugh that there are other difficulties much more subtle, and much less easy to be apswered, than those he brings forward. When he finds them out we shall be willing to try our hand at solving them as well as we can. In the meanwhile we shall endeavour to conclude this essay by answering satisfactorily to the objections which to our adversary appear so weighty and so important. It will first be necessary to state them, i.e., the principal ones. Mr. Bradlaugh has published two pamphlets on the question of Theism ; the first entitled, “Is there a God?” and the second, “A Plea for Atheism.” In his debates he generally either attacks Theism connected with some peculiar religious system, or, when he brings out a direct argument against the existence of God, he only repeats what has already been written in the above-mentioned essays; so it becomes unnecessary to quote anything of his debates, except one or two seemingly new arguments against Mr. Cooper. First of all, let us take some selections from the essay, “Is there a God?” Mr. Bradlaugh accepts Professor Flint’s definition of God : A supreme, self existent, the one infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, unchangeable, righteous and benevolent, Personal Being, creator and pre server of nature, maker of heaven and earth, who is distinct from, and independent of what He has created, who is a free, loving, supreme, moral intelligence, the governor of �6 THERE IS A GOD. nations, the heavenly father and judge of man. Thia defini tion once set down, he proceeds to deny the existence of a being corresponding to the definition. 1. * According to Professor Flint, God is the Supreme Being. Now, (as Mr. Bradlaugh argues,) according to reason He cannot be supreme. But what is at once su preme and not supreme is absurd : therefore the idea of God involves an absurdity. That God is supreme, ac cording to Professor Flint, is undoubtedly true. That, ac cording to reason, He cannot be supreme is also evident; for the definition supposes Him to be infinite. Now, “su preme" is a superlative, and includes the idea of a com parison made between two or more individuals. But there are not, there cannot be, two infinite beings to compare together: therefore God cannot be called infinite by relation to any other such being. Neither can He be said to be supreme in relation to finite beings, for between the Infinite and the finite there is no proportion, and consequently all comparison is impossible. But even allowing comparison to be possible, God would not always have been supreme; for Professor Flint affirms Creation, and God would only have been supreme over finite beings since then ; be fore, there could be no comparison, as there was nothing to compare ; now, the idea of God having become supreme, after having been otherwise, gives us to conclude that His very definition has been changed, whereas Professor Flint says He is unchangeable. 2. Secondly, if God existed, He would be Creator and not Creator at one and the same time; which being absurd, it follows that God does not exist. Creator according to the definition itself, not Creator because of the impossi bility of creation. Creation is the making of existence ; now, if existence were made, before it was made nothing existed, for what could exist when existence itself had not been made yet? Now, it is impossible to admit that at any moment of the past there existed nothing at all; otherwise whence would that which now exists come from ? So existence must have always existed, and cannot have been • The numbers refer to the answers, infra. �THERE IS A GOD. 7 made; therefore creation is impossible, and God is at once Creator and not Creator: which is absurd. 3. Thirdly, God would be at the same time infinitely benevolent and not infinitely benevolent,—a self-contra dictory proposition. All the difficulty, admitting that Pro fessor Flint proves Him satisfactorily to be benevolent, will now be to demonstrate that He is not so. As is generally admitted by Theists, God might have created a sinless world if such had been His will.* Why therefore has He not done so? All will allow that He might at least have made a less sinful one, if, for instance, He had given more grace to man, or created him with more strength of mind to rule his passions. “ But, argue the Theists, God is not obliged to do that; the idea of duty is incompatible with that of the supreme and independent Being.” No answer could be more worthless. A benevolent man is not the man who does his duty, but one who does more than his duty. It follows therefore that a being infinitely benevo lent should do infinitely more than his duty, and either create a sinless world, if that be possible; or, if not, create at least a world much less sinful than the one in which we live. 4. Fourthly, God would be personal and impersonal,—a doctrine which no one in his senses can admit. The idea of God, as stated by Professor Flint, proves Him to be per sonal, but the same idea will also prove His impersonality. A personal being is something limited ; now, God is either infinite, i.e., unlimited, or not God. Therefore, if He be infinite, He cannot be personal; but He must be so, since He is the intelligent Maker of heaven and earth. There fore God is a personal impersonal being. 5. Fifthly, infinite and finite. Infinite, since there are no bounds to His perfection; finite, since He possesses one perfection which by itself supposes limitation,—intelli gence. Intelligence is essentially clear, definite, precise, * We here state the argument as brought to bear upon those whose Convictions coincide with our own, for we do not admit, with Mr. Arm strong, that the conception of a sinless world is self-contradictory. Against those who share his opinions the argument can be framed otherwise, and, we believe, unanswerably. �8 THERE IS A GOD. and consequently limited : therefore all things intelligent are limited beings. But God is intelligent, therefore He must be finite; and yet we have already seen that He cannot be so. The following objections are taken, in substance, from the “ Plea for Atheism.” 6. Theism checks man’s efforts, it is therefore a doctrine Dot to be admitted. It teaches that all things depend absolutely upon the will of God. Such teaching is a check upon the activity of man ; for in all things we may say : If this be contrary to God’s will it will never take place, and if it be according to God’s will it will take place, whether we exert ourselves or no. 7. God cannot be intelligent. Intelligence comprises perception, memory, and reasoning. Neither of these acts are possible to God. Perception results in the obtaining a new idea; God, being omniscient, has the same ideas eternally, and therefore cannot perceive. Memory recalls the past; for an unchangeable God there is no past, and consequently no memory. Beason implies a succession of acts; in God there is no succession, and so He is deprived of reason by His very immutability. If God can neither perceive, nor remember, nor reason, can He judge or think ? To judge is to join two ideas together ; but whatever is joined was not joined previously, and this is contrary to immufability. To think is to separate that which is thought from that which is not thought; that, too, implies change, and besides contradicts omniscience. If God knows everything unchangeably, He must ever be un changeably thinking of everything. But if God can neither perceive, remember, reason, judge, nor think, He can by no means be said to be intelligent. 8. God is not all-wise. If He were so He would not have created beings, or parts of beings, without any use whatever. That such beings and parts of beings exist plentitully in nature is a well-known teaching of embry ology, and indeed of all natural history. If therefore God be the author of nature, He must be said not to be all-wise. 9. God is not the Creator. For creation either added to the sum of being already existing, or it did not. If it �THERE IS A GOD. 9 added anything, then the sum is greater than the part, and the universe with God better than God without the uni verse. He is therefore not infinitely good if something can be better than He. If it added nothing, then the universe is identically the same as God, which is contrary to Theism. If it took anything away from the sum of being already existing, God was not all-wise in creating ; or, if He could not help creating, He was not all-powerful. Creation therefore neither adds anything to, nor adds nothing to, nor takes anything from, the sum of being. Creation therefore is absurd. 10. Some men are not convinced of God’s existence. Now, if God existed, He could convince men of His exist ence, so as to leave in their minds no doubt about the matter. If He could not, it would be because He did not know how to, or had not enough power. Therefore He will not; but if so, He is not infinitely good, for by so doing He could spare men a very great deal of misery. These are the most important arguments put forth by Mr. Bradlaugh in the two essays to which we have already alluded. We have been obliged to choose, for in many places there are as many as nine or ten arguments crowded together, with rare conciseness, in one page ; nay, some times one argument is so worded that it may be taken in two very different senses. But we trust we have chosen the most important objections; and as for shortening them, our only excuse is that it is impossible to do otherwise without writing a commentary upon each of these essays, (which we should do with great pleasure,) pointing out one by one all the fallacies employed by our opponent. 11. In the debate with. Mr. Cooper, there are also two arguments that can be mentioned, although they are but variantes of others already stated. The first runs pretty nearly as follows. Theism supposes a motionless cause which is the principle of the universe, i.e., which acts to create the world. If so, they can explain how action with out motion is possible. That, however, is inexplicable ; therefore the hypothesis of Theism cannot be admitted. 12. Another is : Two beings cannot be in the same place at the same time. But God is everywhere; therefore, to �10 THERE IS A GOD. make room for the universe He must retire from “ some where,” and is no longer infinite; or else He must make the universe out of “everywhere,” that is, nowhere. The first alternative contradicts the idea of God ; the second is self-contradicted by facts. It follows that God has not created the world. Such are the difficulties which have prevailed so far upou Mr. Bradlaugh, that he thinks himself justified in taking a position of defiance to nearly the whole human race, and building a system of which the denial of God’s existence forms the principal point. This system we now wish to state as clearly as possible. “ I exist.* My existence is either self-existent or created. It is not created, consequently it is self-existent, and I am self-existent too. If that existence were created, it would have been so either by an existence the same as itself, or else by another existence. Neither can be allowed, and so it is not created. It cannot have been created by an existence the same as itself; for then it would have been only a continuation of the same existence. It cannot have been created by any existence different from it, for an existence different from it would have nothing in common with it, since what has nothing in common with another thing can have no relation with it. Now creation is really a relation,—the relation of cause and effect. Creation therefore being impossible, my existence is self-existent. “But what has just been proved for my particular existence can be proved in exactly the same manner for all existence. And, as all things we see have mutual relations one with another, it follows that what seems to be different existences is only the same existence, differently condi tioned, otherwise they would have nothing in common. There is therefore but one existence ; the world, which means the same as ‘ matter,’ or ‘ universe,’ is a great uncaused being (debate with Dr. Baylee, p. 32), infinite and eternal. I am but a phenomenon of existence, and all that we hear, see, or feel, are only separate phenomena, * Debate with Dr. Baylee, page 41; Plea tor Atheism, appendix; Debate with Mr. Cooper, passim. �THERE IS A GOD. 11 not separate beings ; different conditions of existence, and not different existences.” “ These phenomena, conditions, or modes of existence are distinguished in thought by their qualities.” Whether the modes are really distinct from each other, or only in thought, is not determined ; whether the qualities which form the distinction are really different qualities or no is not stated. “Qualities are characteristics by which in thought I distinguish that which I think,” says Mr. Bradlaugli, and he says no more. But what if the same ques tion be again asked, viz., whether those characteristics are really different from each other, or only rendered different by the process of thinking? Let us give an example of the two distinctions. We say that Mr. Bradlaugh is really distinct from any other man, because it seems that, inde pendently of our thought, and whether we think about him or no, he is not the same as another man ; and we say that their characteristics are really different. We say that M r. Brad laugh the philosopher can be (in thought) distinguished from Mr. Bradlaugh the orator, and that the characteristics of both are only distinguished in thought. Now the question is, whether Mr. Bradlaugh admits real distinctions or no; whether all things are, according to him, only distinguished in thought. To this question no answer is given in any of the debates aud essays which we have had the occasion to Bee. It is only now that our work begins seriously, by re futing Mr. Bradlaugh’s system. Until this moment we have but stated his objections and theories, and though we promised to stand by the logic of common sense, we evi dently did not intend meaning that such logic should extend to our opponent. As has already been seen, Mr. Bradlaugh brings forward some deeply metaphysical ob jections, and his system is built upon the most metaphysical of all ideas,—existence. We have, of course, to follow him wherever he goes, but even in the deepest and most entangled metaphysical problems we shall ever try to keep an eye upon common sense. Waiving for the present a direct answer to the objec tions accumulated by the adversary of Theism, we think �12 TBERE IS A GOD. proper first of all to examine his own system. Even if his objections were unanswerable, it would Dot follow that his system is certain. Of his objections, not a single one is completely new ; some,—for instance, the one against creation,—dates as far back as Aristotle, a philosopher well known to be by no means an A theist.* These objec tions therefore might, if unanswerable, prove the eternity of matter, a dual principle, positive pantheism, transcen dentalism, or even Atheism of some sort; but they would not necessarily prove Mr. Bradlaugh’s Atheism. Mr. Bradlaugh argues that his own pxistence is not created; and, according to him, the same may be said of all existence. But why ? Because creation is the action of one existence upon another, different from it,—which is absurd. If Mr. Bradlaugh sees very clearly the absurdity of one thing acting upon another, different from it, so much the better for him. For our part, we do believe,— and shall continue so to do until further notice,—that the hammer of the smith is different from the inass of red-hot iron drawn out of the forge, and that the difference in question does not hinder it from acting on the said mass of metal. We believe that two prize-fighters are not identi cally one and the same being, and yet they act upon one another very forcibly. In our humble opinion, confirmed by these facts and many others, two different beings can act upon each other. Let us, however, examine the axioms brought forward to sustain the system. What has nothing in common with another has no relation with it. If you mean by “ having in common,” to be identically the same, we should think that nothing has anything in common with another by the very fact that it is something else. Two drops of dew, two blades of grass, suppose them as like as you will ; or take, if you like better, two atoms of exactly the same size, form, and intensity and direction of movement. We have said, the same size, and we can say so in one point of view, * We will, however, give Mr. Bradlaugh credit for having found these objections out “all by his own self.” Otherwise, how could he * not be aware that they have all been answered a thousand times, from the days of Tertulliuu to those of Leibnitz and of Clarke ? �THERE 19 A GOD. 13 for in our mind the size is the same ; but the expression is no longer exact if we apply it to the reality t hat exists. Each has its own size ; that size happens exactly to resem ble the size of the other; but the quality, though perfectly alike, is not identically the same. If therelore you take things in that light, your axiom proves far too much. No two things have anything in common in that sense; conse quently, according to you, no two things can act upon each other, or have any relation with each other. Causes are no more, effects exist no longer, and ail relations vanish away. If, on the contrary, you take the word, “to have in common,” to mean the possession of something that, al though not really and identically the same in both, is exactly alike, owing to a fundamental similitude in both natures, then indeed we must admit the axiom. The hammer, were it not as solid as the iron, and more so, would not be able to act upon it; its action therefore depends on the mutual solidity of both, one, however, being greater than the other. A lady could hardly act upon a prize fighter in the boxing way, because they have little in common to render a contest possible. If Mr. Bradlaugh takes it in this manner we admit the axiom. But now let us see how it works. Is it true that one existence is either totally identical with another, or so distinct, so different, as to have nothing alike,* having either everything in common, or nothing in common, without a medium ? In the first signification of the word this might be true; one existence is completely and totally different from another, for the very reason that it is another. Every particular and individual thing exists in a way that excludes participation with any other, whatever it may be. If A is A, and B is B, then A is by no means and in no wise B, and B is by no means and by no wise A. This is not metaphysics ; it is mere common sense. Ask the simplest-minded boor whether he be auy thing else but * It is so in Mr. Bradlaugh’s system, for by existence he understands whatever exists ; there can therefore be but one. But we are now attacking the demonstration of his system, to defend which he has no right to suppose the conclusion as already demonstrated. �14 THERE IS A GOD. himself: the answer would soon be made, and unhesi tatingly. Yes, this is true ; but in this souse the axiom, we have already seen, is false. Because I am not anybody else, it does not follow that I have no relation with any body else. It is only true in the second sense: things which have nothing in common, {i e., nothing alike in their nature,) can have no relation with each other. Well, precisely iu this sense it is monstrously untrue to say that two exist ences have either everything in common or nothing iu common. They can have, as everybody is aware, like qualities, and even like essences. All men possess intelli gence to a certain degree, and by means of this intelligence they can act upon each other. Stones are not intelligent, and precisely from this point of view men cannot act upon stones, nor stones on men. But both have in common that they are solid bodies, capable of movement; as such they can and do act reciprocally. So we see that in the grand argument by which Mr. Bradlaugh proves his own exist ence to be uncaused and eternal, if we admit one part we must deny the other, unless, as we pass from the former to the latter, we change the sense of the words. Now, by changing the sense of words we may prove a great many things as we go along, to the entire satis faction of weak-minded people and idiots. For instance— Puss is a cat; A cat is a whip ; A whip is a member of parliament; A member is a limb ; A limb is a part of the body; Therefore Puss is a part of the body. But, it will be said, this is manifest nonsense that any body can see through, and if Mr. Bradlaugh’s argument resembled this one you would not want to write against it. We should certainly not want to write against it if everybody was as familiar with the two senses of the words “ in common " as with the two senses of the words cat, whip, member. Unfortunately it is not so. Words are often employed without attention to their precise sense, and if there are two different senses, of which the difference �THERE 18 A GOD, 15 does not seem great, the difference is often overlooked. This may be allowed in ordinary conversation, not in philosophical debate. A few grains weight, more or less, matters little at the grocer’s; at the druggist’s the same difference in quantity may matter a good deal. And the drugs furnished by the latter, though sufficiently pure for medical purposes, may be rightly considered by the analytical chemist as miserably impure. Between Mr. Bradlaugh’s argument and the ridiculous string of non sense quoted above, the difference is in the matter only, not in the manner. However, let us for the present say no more of the reasoning in question, and scrutinize with a little closer attention the system which it is intended to uphold. Ac cording to Mr. Bradlaugh, the words “matter,” “uni verse,” and “ existence,” are synonymous. The whole universe is one great uncaused being. Of that being, each phenomenon is but a separate condition. Every man, for instance, exists, i.e., possesses existence, but existence is identically the same in all. Possessing existence, he is a being, and yet there is but one being,—the universe. To explain matters yet more clearly, a stone, a tree, a dog, and a man, are all the same being, but in a different way. Here you have the being existing stonily, there arborescently, further on doggedly, and humanly at last. It weighs in the stone, grows in the tree, barks in the dog, and thinks in the man. Stone, tree, dog, and man are all outward appearances, nothing more, somewhat in the same way (we imagine) that a single drop of dew or prism of crystal can be seen red, blue, yellow, or green at the same time by different spectators. Whether the theory be poetical or no we shall not attempt to decide; as our opinion is decidedly that “ truth alone is beautiful,” “Bien n’est beau que le vrai...... ” we shall only examine whether it be true. And firstly, let us remark the unpleasant fact that this theory sets Mr. Bradlaugh by the ears with nearly all mankind. We do not speak only of the more intelligent part of men, deeply read in science and in philosophy. �16 THERE TS A GOD. We do not even allude to the class of ordinary intelli gence ; we take the very lowest class of all, and appeal to those whose uncultured stolidity brings them almost to the verge of idiocy itself. To them we would say: “A very intelligent gentleman is of opinion that whatever he, you, anybody, or anything else may be, we are not several beings, but only one ; that if you see any difference be tween yourselves and the clods of earth which surround, you, it is a mistake to think there is any difference in reality, it only appears so. Whatever exists in you is absolutely the same as what exists in the clods of earth ; you seem to be different, and that is all.” What would their answer be ? We need not anticipate it. The system is not only contrary to the universal con viction, but also to the senses, i.e., to those organs which set us in communication with the external world. Mr. Bradlaugh,'having brought forward his one existence, or oDe being, must necessarily admit that nothing else exists besides it. Well then, what are the phenomena which we see going on before our eyes? Are they beings ? No, of course. Are they one Being? My senses tell me they are not. I see the balloon ascend and the stone fall. Can one and the same being receive at the same time two con trary movements? Why, even a mathematical point cannot be imagined thus, much less a real being. Will you say that these phenomena, modes, conditions,—or whatever you may call them,—are not really distinct appearances of the Being, but only Actively so, only seemings of which all the difference proceeds from our own thought, and has no foundation in the world that is? But it is impossible for us, when we feel cold or heat, to think that cold and heat have no foundation but in our thoughts. If your doctrine of Atheism denies the real difference of phenomena, we should, to follow it, have to make first of all a blind act of faith, not in the veracity, but in the absolute mendacity of our senses. All becomes a dream, and you cannot expect any reasonable man to admit that. If, on the contrary, you admit their real difference, your theory is doomed ; for when I see the balloon and the stone, and think that they are the same being possessed �THERE IS A GOD. 17 with contrary movements, I think an absurdity. You might have escaped this result, if you had anywhere said that the phenomena in question, which we call substances, are parts of the same great being. But you nowhere em ploy that expression ; and rightly, from your point of view; for to break up one existence into innumerable parts would be the ruin of your doctrine. If we turn to the faculty of self-consciousness, we find other and perhaps greater difficulties still. “ Doubt as I may,”* says Mr. Bradlaugh, “I cannot doubt of my own existence.” But seif-consciousness, by the very same act by which it reveals our existence to us, reveals it as some thing limited, individual, clearly distinct from all that is not ourself. In Mr. Bradlaugh’s system our existence is not different from all existence, and is therefore infinite, universal, mingling confusedly both us and all other phenomena together in one great whole. Now the ques tion is, whether conscience lies, in revealing our existence to ourselves as it does. If it does not lie, Mr. Bradlaugh’s system is overthrown ; for either conditioned existence is the same as existence in itself, or it is not. If it is the same, it cannot lose all the qualities of existence, merely by being conditioned. If it is not the same, we may beg to remark that all existence is conditioned, and that there fore the one existence, infinite, eternal, indistinctly the same in all and under all phenomena, is nothing else but a myth, a creature of imagination. But let us suppose that Mr. Bradlaugh prefers saying that self-consciousness is wrong ; that existence is the same in all, but that it seems—only seems—to self-consciousness to be distinct from all. The reply comes immediately : “ As the very same act gives you the knowledge of your existence, and of the manner of your existence, you cannot separate the one from the other; you cannot doubt of the manner iu which you really exist, without doubting of your very exist ence. You cannot impugn a document that tells against you, without also attacking the favourable clauses it con tains. You cannot take down the sail that carries you where you do not wish to go, without being abandoned to • Discussion with Dr. Baylee, p. 41, 2 �18 THERE IS A GOD. the mercy of the waves.” Self-consciousness is the faculty that tells us what we feel, and in what way we feel it. If I deny that in doing so it expresses the truth, if I am not as I feel that I ain, it might as well be that I am not, although Ifeel that I am. Mr. Bradlaugh has, we believe, no way of escape from these difficulties, unless indeed he should affirm that his self-consciousness tells him his existence is infinite, eternal, and universal; or, at least, that it gives him no information whatever about it. This would evidently close the discussion under that head. Another fact at least as unpleasant is, that Mr. Brad laugh’s system is the negation of all arithmetic. We should have been less inclined to note this disagreement, if our adversary did not continually point out and exaggerate the contradictions he finds, (or thinks he finds,) between arithmetic and the different sorts of Theism. He even makes merry about them, and needs, though at the cost of spoiling his mirth, to be reminded that those who live in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones. Addition is the foundation of all arithmetic, and Mr. Bradlaugh’s system is contrary to addition. Every school boy that knows how to read knows that one and one are two, and one are three, etc. Let us take any object, A for instance. A exists, or is, i.e., A is being (according to logic). . But what being is A? Is it all being, or only some being? It all being, then necessarily nothing can be added to it. But we can say the same of B, C, D, or any other object of thought of which being can be predicated in the same way. Then all together, instead of making up several beings, (though each is everything!) only make one, and there is an end of addition. If A is one, (by which unit we designate all being,) and B is one, then A added to B ought to make two ; and they only make one. But let us fancy that the other alternative is taken ; each is only some being. Then again, if A is distinct from B, A is some being, B is some other being, and both together, (each separately being one,) form two beings. But no, that cannot be ; A is distinct from B, but neither is distinct from being; and as there is only one, the being A, added to the being B, cannot form more than one. You can add �THERE IS A GOD. 19 np phenomena as much as you like, you will never come to more than an addition of phenomena. Jones exists, there fore Jones is a being; Smith exists, therefore Smith is a being ; Brown exists, therefore Brown is a being. But are Smith, Brown, and Jones, taken together, three beings? Not in the least ; they are only one being and three phenomena. Not having had the opportunity of putting these difficulties to Mr. Bradlaugh himself, we naturally try to find the most reasonable reply he could make. He might, it is true, avoid the difficulty to a certain extent, by saying that one can exist without being ; that he can with perfect truth say at the same time, “ I exist, and I am not a being.” But this would only open the way to other and greater objections ; besides, we should be sorry to load with unnecessary absurdities a system so heavily laden already. By a process resembling that already followed, it might easily be shown that the system contradicts the ruleB of subtraction, multiplication, and division; but the proof is the same, and repetition would be tedious. Should Mr. Bradlaugh try to escape by saying that his system allows the counting up of phenomena, and operating upon them as if they were beings, the terrible question always returns, Are these phenomena really distinct from each other and among themselves, or are they but phantoms of the brain ? If the distinction is real, then there is in them something real on which the real distinction is founded, and that something, distinct in each, exists separately from the one existence mentioned, which is contrary to monism.* If not, these phenomena are only a succession of seemings, all false, and to which no reality belongs. Four are not really * For if one thing exists separately from another, there must be a sufficient reason for the separation ; and as there is nothing in the “existing” which is not in “existence” (its intrinsic principle), we must seek the sufficient reason in “existence” itself. If, therefore, two phenomena are separate from each other, that quality, “ separate” must be found in their existence also. Thus their existence is separate in each. But what is separate is not one, but many, in so far as it is separate; so, at least under one point of view, there would be many existences. This is so far contrary to monism ; for it would be absurd to suppose that many existences could at the same time be only one, under the same point of view, i. e. as individuals. �20 THERE IS A GOD. more than two, but only appear so, like four quantities added together, all equal to zero. If there is nothing distinctly real in phenomena, a farthing and a million sterling only seem to be different, but are not so. A farthing is existence conditioned in a certain phenomenal way. A million sterling is the very same existence con ditioned in the very same way, which way (not which existence) is repeated 960,000,000 times; but this way is only an appearance, and so its repetition makes no difference whatever on the total amount. We doubt, how ever, whether capitalists, (solvable ones at least,) would be willing to adopt this very original manner of considering money. Finally, all science is destroyed by the system in ques tion. Either the one existence is distinct from the pheno mena, or no. If distinct, the phenomena exist apart, and there are more existences than one. If not, each pheno menon is existence it self, only modified by the mind: infinite in itself, rendered finite by our mind ; eternal in its nature, but mentally circumscribed by time. All that our mind tells us of these phenomena, eveu with indubit able evidence, is false, totally false. All that we can learn of the sun, the stars, the earth, is absolutely untrue. History, geography, chemistry, physics, all give way, all are useless pursuits of knowledge. All that is, we know already ; why should we strive to ascertain that which only seems ? We should much regret any unintentional unfairness to Mr. Bradlaugh as to the exact understanding of his sys tem ; but even if we had misunderstood him, it would not be our fault. Our opponent, in all his essays and debates, keeps to offensive warfare for the most part, and is much more occupied in at tacking other systems than in stating his own. A few pages contain all that he says in its favour ; he does not even appear to dream that anything can be said against it, and supposes that, with all its consequences, it will be taken for granted. That we feel some degree of hesitation in taking it thus will perhaps be understood, after the perusal of the defects we think we perceive therein. But Mr. Bradlaugh is very clever, and may be �THERE IS A GOD. 21 able still to show us that all is right; that existence and phenomena are identical, though different; that the addition of several beings to each other only forms one, although they are many ; and that, while we cannot doubt of our existence, because we are aware of it, we can still doubt whether we exist in the manner of which we are aware. And yet, even though Mr. Bradlaugh should prove these wondrous things, we submit, that it is hardly worth while to leave the mysteries of Theism for others darker still, whether or no there be a direct demonstration of the existence of a Deity. Of such existence, however, there are demonstrations, and in great ’number, some of which we now desire to bring forward, after having made a few preliminary re marks concerning one of Mr. Bradlaugh’s assertions. He complains that the greatest difficulty in a discussion is to know what is meant by the word “ God ;” because, if we do not agree about the sense of the word, we shall not even know what we are disputing about; and to prove that different meanings are given to the word, he shows that Pagans, Jews, Mahometans, Arians, Trinitarian Pro testants, and Catholics, have different views of the attri butes of God. To this it will be sufficient to reply that all have the same definition of the u-ord, but a different one of the Being that the word is intended to name. The starting point is the same for all ; but, the directions taken, being various, the goals at which they arrive are various too. But what can it matter about the goal, if the starting point is identical for all ? Wherever false systems or gross ignorance have come to wrong conclusions about anything, we have the same confusion as to consequent reasonings upon primitive ideas. Would it not be ridicu lously absurd for anybody to pretend that we do not know what is meant by the word “Man”? And yet we can say that Plato defines him to be “ a two-legged animal without wings or feathers;” that Aristotle calls him, “a reasonable animal;” that de Bonald says he is “an intelli gence served by organs;” that the Christian philosophers of the middle ages affirm him to be “ an immortal spirit, substantially united to a mortal body;” that modern �22 THERE IS A GOD. naturalists give him the title of “a bimanous mammal-” and that the negroes of the Gabon coast confound him with the gorilla, whom they call “ the stupid old man." Now, from all these expressions, representing widely different ideas, we might, by the same process of reasoning that Mr. Bradlaugh uses, gather that nobody really knows what is meant by the word man. We^ therefore start from a mere verbal definition of the word “God,” and afterwards prove that a Being answering to the sense of the definition really and positively exists. 1 hat is all we intend to do, and we wish it to be understood at the very outset. Were we to go farther our essay would become a theological treatise, which We do not wish it to be. At the bare fact of God’s existence, once proved, we stop short, admitting of course implicitly all those of His attributes which may be by argument deduced from that fact, but not attempting to prove them. Should Mr. Bradlaugh therefore condescend to examine our demon strations, let him take the definitions as we give them ; for as we are to bring forward several demonstrations, so several definitions shall also be given. lhe apparent difference of definitions by no means interferes with the sense of the word itself; only we shall adnnt that from some it is not possible to draw the idea of a God infinite in being; but that is of no consequence, if we can deduce the idea from other definitions. We shall therefore draw up two series: of adequate definitions and of inadequate ones. Mr. Bradlaugh will of course not mn to observe that such proofs as do not demonstrate a God infinite in being do not demonstrate what is required. We reply that they prove the existence of a being ausweryig to the definition ; if they do not demonstrate Him to be infinite, others do; it suffices that they do not prove Him to be finite. Should our adversary again take excep tion to our defining the sense of one word in two different wavs, we can refer him to a well-known example in geometry. Euclid defines a line as “length without breadth,^and Legendrecalls it, “the intersection of two surfaces. Both define the same word in the same sense perfectly well, but from different points of view. Differ- �THERE 13 A GOD. 23 ently worded definitions do not therefore argue different significations, but different manners of expressing those significations. We must also allow that none of our demonstrations prove immediately, and without the help of farther reason ing, the unity of God. But they prove that there is at least One. It is only afterwards that the impossibility of several Gods appears. This remark applies to some of Mr. Bradlaugh’s complaints. He would wish for an argu ment that proved immediately the existence of one, infinite, eternal, omniscient, immeasurable, all-good Creator. If such a proof were possible, on its being brought forward he would doubtless complain again, and insist that it be given him in one single argument and were it to be thus given, he would find it still too long. Let him carry this system of cavilling into the domains of other sciences, and ask, for instance, why chemical nomenclature and notation throw no light upon the phenomena of the viscous fermen tation, or why the Pons' Asinorum is unable to prove that a sphere is equal to the two-thirds of the circumscribed cylinder. The answer from both chemist and geometrician would be, “ Have patience, my friend, we shall come to that in good time.” Il time is allowed to the geometrician and the chemist, should it be refused to the theologian ? Adequate Definitions.—I. By the word “ God,” I mean the principle of all existence. II. By that word I mean the priuciple of all possibility. III. By that word I mean a Being, (or beings, if there be more than one,) to whom there is none superior. IV. By that word I mean a Being answering to the idea we have of the Infinite, i.e., perfection without end. Inadequate Definitions.—I. The principle of all change and variation. II. The principle of all movement. III. The author of all moral obligation. First Proof.—All existence must have an existing principle. Now, this priuciple I call God. (I. Det.) Therefore God exists. All existence must have an existing principle. By “ prin ciple,” I mean a sufficient reason for its existence. Now, �24 THERE IS A GOD. evidently nothing can exist without there being a sufficient reason for its existing. Existing. If the principle were only ideal and imaginary, it could not be a sufficient reason for that which exists. In this proof we have not demonstrated that God is separate from the universe; so, if this demonstration were taken apart, Mr. Bradlaugh might say that his views coincided w'ith our own, that lie admits existence to be its own principle, that therefore existence is God, or that all is God. But we object to the demonstration being taken apart from the refutation of Mr. Bradlaugh’s theorv ; having amply shown that the theory of one existence only is ab surd, we cannot admit that Mr. Bradlaugh quite agrees with us. True, he might still plead that even if there be many existences, each of them may be self-existent, or containing in itself the principle of its being, and that there might thus be as many gods as there are atoms. We reply, firstly, that if that were the case, the strength of our argument would be in no wise diminished. If it pleases anybody to say that every atom is a God, he may do so (until proved to be absurd); but he has not the right to say there is none. We may also answer that the idea of an atom having in itself the principle of its existence is contrary to common sense. If it were self-existent, it would be necessary; if necessary, the supposition that it might not have existed is absurd ; and yet who would have missed it? It is only a contingent, not a necessary part of the universe. Besides, the principle that gives exist ence, gives all perfection, since existence is the fountain of perfection. If our atom possessed that fountain in itself, it would be infinite in all things, for nothing could bound it except itself, and nothing can limit itself. In finite therefore in all things, in dimensions, in activity, in beauty, and at the same time being only an atom, it would be in all a most elementary and imperfect being. Now, if anybody was to tell us that all the water of the ocean was contained in a dew-drop, we should very naturally ask, How is the dew-drop so little ? And if we see a poor man who gets by his work only just enough to live, and no �THERE IS A GOD. $ , 25 more, and are told that he has an unlimited credit at the banker’s, the question arises, Why is he not better off? only in the latter case the answer might be, Because he does not choose to be so ; whereas a being that is its own principle can by no means change its nature, and choose to be otherwise. A man cannot by a wish become a stone: whatever is essential is necessary. But this again is a digression. We do not mean to attack Polytheism now ; we do not mean even to attack Pantheism. We prefer, if agreeable to all parties, doing one thing at a time: and, as Mr. Bradlaugh calls himself an Atheist because he denies all definitions of God, we defy him to deny this definition, or attack this demonstration. Second Proof.—Whatever is possible must have an existing and intelligent principle. Now, that principle I call God. (II. Def.) Therefore God exists. We must subjoin to this argument a few words of ex planation. “Whatever is possible,” means only whatever is not absurd, i.e., whatever is simply and absolutely true without reference to time or place. Thus the multiplica tion table, though invented by Pythagoras, contains a series of truths which were only discovered by him, and which were true as independently of him as they are of the things to which they are applied. Were there not two calculable beings in the world, still two and two would make four. In the same manner they are independent of human reason, that only perceives, but does not makei them. Were all mankind to go mad, and no longer to admit that two and two are four, it would be none the less true for their denial. What is there in that truth ? A simple possibility, a mere intelligibility, expressed by a formula independent both of existence and of man. Now we say that whatever is possible must have an existing principle, and to prove it we return to the defini tion of a principle, i.e., a sufficient reason. Would a pos sible being be the sufficient reason of what is possible? No ; for nothing would ever have been possible if nothing had existed. Possibility therefore depends on a certain existence ; not mine, nor yours, nor any existence which we know to be subject to change and mutability. Now, �26 THERE IS A GOD. the something on which possibility depends is called its principle, and we call that principle God. Nextly, we affirm that the principle in question must be intelligent; not as men are said to be intelligent, since we have seen that the intelligibility and consequent truth of things possible has nothing whatever to do with man, and is completely independent of him. But, knowing them to be intelligible since all eternity, we ask, Can anything be eternally intelligible without there being something eternally intelligent I Fancy for an instant that intelligence disappears totally from the universe ; nothing is intelligible any longer. The difference between the absurd and the non-absurd,—-consisting only in the contradiction of characteristics, which contradiction cannot subsist without intelligence,—ceases at once. Now, if Mr. Bradlaugh does not hesitate to affirm that there is no difference between what is absurd aud what is not, we shall not trouble him any longer with our affirmation of an eternal intelligence; but until he shall make that declaration we are free to maintain that all eternal, immutable, and necessary truths depend (to be what they are) on an eternal, immutable, necessary, and intelligent existing principle; and this principle we call God. As already stated, we do not by this argument intend to prove the unity of God, since that is quite out of the question for the present. Plato was, if we mistake not, the first who employed this manner of reasoning, and he argued thence the existence of ideal forms, unchangeable, necessary, and eternal. If by “ideal forms” he meant beings existing separately, these “forms” were so many gods, and his philosophy ended in Polytheism. However, though this conclusion might have been false, the argu ment, as we have stated it, is true, and the number of gods is, we repeat, only a secondary question. If Mr. Bradlaugh is struck by its efficacy, he is by no means likely to fall into the error of Plato ; not being very partial to the idea of God, one God is probably the most he can admit, and if he does, we shall ask him no more. Third Proof.—There exists at least one Being to �THERE IS A GOD. , 27 whom none is superior. Now, that Being to whom none is superior I call God. (Def. III.) Therefore God exists. It is impossible for Mr. Bradlaugh to take exception, even in his system, to such an argument; as he admits only one being, no others can be superior to it, and there fore his one being is God. But we have already proved the absurdity of supposing that there is only one being in the world. There being therefore several, we proceed to prove our argument from this starting point. We first of all take for granted, as a fact known by all who are in their senses, that there is a difference in the perfection of some beings. We think it not at all hard to be obliged to admit that Hamlet is superior to Caliban, that the elephant is something more than the oyster, and the palm-tree than the blade of grass. If this be granted, common sense will at once see that in the series of all beings, some being above others, there must be some, (or, still more probably, one.) that are the highest of all, i.e., to whom none is superior : for the number of existing beings cannot possibly be infinite, and therefore must be terminated at both ends if we ran»e them by order of perfection. Anybody can see that no number can be infinite if he reflects that it would be the greatest of all numbers possible. Let us suppose that a hundred quintillions be called infinite; then what would be a hundred quintillions plus one? And how can any number be innumerable ? To those who prefer a more mathematical demonstration we can give one such. Let x represent the whole number of beings, ranged by order of perfection, and let us take at random any part of the more perfect beings: x* will represent the more perfect part, x" the less perfect. But among the beings represented by xi, are all equal in per fection or no ? If all are equal, then we have already the leing (or beings) to whom none is superior, and the problem is solved. It not, then by a similar process we find x™ aud xlv; xM representing the more perfect part of the beings represented by x*. Aud as the number each time diminishes regularly by at least one unit, it is evident that we must in time solve the problem, simply by repeating �28 THERE IS A GOD. our mode of reasoning often enough. And whether we come at last to one being who is above all others, or to several equal to each other, and to which no others are equal, the question is henceforward, not between Atheism and Theism, not between Pantheism and the doctrine which it contradicts, but between Polytheism and Mono theism. With a Polytheist we should now be willing to open the debate ; but Mr. Bradlaugh could hardly be con sidered as such, and so we avoid entering into useless details. Fourth Proof.—An absolutely Infinite Being, taken as we conceive it in our minds, must be either absurd, or merely possible, or really existing. Now, it is neither absurd nor merely possible. Therefore it exists, and therefore (acc. to Def. IV.) God exists,* We take for granted, first of all, that we possess the idea of an Infinite Being, i.e., whose perfection is ab solutely without limit in every way. Secondly, that this idea is a real idea, i.e., an intellectual representation of an object. To these two postulata self-consciousness must bear testimony. This being settled, we proceed to notice that the Infinite cannot be absurd if we have a real idea of it. Of a thing absurd we cannot properly have an idea; as, of a round square, we have two ideas, the idea of round, the idea of square; and, if we see that it is absurd, we have, besides, t he idea of conflict between the two thus brought together. But not only we have not any idea of conflict when we say: perfection without end, i e., perfection without imper fection, or (what comes to the same) being without nonbeing; not only we do not seize the conflict, but the two intelligible notes of the idea are blended together in one; that is, we have of the Infinite a true idea. We think that this fact will be evident to any one who takes the trouble to examine his thoughts as they occur to him in * Many, we know, justly criticize the argument a priori for God’s existence, in which one proves a fact from simple possibilities, and passes thus from the ideal to the real order of things. But our argu ment is only exteriorly like the one we allude to. It argues from a fact to a fact: from the fact of our having the idea of the Infinite, to the existeuce which this idea implicity includes. �THERE IS A GOD. 29 ' the mind’s laboratory: and so, the Infinite cannot be absurd. Still less can the Infinite be a merely possible being. Non-existence is a very great limitation, a very con siderable non-entity, and, though not the strongest possible, yet still a strong negation of being. “ A living dog is better than a dead lion,” says the proverb ; and there is no doubt that a merely possible man is incom parably less perfect than an existing grain of sand. Now we have already said that our idea of an Infinite Being, not absurd, supposes Him to have all imaginable per fections, absolutely without limit. Therefore, if the Infinite Being were merely possible He would be ab solutely perfect and at the same time very imperfect, which is inadmissible. Therefore, in the idea we have of the Infinite, we must comprise that of real existence, much in the same way as in the word “I” we comprehend the idea of our own existence. Therefore, God exists. One objection to all the preceding demonstrations has been perhaps already made by the reader. Setting aside the possibility of Polytheism, and supposing each demon stration to prove the existence of a single being, it follows that we have: 1st. The Being who is the principle of all existence. 2nd. The Being who is the principle of all possibility. 3rd. The Being to whom none is superior. 4ih. The Being whose perfection is infinite. Assuming tor an instant that these are different beings, * each very great in his way, but not one and the same, which of them are we to call God ? And, as long as it is not proved that they are one and the same, we have the right, as we please, either to call each of them God, or to withhold the name from all. The answer is that, according to our definitions, we cannot withhold the name, if the Being answering to the name be proved to exist. We are consequently at liberty either to consider God as one being, or as four, so long as it is not proved that these four are one: that the principle of all existence is also that of all possibility, has no �30 THERE IS A GOD. superior, and is infinite. But, once more, and for the last time, the question of God’s existence is quite different from that of the numerical unity of the Divine essence. We must now rapidly set forth a few proofs which by themselves would not demonstrate the existence of God, according to all the plenitude of the idea, but which nevertheless are useful, if employed together with the proofs already given : what may be wanting to these in depth will be supplied to them by the former; and on the other hand, the latter will perhaps be more perspicuous to certain minds. However, we only use these arguments as secondary and auxiliary ones, knowing that against some of them many objections may be raised; they are thus only stated for the sake of fuller illustration of the subject, and because we consider the existence of God as a fact already settled by the four proofs just laid down.* “ God,” has been previously defined as “the principle of all change.” By “change,” we understand the passage from one state to another, by which a bei»£, having before existed in one manner, exists afterwards differently. Now, nothing can change itself alone, without any intervening cause whatever. Cold water, for instance, is not warm, and will never become warm of itself; if, therefore, we find that it has become warm, we naturally conclude that something external has acted upon it, whether as a pro ductive or as an occasioning cause. In cold water there is only the possibility of warmth, not actual warmth ; and if this mere possibility were left to itself, the water would doubtless remain eternally cold. In general, nothing can give itself what it has not; unless, indeed, we admit that * it is possible to draw money out of an empty purse. Something external must act upon the water, in order to change its state. This external agent is subject to the question: In acting upon the water does it change? does * Some will be surprised to find that neither in the preceding nor in the following proofs, any mention is made of the well-known argument drawn from the order of the universe, that denotes a supreme Intelli gence. The reason is that the proof, though good, has been so much impugned in the very principles on which it is based, by the modern school of Positivists, that it would take too much space to establish properly here. �THERE IS A GOD. 31 it pass from the inactive to the active state? If it acts without change then it is a principle, and as such comes under the denomination of God. If it changes, then some other external agent determines the change, which agent is itself liable to the same enquiry. Now this question may recur again and again ; but still we must come to an end at last. An infinite Beries of agents is absurd, because all such series must be so ■ and even were it not absurd in itself, it could not be admissible here. If you construct in imagination an infinite series of agents, you destroy the very principle of change; for you put it nowhere. Each particular agent is but the transmitter (so to speak) or conductor, not the real principle of change; and if you tell me that change has no beginning, no origin, you may as well tell that you have received a letter that had passed through an infinite series of postal stations, without having been sent off by anybody. An agent which only produces change by changing itself, is nothing else but a medium of transmission, not a principle, and, as all change supposes some degree of activity or actuation, when I see that activity or actuation I have the right to inquire whence it proceeds. If my researches lead me higher and higher, farther and farther, to a First Prin ciple of mutation, which must exist if mutation exists, I call this principle God, and affirm its existence. If you say that there is no first principle of mutation, you deny that there is any principle, and according to you, that most universal phenomenon has no sufficient reason for being what it is. Another definition describes God as the principle of all movement. Inertia is the first mechanical law of matter. And yet matter moves. You will say : It moves because it is moved by other matter; one ball pushes another for ward and is itself urged on by a third. Yes: but who gave the impulsion to the third ? You reply : We do not know how movement came into the world ; but in the world it is, and the universe is so fortunately arranged that no movement is ever lost, but passes on from one body to another, and so on ; until at last it returns to the �32 THERE TS A GOD. place whence it came. By that means we can very well do without the notion of a First Mover. You can, can you ? Whether that may be true philo sophically speaking we do not know; we prefer submitting your hypothesis to the test—the terribly severe test—of common sense. Take an uneducated countryman, as ignorant, as likely to be imposed upon as you can possibly imagine one. Show him a circular railroad, of, say a mile, in circum ference. The whole of this railroad is crowded with carriages, which form, so to speak, a circular train. There is no engine, no locomotive; and yet the train moves on ; one carriage touches another, and communicates the move ment which it has itself received. Then tell the man that nobody has set all these in movement; that the carriages move each other, and that thus the whole moves on ; that t he idea of a first mover is a totally useless supposition, and that, since every part moves each other, the whole can be considered as self-moving. It is very much to be doubted whether he would take you in earnest; and he would certainly be right not to do so. And yet there are philo sophers who claim to be in earnest, and wish us to believe the great movement of the universe (of which almost every material part—indeed every material part taken as such— is quite as inert as any railway carriage) to proceed from itself, and pass ou from one portion of matter to another, without having to refer to any First Principle of Move ment whatever.* Why should that which is absurd and nonsensical on a small scale, become reasonable and philosophical on a large one? For our own part, we see in such a system nothing but magnified absurdity and gigantic nonsense. By a third definition, God is called the Author of moral obligation. We do not, absolutely speaking, allow this * Mr. Bradlaugh seeks to elude the difficulty by defining the uni verse as “all that is necessary for the production of every pheno menon.” He might as well define the train in question as “the carriages in movement, and all that is necessary to set them in move ment.” He would thus, by a confusion of terms, be able to say that the train moves itself, since he therein comprises the mover. But thia is mere shuffling. �THERE IS A GOD. 33 proof to be a good one; for we can only deduce the idea of moral obligation from that of the existence of God : it would consequently be a vicious circle to prove the exis tence of God by moral obligation. However, for those who do admit the existence of moral obligation, the proof is valid, and runs thus: Certain acts we know to be wrong, and therefore for bidden. Now, what is “to forbid?” Is it merely the promulgation of a consequence: If you act thus, you will suffer thus? Murder, for instance. “If you commit murder and are caught, you will be hanged; and even if you are not caught, you will have to suffer from fears of the law, and sorrow for having destroyed a member of the human race.” Is that all ? Then let us suppose that from a murder committed no evil consequences should arise in this world: that it is impossible for the action to be detected, and equally impossible for any sorrow to arise, the man killed having been the object of the most deadly hatred on the part of the murderer. Well ; would murder in this case still be forbidden? Of course it would, all reply. But then, by whom could it be forbidden ? By society? Society can go no further than impose a penalty ; and, if this penalty be eluded, society’s prohibition is vain. By the murderer’s own nature? But the murderer’s own nature has prompted him to do deliberately what he has done; he has not acted under the impulse of passion, but with cold-blooded craft. How can nature forbid that which she herself does? You will say that human nature recoils from murder. So it does in general; but human nature taken in general is but an abstraction, and an ab straction cannot forbid a real concrete being. This human nature at least, i.e.t the murderer’s, has not recoiled, since it has acted. Now, if man be responsible to none but to his own nature, his nature will absolve him in each par ticular case of crime which it has not hindered him from doing. And yet murder is forbidden? By whom? By the Author of moral obligation, whom we call God. Take another instance. Is suicide forbidden ? If we are answered in the negative, we can only prove it to be so by God’s eternal prohibition; but we have a great majority �34 THERE JS A GOD. of men who consider it; in no case to be allowed. To those then, we say : Who can forbid it? A man is utterly wretched in this world. Society cannot punish him for suicide, by which he escapes all punishment; by destroying his own human nature he does not punish himself; on the contrary, he liberates himself from a state which he feels to be unbearable. Besides, to diminish the sum of misery in the world may appear a good and virtuous action. And yet, is suicide forbidden? Yes. Who can forbid it? Only One on whom human nature depends, and who, in dependently of punishment, can say with truth: Man has no right to do wrong. And indeed, all men would, if God did not exist, have the right to do wrong and suffer the consequences. According to the Atheist, if a man were deliberately to choose that which is wrong, taking upon himself all consequences, he would have not only the physical power to act thus, but also the moral right. Each human being has the moral right to do whatever he chooses, if only he have no physical restraint upon him. And if this doctrine be contradictory to any one’s idea of right and wrong, he must confess that by that idea he implicitly admits the existence of God. Our work,—all but the part which refers to Mr. BradJaugli’s objections,-:—is now ended. Before we give our answers to these objections, we wish to say a few words as to the manner in which he came by them. Sages of all times, from the first ages of the world’s existence up to the present day, have by the preceding arguments been, satisfied, even to the most absolute certainty, that there exists a God. This great question once answered, they take up a second as important as the first (if possible), though entirely dependent upon it, viz.: What is God ? What may be the nature of that existing and Infinite Principle of all? By dint of deep thought and profound meditative labour, they have succeeded in finding out some of His attributes, which, on one hand, are as certain as the facts which'prove His existence, since they are only strict inferences drawn therefrom; and which, on the other, involve many mysterious problems, so wonderfully luminous that they almost seem self.contradictory : just as �THERE IS A GOD. 35 the sun emits a blinding light. So Mr. Bradlaugh collects all he can find in the way of mysteries, and having brought them together, says: God must have these and those attributes; now each of them contradicts the other, there fore, the idea of God is absurd. He ought, however, to remember that we only draw our different inferences as to the attributes of God after having proved His existence; so our opponent ought first of all to prove invincibly that our demonstrations are of no value, and only then to attack those attributes, which are all based upon the said demonstrations. If God be an absurd being, there must certainly be a flaw in the proof; why then not point it out more clearly?* So long as Theists are able to defend their demonstrations—and that will be very long indeed— let him not trouble himself about anything else. So long as any one proof remains standing, it will be an insur mountable obstacle to Atheism. When we are reduced to silence, and the existence of God, instead of being an in dubitable truth, is evidently proved to be a mere hypo thesis, why, then it will be time to examine whether or no that hypothesis be absurd. What would become of science, were a similar method to be pursued, and the great truths it proclaims to be denied on account of the minute difficulties which those truths involve? Such objections are unfair, unless put with the intention, not to overthrow the truth, but only to cast more light upon the darker sides of the question. It is therefore in this sense alone that we are willing to answer them, considering our answers as only a development of that most fundamental answer to all difficulties—the demonstration. 1. What strikes Mr. Bradlaugh first of all is, that if God be Infinite, He cannot be called Supreme. If He were only the most perfect of all finite beings, He might receive that title; but, as soon as He is proved to be In finite, it is impossible. He will not allow us to say that the Infinite is greater or less than the Finite, or even » Mr. Bradlangh does indeed assail the demonstrations of the existence of God ; but, strange to say—or rather, nof at nil strange to Bay,—he dismisses the most important of them with a few words and accumulates all the strength of Iris arguments upon the least important. �36 THERE IS A GOD. equal to it, if lie follows up his principle, for we are not permitted to institute any comparison between them ; the reason is, we suppose, in the axiom : between the Infinite and the Finite there is no proportion. But how did he come by the axiom ? was it not by comparing them with each other? It is, therefore, only in a limited sense, and not absolutely (as Mr. Bradlaugh does) that we can say, that there is no proportion. The very axiom indeed, can be put under the form of a proportion, thus: The Infinite is to the Finite, as 1 (or any number) is to 0. Now the want of proportion between 0 and 1, does not hinder us from saying that 1 is greater than 0. But, let us take a more direct view of the question. That there is between the Infinite and the Finite, con sidered as such, any other relation than that of inequality must of course be denied; but that of inequality exists. If so, the idea “greater than” can at once be applied to the Infinite in relation with the Finite. But is the idea “supreme” anything more? It only affirms besides, what we already know, viz.: that there is nothing greater than the Infinite. Moreover, we can consider God independently of His Infinite attribute, and simply as one of the immense series of beings. We at once see that He occupies the first rank, above all others; for it is absurd to suppose that a real being cannot be classed with other real beings, if we abscind from what sets him apart from them. Every day we see naturalists place man at the head of the animal kingdom, along with monkeys, butterflies, snails and star fishes, merely because they abscind from the faculty of reason that sets man apart from all other beings.* Seeing then that God is First of all things existing and possible, we can surely call Him supreme by relation to them. Thus, as Infinite, God is above all finite beings; as a Being, He is at the head of the whole series. In both ways He is entitled to be called Supreme. • And they are perfectly right so to do, reason not being a faculty that belongs to natural history, which ought only to describe exterior characteristics of the animated and inanimate world. �THERE IS A GOD. 37 We shall now try the value of Mr. Bradlaugh’s objection, by putting it in the same way to other subject-matter. The Queen cannot be called the supreme ruler of the land, for she would be supreme either in relation to another queen, or to subjects. Another queen there is not; but, “supreme ” means, “ the first of all in a series ;” now, it is impossible for the Queen to be the first of all her subjects, since she is no subject. It is, perhaps, a very pretty play upon words,—we are no judges of such things; but it is nothing better than that. He adds to this difficulty a short remark in which he says, that even if God were Supreme now, He would not always have been so, the fact of Creation being admitted. We shall only notice in reply, that the word “ supreme” is a title referring to the existence of other beings, not to the nature of God in itself; therefore, even if there were a change in the idea, it would not be a substantial change in God, as considered before and after Creation. If I stand still, and a carriage passes from my left to my right, I may be said to have been, first at the right of the carriage, then at the left: and yet my position has not changed in the least. Suppose the Queen of England, (to return to our comparison) were one morning to find herself alone in her kingdom, all her subjects having died suddenly, she would, of course, be no longer queen ; but would that in volve any change whatever in her? Titles which proceed from an external relation are merely names which may be applicable or no, according as the relation changes. 2. Our adversary fares no better with the next objection, against the creation of the world. “Creation is the making of existence.” Of all existence? We deny it formally; never did we think that God made Himself, although He is His own principle. Of some existence? That we are willing to admit. Creation is the making of a finite, contingent and temporal existence by an Infinite, necessary, and eternal one. So, before that temporal existence was, something existed already; and it is grossly unfair to represent Theism as supposing nature commence ment, in the sense which Atheists give to “nature,” i.e.} all that is. �38 THERE IS A GOD. Let us try an adaptation of Mr. Bradlaugh’s argument on creation, and prove that it is impossible to light a fire. To light a fire is to produce heat: now heat cannot be produced; for, before heat was produced it was nowhere, and there was no such a thing as heat in the world. But I cannot look back to a moment when there was no heat, for I know that all bodies possess, and ever have possessed, more or less of it. Consequently, to light a fire is an impossible undertaking. Such an argument, applied to the lighting of a fire, would have brought its author to a cell in Bedlam; applied to the creation of the world, it has raised him to a seat in the parliament of England. 3. The argument against God’s benevolence has the merit of being rather more specious. “A benevolent man is one who does more than his duty; a being infinitely benevolent ought to do infinitely more. God, in not creating a sinless world, has not done infinitely more : consequently God is not infinitely benevolent.” Indeed ! Pray, what is the duty of God ? He has none, and owes us nothing. The Supreme Being can be by no means bound by duty towards those who depend upon Him in all. Owing us nothing, it follows that in whatever world we live, and however little God may have done for us, He will have done infinitely more than His duty, if it be true that something is infinitely more than nothing, and that any number is infinitely more than zero. Even the most ardent Atheist will confess, we hope, that existence is better than non-existence, that to have a chance of being happy is better than to be utterly deprived of that chance. Well, all of us have both existence and a chance of being happy. God, by that gift, does infinitely more than He ought, and shows thereby His infinite benevolence. Why does God not do more still, since our world is not perfect? That we do not know, and if Mr. Bradlaugh wanted only to prove that man is not omniscient, he would easily gain his point; but as a proof that God is not benevolent it fails completely. We fancy that our opponent is led astray by a false idea of infinite action, which in his mind would be, “ to do as much as one possibly can.” Now the fact is, that an act can be infinite in itself, and yet produce only �THERE IS A GOD. y 39 finite results, on account of the debility and imperfection of the matter on which it works. 4. Another difficulty arises. God cannot be personal, because He is either infinite or not God. Now, all ideas of “personality” give us also the idea of limitation. We beg leave simply to deny the latter proposition without more ado. Personality we consider as the highest sub stantial perfection of an intelligent being. If the being in question involves in its essence limitation and imperfection, personality will no doubt be limited and imperfect, not because it is personality, but because it belongs to such a being. Thus, God having been demonstrated to be in finite, it follows that His personality is also infinite. 5. This brings us to the next question, whether an in telligent being can at the same time be infinite. We have not to ask whether in every known case intelligence is limited, but whether the very idea of intelligence argues limitation ; and we answer in the negative. Intelligence is essentially clear: is the Infinite essentially dim? Intelligence is something definite and precise: is the Infinite indefinite and vague? Let Mr. Bradlaugh have the kind ness to go back to our definition of the Infinite Being,—one who possesses perfection without end. Therefore the Infinite must be infinitely clear, infinitely definite, infinitely precise, since precision, definitenesBj and clearness are perfections. All those qualities are qualities of intelligence, and intelligence is itself a perfection ; consequently God must be intelligent, because He is infinite. 6. “ Theism checks man’s efforts,” says Mr. Bradlaugh. That depends. A certain Theism, infected by fatalism, certainly does so. If we believe that whatever happens happens necessarily according to God’s will alone; if we annihilate the liberty of man, and suppose that all that is to happen must take place antecedently to any display of human activity, and without his choice having any effect upon that which shall be, then we certainly check man’s efforts in the most fatal way. But this is far from being Theism itself, since a great many schools of Theistic doc trine have declared in the most emphatic manner their abhorrence of this error. The only effect which we can �40 THERE IS A GOD. discern in the ordinary doctrine of submission to the will of God is that we learu “ To mend what can, And bear what can’t be mended and not only to bear, but be glad of it, since we know that it is the will of the All-good. A seeming evil menaces us; our duty is to exert ourselves to the utmost in order to ward off the peril. But if all our endeavours are useless, if the seeming evil does really fall upon us, then we are happy ; for we know that the evil is only a seeming one, and in reality a great good, since it comes from the Allgood. A true Theist is the most happy of men ; if suc cessful, he is happy for having done what he wished to do ; if unsuccessful, he is still more happy for not having done what was against the Divine will. But a still more evident proof that Theism does not check man’s efforts is, that Fatalism can exist independently of any Theistic doctrine; for Fatalism springs merely from the denial of human liberty, not from the affirmation of the power of God. Substitute to “ God’s almighty will ” the “ laws of nature,” and you have modern fatalism, of which, if we are not much mistaken, Mr. Bradlaugh is himself an adept, for he seems clearly to deny free-will iu man.* Now if, instead of all things proceeding from the eternal decree of an intelligent being, all proceeds from the everlasting law of an unintelligent one, we are at a loss to see how this sort of Atheism differs from that kind of Theism ; both have the same maxim : What is ivas to he, and could not be otherwise. Why then give ourselves any trouble? is the natural consequence of both. We here detect a second stone which Mr. Bradlaugh throws, un mindful of the fragility of his own dwelling. 7. The argument we have next quoted, though directed against God’s intelligence, only proves that the intelligence of God is of a different nature from ours; which, seeing all His other attributes, and the immeasurable distance be tween His nature and ours, was certainly a very likely conclusion. AV e perceive new ideas, remember old ones, • “ What did Jesus teach ?” p. 7, “Heresy,” p. 49. �THERE IS A GOD. 41 and attain by reasoning to higher knowledge. God is omniscient, and therefore neither perceives, remembers, nor reasons; consequently, (according to Mr. Bradlaugh,) to know everything signifies to be without intelligence! If so, why should not the highest degree of intelligence be to know nothing? Cannot the gentleman see that if God does not perceive, remember, or reason, it is because He does not want those faculties, but has the grand faculty of omniscience, which transcends and supersedes them all? Why do we perceive? To fill up a defect in our intelli gence, which is never in possession of all it is able to know. Why remember? Because another defect renders our intelligence unable to have everything present to its mental vision at the same time. And we reason only to supply a third defect, which is, that we cannot at once see all the relations of all ideas one with another, and all the con clusions that flow therefrom. Mr. Bradlaugh’s enumera tion of the acts of intelligence is, in fact, only the enu meration of the defects in our intelligence. Perfect in telligence is that which knows everything at one glance, with an implicit judgment contained in that glance. God has but one idea; this idea represents everything that is, that was, that will be, and contains in itself all true judg ments, as the idea of existence affirmed, (z.e , of the identity between the subject and the predicate,) is comprised in the idea “I.” Such is the rapid and imperfect outline of God’s intelligence, which we give for want of space to add more. “Judgment,” says Mr. Bradlaugh, “implies the joining of two ideas.” Explicit judgment may do so; implicit judgment supposes the two ideas joined in one already. And the one idea which God has, being infinite, being God Himself, is equal to an infinite multitude of human ideas. “To think is to separate what is thought from what is not thought.” Yes, in man, since man’s mind is not able to think of all things at once and without confusion. But the Divine is not the human nature ; His thought embraces all, abscinds from nothing, unites all things in one vast affirmation, without concentration of mind on one par ticular object to the detriment of the rest. God’s mind is concentrated upon all things together. And thus Mr. �42 THERE IS A GOD. Bradlaugh’s objections prove only this,—that our intelli gence is of a very bounded and feeble description, obliged to aid its flickering gleam by numerous faculties, which, while they help its action, declare openly its radical infirmity; just as the numerous members and organs of the lower animals at the same time supply a want and reveal an imperfection. 8. “ But G-od is not all-wise, having created beings and parts of beings that are of no use.” Of no use? We cannot find words to treat such pre sumptuous ignorance as it deserves: but here silence is best, the silence of scorn : not for our opponent, but for his objection. Besides, another has, long ago already, in sublimer language than we can command, joined the highest flight of poetry to the soundest accents of reason in con demnation of such temerity. Our only answer will be a quotation from the immortal author of the “ Seasons.” “Let no presuming impious railer tax Creative Wisdom, as if aught was made In vain, or not for admirable ends. Shall little haughty ignorance presume His works unwise, of which the smallest part Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind ? As if upon a full-proportioned dome, On swelling columns raised, the pride of art, A critic fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads An inch around, with blind presumption bold, Should dare to tax the structure of the whole ? And lives the man, whose universal eye Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things, Marked their dependence so,-and firm accord, As with unfaltering accent to conclude That this availeth nought ?”* 9. Creation is again brought forward. “ The sum of existence,” say you, “ cannot change.” But we also, who believe in the creation, admit that, and we are algebraically right. Let us discuss the question algebraically, not that we intend thereby to decide whether or no algebra can be applied to philosophical reasoning, but merely as a manner of stating rather more clearly the point in discussion. Call what existed before the creation, 00, (i.e., the * Thompson, “Seasons,” (Summer.) �THERE IS A GOD. 43 Creator,) and what existed after, CO + a, («.<?., the Creator and things created ;) we say, y' * 00 = 00 + a ; and we defy any man who knows algebra to say that our equation is a false one: for nothing finite, however great, can add anything to that which is infinite already. The existence or the non-existence of creatures adds nothing whatever to the sum of existence, or, to speak with more exactitude, it adds comparatively nothing. Now, the infinite, to which you add something that is comparatively nothing, is like a quantity to which you add another in finitely small; it becomes no greater than it was before. And yet a may be as real as you like, as great as you like, as distinct as you like from the infinite, the result will be always the same. But if things are so according to algebra, the most precise of all sciences, what more will you have? If exactitude itself fails to content you, how can we hope to satisfy your objections? 10. “Some men are not convinced of God’s existence.” Thereupon Mr. Bradlaugh builds an argument to prove that the Deity is either not all-wise, or not all-powerful, or not all-good. To reply, we begin by denying the basis. There is no man who is not convinced of God’s existence. Some may be so ignorant that they have never thought about the matter. Some there are who perversely refrain from thinking about it; others may strive to raise clouds before a truth as bright as the sun, accumulate objections without number, and pile up difficulties without end. But the honest doubt of a man who wishes sincerely to see his way to what is true, there certainly is not. And as neither pride, nor passion, nor wilful ignorance can be laid to the charge of God; as, moreover, ignorance, it not guilty, is not punished, we are right in affirming that there are practically no Atheists. “ The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Not in his mind, even though he is a fool: conviction will not enter there. Where then? In his heart. That is, “ I wish that there be no God. I have settled that there ought not to be one. I am determined to seek every reason to prove to myself that there is none. �44 THERE IS A GOD. But all that is useless, and the Atheist only succeeds in being an Atheist in his heart, and remains a fool. Cer tainly, the expression is strong; but should we use a softer one for a man who by every possible effort of will strove to elude the evident truth that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third ? Now, the existence of God is not one whit less evident. Of course we do not by these remarks mean to say that Mr. Bradlaugh is anything but a very clever man; we only regret he should waste such abilities as his in so hopeless a cause. 11. He considers Theism as inadmissible, because it cannot show “ how the first cause, which is motionless, can have moved to make the world.” In this reasoning there are two weak points. Firstly, Theism is not bound to show how things are ; it suffices that it shows that they are so : and that we have done already. Secondly, we deny that the First Cause moves to make the world. It acts without moving. How is that ? we cannot understand it, but it is proved to be so. “ Action” is not synonymous with “movement.”* In movement we find an imperfec tion, a variation, a constant change, which may perhaps be essential to the action of finite beings, but certainly not to that of the Infinite One. An eternal immutable Act, which in eternity is the principle of God’s own existence, and in time that of all other beings,—such is God. No movement, no mutation, but a calm, undying, unchangeable Activity. How can that be ? No man knows : but nothing is further from absurdity than this act, the perfection of all acts, and from which every shade of passivity and inertia is banished. 12. And now we come to the last recorded objection, which argues either that God, being everywhere, made the universe nowhere, or that, if the universe is nowhere, * On the contrary, we find in Mechanics that with levers of the first class, where the force is applied to the shorter arm, the less the acting force moves, the greater is the movement it produces: for the shorter the arm where the force is applied, the longer the other which is put in motion. Here we have, therefore, a very strong action combined with very little movement, which produces a very considerable move ment of matter. Therefore, to act is to produce movement, but not necessarily to be moved oneself, at least, not at all in proportion with the intensity of the act. �THERE IS A GOD. 45 God is not everywhere : and that, by the reason that two existences cannot be together in the same place. Mr. Bradlaugh is certainly very pardonable for bringing forward this difficulty, as it coincides perfectly with his views on the question. He says he is unable to conceive anything else but matter, and that for him the words “ matter” and “ existence” have the same sense. Now matter is universally allowed to be impenetrable, so that two different bodies cannot occupy the same place. If, therefore, we imagine God as a body, the argument might be very difficult, if not impossible to answer. But that is precisely what we deny ; God, according to our point of view, is purely spiritual. Now, though an immaterial being may occupy space as well as a material one, it does not occupy space in the same way. It is not extended into quantitative parts by the proportionate parts of space which it occupies : it is only present by its action in space, and that is all. Besides, do we not every day see examples—not of bodies, it is true,—but of phenomena which compenetrate each other? A room is full of air; if you speak in the room, it will be filled with sound. How is it that sound and air exist at the same time in the same place ? Because they do not exist in the same way. You are in a railway carriage ; the train goes full speed, and you walk across from one window to another. Your body is in movement, but animated at the same time by two different motions : one, interior, that proceeds from itself; another, exterior, that comes from the train. How can two different movements exist in the same body at the same time ? Because they do not exist in the same way. I know that these examples only prove co-existence for phenomena, and not for substances ; but we say that if phenomena have the power of co-existing thus, we can suppose that a substance which is not a body can possess like qualities. All we humbly beg and pray our adversary to allow us, is that a spiritual substance can exist and occupy space in a different way from a corporeal one; it is very hard to refuse us so little. And yet he grounds his argument upon the fact that it is absurd to suppose a spirit that does not behave exactly like a bodily sub- �46 THERE IS A GOD. stance. If that is the starting-point, of all his philosophy, and a self-evident proposition which cannot be proved, and which it is ridiculous to deny, we are surely in a very hard case: but then, why so much reasoning? If spiritualistic philosophy denies your very first principle, you had better leave it alone, and not seek to prove its falsity by means of a principle which it denies. If Tertullian, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz and Clarke, were all so mad as not to have seen what is self-evident, why should you dispute against their conclusions, which of course are still more foolish ? Either agree that your axiom is not self-evident, and then prove your axiom by something besides itself, or abandon discussion altogether. Let us, in conclusion, sum up the whole debate in few words. 1st. It is certain that in the universe there are many beings, since everybody admits, or ought to admit, that there are many phenomena, each existing separately from the other : for separate existence is all we require for the notion of a being. 2ndly. Of all the beings which we see or know directly, not one possesses in itself the principle of its existence. There must therefore exist another Being, which is at once its own and their principle of existence. That principle we call God. 3rdly. All objections here stated against the existence of that, Being, drawn from its demonstrated attributes, although they take an obviously unfair advantage, may be and have been successfully answered. 4th ly. Therefore, Mr. Bradlaugh’s difficulties are utterly worthless, his doctrines ridiculously absurd, and his attempts to shake the demonstration of God’s existence hopelessly inefficient. 5t hly. All this does not in the slightest degree interfere with hia being, privately and personally, a very remarkable man. PRINTED BY RICHARDSON AND SON, DERBY. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource There is a god : a reply to Mr Bradlaugh's "Plea for atheism" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Winterton, Francis Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Derby Collation: [3]-46 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Printed by Richardson and Son Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1883] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N699 Subject The topic of the resource Atheism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (There is a god : a reply to Mr Bradlaugh's "Plea for atheism"), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Atheism Charles Bradlaugh God NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/55a04752fca75eaf53ee69f105f2eb0a.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=EVCQCAmCzMcg8-EBdBh35oo1sJzzxzNI0rbDtEFwP3gUdwbZHW%7EQa%7Ed1iNvXnoGHJH3672ocfpsA7vSq40uRepkwwr5EFZLKf10j0BYfcSCfhtVZQIERUBq0vDX8DI%7E7QWwinVGw5YdAXPDXEZmk9UYoW0sXr-vo%7ER38MkqG%7EF3cPBBDQC07nlDakEMIX%7ER7phfYRRJT7GnKTYnjPz7-kk%7E9APyxywhpN0EQc4o13O4hWNOjrC9b5EpcSxEIcc1yXn8InFkPV12fVb5ma1Fnv2BUjyPa7Yfm%7E%7Eljk-SYXE21kimQtePXKZFvZI00Ba35vHb%7EukTz75obCZWLwUY9Qw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5284bfdf5d05e56b4515b23bb1964d08 PDF Text Text CT 433 THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY IN MATTERS OF FAITH. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, 11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD. LONDON S E, 1876. Price Threepence. �LONDON : PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET. BAYMARKET. �THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY IN MATTERS OF FAITH. -------- ♦--------- HERE are few of us, who have ventured to think on matters of faith, that have not had to de plore the religious trammels and prejudices of our early religious education; if, indeed, that can be called education which most industriously stores the mind with unintelligible dogma, and the imagination with unnatural mystery; whilst it suppresses with utmost care the soul’s longings for light, and forbids inquiry upon topics that most seriously affect our common humanity. There ought to be no subject more enticing to pleasant and instructive colloquial intercourse than that which is most intimately interwoven with human duty and human happiness. Religion is the very core of life ; and, however closely related may be the numberless subjects that awaken human interest, at best they are but collateral to this. Yet, whilst all other topics may be freely discussed without exciting angry passions, or personal hate, it is just here where discussion becomes painfully exciting, and difference of opinion intolerable. Perhaps there can be no severer condemnation of existing religious organisa tions than this common intolerance of all inquiry beyond a certain prescribed limit. Within a certain charmed circle you may walk freely ; but any wander ings without this circle meet with religious, and social, and material penalties, designed to bring the offender back, and often effectual to this issue. One would think that they who can so readily T �4 ^he Ultimate Authority in unite to blacken an offending brother, would show the most loving unity among themselves—that all who call themselves after Christ would exhibit towards each other the gentleness and the love of their Divine Master! Yet “ no combatants are stiffer.” The Unitarians say, “ So unanswerably evident is the Unitarian scheme, that he who will not believe it does not believe the scriptures, and is a real infidel.” (Bible Christ.) “The Trinity (says Lindsey), is expressly contrary to above 2,000 texts in the Old, and above I, 000 in the New Testament.” Whilst Jortin says, “ The Trinity is one of the clearest, as well as one of the most decisively scripture doctrines in the world; and that the famous Postel has shown that there are II, 000 proofs of the Trinity in the Old Testament.” Dr. South says, “ The Unitarians are impious blas phemers, whose infamous pedigree runs back from wretch to wretch, in a direct line to the devil him self.” Lindsey says, “It is just as reasonable, and not so mischievous, to believe in Transubstantiation as to believe in the Trinity.” Eusebius says, “ The idea of a God-man is mon strous,”—and Belsham says, “ The miraculous con ception is a fiction as absurd as that of Jupiter and Danae.” Yet the Protestant sects accept the former doctrine, and no one can be a Romanist unless he believe the latter. Horne says “ that the whole scheme of Redemp tion by Christ is founded upon the doctrine of the fall of man, and must stand or fall with it.” Fellowes and Wright call this doctrine “an impious, absurd, and unscriptural fiction ; which impugns the perfec tion of the deity in the creation of man.” Most sects declare the necessity of some sacraments; all denounce those which they reject. The Quakers accept none. To the Protestant, Romish worship is idolatry; and the Roman consigns the Protestant to hell. The excellent Gilbert Wakefield vindicated the �Matters of Faith. $ entire abandonment of public worship on scriptural principles. Sir Thomas More says, “the time will come when men will account no more of prayer than they do of their old shoes.” Archdeacon Jortin says of the Calvinists, “ It is a system consisting of human creatures without liberty, doctrine without sense, faith without reason, and a God without mercy.” Dean Close responds, “that Arminianism is delusive, dangerous, and ruinous to immortal souls.” And a Unitarian discourse on Priestley declares both Calvinism and Arminianism “ to be mischievous compounds of impiety and idolatry.” Whilst Archbishop Magee denounces the Unitarian system as “ embracing the most daring impieties that ever disgraced the name of Christi anity,” and declares that “if Unitarianism be true, Christianity is an imposture.” A little book, ‘ Divine Truth,’ says the Methodists “ are misled fanatics, alienated from all knowledge of the true God.” A late Bishop of London (‘Letters on Dissent ’) says, “ Dissenters are actuated by the devil, and have the curse of God resting heavily on them all.” Canons V. and VII. of the Church of England denounce all Dissenters “ as accursed, de voted to the devil, and separated from Christ.” And the dissenting ‘ Christian Observer ’ declares the Church of England to be “ an obstacle to the progress of truth and holiness in the land; that it destroys more souls than it saves ; and that its end is most de voutly to be wished for by every lover of God and man.” Bishop Magee—not to be outdone by his ancestors —says, “ I say there are men now serving their term of penal servitude for fraud and conspiracy, who were guilty of less deliberate fraud, and less odious con spiracy, than the fraud and conspiracy of those men who make a merchandise of the cure of souls. This, I say, is a practice which makes the church stink in �6 The Ultimate Authority in the nostrils of many who might otherwise be her supporters.’’ Our church friends have now a newspaper to sup port each party in the church, and a weekly budget of very delectable extracts may be made from these papers, showing how, even in the same church, Christians love one anotherThere is only one point about which they can all agree, and that is to denounce and blacken, with every damning epithet they can devise, that advancing fraction, lying within and without our church organizations, who have thought themselves out of all dogmatic chains, and who can see in a righteous life the fulfilment of all claims, human and divine. History has given us the successive appearance of religious reformers; and he who looks carefully at the teaching of these reformers will see a striking likeness pervades them all. The assumption of a special divine authority has necessarily given force to these teachings, and a foundation to the religious systems built upon them. And in the study of each it is interesting to note how gradually and apparently easily the various priesthoods, whose authority these teachings were designed to upset, have appro priated them to their own purposes, and overlaid them with a mass of their own dogmas, superstitions, and corruptions, until their original simplicity and truth have been all but lost. The fundamental ten dency of nearly all religious reforms has been to coun teract sacerdotal power, and whatever good they have done in the world has been by virtue of the simple truths they have taught, and in spite of the priestly influences that have beset them. And there are few thoughts sadder than the reflection, how much of the good, which these special revivals of divine light were designed to effect, has been checked and counteracted by priestly ambition, sacerdotal power, and dogmatic corruption. �Matters of Faith. 1 The Zend Avesta of the Persians; the Vedic Deva of the Hindu; the Confucius of China; the Jesus of the Jews; the Mohammed of the Turks; and, after the suppression of light by Rome, our own Wycliffe, Huss and Jerome of central Europe, and Savonarola of Italy, the Reformers; and yet more recently, Spinoza, Swedenborg, and Wesley; have all claimed a divine commission or a divine sanction. And to each and all of them we may make like concessions —that all of Truth embodied in their teaching came from God. The mistake, partly theirs and partly ours, has been, to suppose that all they taught was true, and to corrupt and crystallize their teaching into a hard and fast code, to which, with more or less of subsequent distortion, or overlying dogma, we ask all mankind to bowdown in humble submission. Nowhere else has the instinctive conservatism and ignorance of our nature—the co-agent of priestly and baronial ambition—been so mischievous as here. The existing authorities for nearly all religious organisations are Sacred Books, either as interpreted by the church, or with more or less of private inter pretation ; and the direct authority of the church itself. But when we come to inquire as to what sacred books are canonical, we find these have all been fixed by the church; so that these become, after all, only another form of church authority. It is amusing to notice how different books of the Old and New Testaments have been proscribed by one council or decree, and restored by another; how obscure the origin of many books, and how slight the evidence on which their authority is based; how the council of Laodicea (3,40-50) differs from the councils of Car thage (397) and Florence (1439); how the canon of the Donatists (329) declares sundry Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles to be canonical, whilst Eusebius (340) pronounces them spurious; how many of the dogmas of the church have finally been declared true �8 The Ultimate Authority in and authoritative by the narrowest majorities. It is painful to read of the differences of religious opinion held by the different organisations of the Christian Church from the earliest days; of the pride, rivalry, hypocrisy, and schism, which largely incited the per secution of Dioclesian (284); led Constantine (324), after passing the Milan Edict, to strive by imperial patronage for something like uniformity; and drove the philosophic and excellent Julian (351) back into idolatry. And it is yet more painful to reflect that the religious writings of an obscure and barbarous age—writings which, however valuable, and they are so valuable that I would be the last to lose them: however beautiful; and they are some of them so beautiful that they claim our highest admiration, and excite our best emotions: which yet are so crowded with errors of fact and moral distortions, and so evi dently belong almost wholly to legendary literature :— I say it is excessively painful and humiliating to feel that these have been vested with an authority which, although wholly human, and constituted by an in tensely corrupt church, are made to thrust aside all future emanations of divine light; and are, by almost every church organisation in this enlightened age (!) declared canonical, and professedly made the chief basis of church union. One who thinks at all upon the foundations of his faith, is apt to think with contempt of the spiritual slavery and moral thoughtlessness which submits so willingly to these priestly assump tions; and to scorn the trammels of oligarchic assump tion and insolence on the one hand, and the puerile servility of our churches and peoples on the other. Grasping the fact that truth must be as invariable, as immutable, as the source whence alone it comes, and constituting themselves the judges of what is truth, dogmatic churches must needs be persecuting ; and it could be easily shown that they have been persecuting, just as they have been dogmatic, and have obtained �Matters of Faith. 9 civil power to enforce their dogmas. Without the aid of governments this persecution must needs have been limited to social and moral pressure; but with this aid it has been extended to property, liberty, and life, and the history of our Christian Church even—the church of Him who never taught a dogma, and whose fiercest denunciations were burled against those who did—the church of Him whose religion was most emphatically a religion of peace, of love, of good works—the church which shamelessly takes His name even, has its history written in blood. It is absolutely shocking to feel that the most horrible crimes which stain the history of the Christian era have been perpetrated in the name of, and for the honour of, Christ. Thank God I the day is coming— perhaps quickly—when civil powers will no longer lend their aid to this persecnting tendency. And thank God also! the progress of science and the spread of knowledge promise sooner or later to eman cipate society from the oppressive influences of dog matic religious authority. Is it possible to get rid of the difficulties and dangers that beset dogmatic religion ? I think it is. The field of human knowledge is widening rapidly. We cannot prosecute inquiry into any part of this field without at once finding ourselves vis-a-vis with Law. Turn where we may, law reigns supreme, and demands from us unqualified obedience. Do we forget her claims, or attempt to thwart her? She smiles be^ nignantly, and simply says—suffer. There is no escape here. All created matter, organic or inor ganic, has sprung into existence by her mandate, and is ordered by her direction. Forces are in constant action, producing, modifying, decomposing, recom posing, in infinite variety ; and yet all in exact legal order. So certain does the investigator in science feel of this, that should he discover any deviation �io 'The Ultimate Authority in from expected results, he at once looks for the action of some unobserved force to account for it. Whether we lose ourselves in speculating on the infinitudes of space and time—marvel at the revelations of the tele scope in astronomy—or gaze with intensest curiosity through the microscope at the perfection and beauty of the foraminifera, or diatomacm, we everywhere note the impress of Law, and the absolute subjection of matter" to her rule. Throughout the lower organised forms obedience is the sequence of an invariable instinct; and it would not be easy to show that any creature has been invested with the power to disobey, and with its consequent responsibility till we get to man. It matters little how man came into existence, whether by evolution or by a “jump.” But it does matter where he is, what he is, and why he is here. Placed in a world crowded with phenomena, which he alone of all organised beings has power to observe, to examine, to understand, and to enjoy; possessed of a mind capable of illimitable development, and of illimitable knowledge; inspired with an emotional nature, sus ceptible of the tenderest sympathy, unbounded bene volence, the strictest justice, and profoundest rever ence; it is the most rational of thoughts that his mental and emotional being should find its highest exercise, its most refined enjoyment, in asking Nature to reveal her secrets ; and in seeking to know what is his relation to them; and that he should look for that perennial happiness for which he is so admirably constituted, and for which he is so evidently designed, in yielding a loving, reverential obedience to those laws which affect his being. Summarily, then, I lay down the following propo sitions as the basis of a scientific religion, i.e.,—a religion based on the knowable instead of the un knowable—a religion, therefore, that can no more admit of doubt than the science of astronomy, or of physiology—a religion of fact, the details of which �Matters of Faith. 11 may be discussed with no more animosity than are those of geology, or philology—a religion that teaches the one grand lesson which Solomon taught of old, “that righteousness exalteth a nation.” Before I state these propositions, it may help to d better apprehension of what is meant by the term Law, if I give the following definition from Mr. John • Stuart Mill:—“All phenomena, without exception, are governed by invariable laws, with which no volition, either natural or supernatural, interferes.” First Proposition.—There is no authority but Law. Law may be classified as follows :— (a.) Law is physical, affecting man in relation to external nature. (&.) Law is social, affecting man in relation to his fellow. (c.) Law is moral, affecting man in relation to the motives which govern his actions. Whether or no there should be a fourth head— spiritual—I am unable to determine ; but it seems to me that the third head (o'), may be made to embrace all those phenomena of our being which are the noblest stamp of our humanity, and the source of our highest happiness ;—which affect our inmost consciousness of a divine origin, and provoke the most ecstatic joy ;— which arouse our warmest sympathies, and sanction our holiest affections. If these may not be included in the term moral, then I would range them under a fourth head—spiritual. Second Proposition.—There is no religion but obe dience. Obedience may be ranged under the same three heads, thus :— (a.) Obedience to all the laws that affect our physical life. (&.) Obedience to all the laws that affect our social life. (c.) Obedience to all the laws that affect our moral or spiritual life. �12 The Ultimate Authority, &c. Third Proposition.—There is no reward but the natural sequence to obedience. Rewards may be classi fied under the same three heads as above. Fourth Proposition.—There is no punishment but the natural sequence to disobedience. Punishments may be classified under the same three heads as above. The readers of this paper must pardon the crude form in which these propositions are put before them. For many years I have held to the design of placing them more elaborately before the public, but the daily and imperious tasks of a laborious life have kept this purpose in abeyance. Nor would they now see the light in this form, but that they were thus hastily thrown together for discussion in a small social club, one of the members of which suggested that the paper should be placed in the hands of Mr. Scott. Should any of Mr. Scott’s readers deem them worthy of criticism, I shall be pleased to receive such criticism, even if adverse ; as I hold that the rectification of erroneous thought is best effected by knowing how our thoughts look to other minds. T. W., F.G.S. PRINTED BY C. W. REYNBLL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The ultimate authority in matters of faith Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wiltshire, Thomas Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 12 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Signed. T.W. and F.G.S. (likely to be Fellow of the Royal Geological Society). Attribution of Wiltshire from WorldCat. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT194 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /> This work (The ultimate authority in matters of faith), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Faith Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Salvation Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wilson, Thomas Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Glasgow Collation: 16 p. (irregularly paged) ; 20 cm. Series title: Tracts for the times Series number: No. 7 Notes: Text apparently complete but with pages in wrong order, i.e. [1], 6, 7, 4, 5, 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 12, 13, 10, 11, 16. Date of publication (approximate) from WorldCat. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John Robertson Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [185-] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N698 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (Salvation), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Salvation https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/609b32805b3746955fda7a48aad560f1.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=p4%7E-uKDKUG6sF8O6W%7E3THfot9DY7XawV96F24aW48RcI8mnMTG6YRLl%7E1%7ECF1PuQHBH%7E93jwpHQ4r4w74IjB8lPTDu3rnkHPhAXiKCtE4TDLypAC9SODxuoGTaReDRo%7EdV2GjR6LQHSyUeM1G17%7Eqq9RhR7CTs7II%7EoesTaXIr49%7E1sdaY58oaobE8-9YQaImkfk0ZDSCEWZoH0O5TSeupvaR1agJ%7EI4v5zKbbu4YufMcnfIJEIshlVZ6v20eifLAteti02cDGbPUlAYK11BWl4b7zIKzHHWND%7EIMBgWC2x3NVAjP%7Efi9XMXpL4vkTvROocfOpsZ-UY4DbaTUxgwmw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 70c5a53df09b4a4a2bf0327680e815e0 PDF Text Text 6^333 N 65 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY Thoughts Theology, on Science, and Ethics. BY JOHN WILSON, M.A., TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. “ Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitum que Acherontis avari. “ Happy the man who, studying Nature’s laws, Through known effects can trace the secret cause, His mind possessing in a quiet state, Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate.” —Virgilius, Georgies II., 490. LONDON: WATTS & Co., 17,. JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St. All rights reserved. ��PAGE CHAP. PREFACE ... ... ... ... .. 5 PART I. I. WHAT IS SCIENCE? II. III. ... ... ... ... 9 WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE?... ... ... 33 THE METHODS OF SCIENCE ... ... 50 ... PART II. I. ETHICS—INTRODUCTION... II. ... THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF ETHICS ... ... 79 ...’ ... 91 III. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE ... IV. THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE ... ... IOI 116 ��PREFACE. The object of this little book is to give a correct sketch of the main lines of modern thought in small compass and in language simple enough to be easily understood. It is intended specially for those who, taking an interest in liberal questions, have not leisure to study the large and learned books in which they are treated. From this it will be apparent that no claim is made to origi nality of thought. The writer will be quite satisfied if his readers are led to take greater interest in the grand principles of Science, Theology, and Ethics, and are aided in forming clearer conceptions of them. The fol lowing words are defined in the sense intended by the writer, although they may be used by others in senses different from his. It will be noticed that the word Science is used in a much more extended sense than what is generally attached to it; while the word Theology is �6 PREFACE. used in a more restricted sense than what is often under stood to be within its scope :— GOD. The Omnipresent Power which exists behind the facts of the universe. Of this Power Science asserts the existence to be a necessary supposition, but the nature to be to us unknowable and inconceivable. Theology, on the other hand, asserts its nature to be known, and conceives it to be man-like. Theology. The supposed knowledge as to God and what exists beyond the horizon of the verifiable. Subjective. Relating to our own states of consciousness-—to self. Objective. Relating to what exists outside of our own states of consciousness—to the not-self. Fact. Anything capable of being a subject of thought, or of which we can think. It is necessary to observe that the word fact will be used in the very widest sense, embracing both the objective and the subjective. For example : A unicorn is a fact in the subjective though not in the objective sense. The mental picture is a fact, though there is no objective reality corresponding to it. �PART I. ��CHAPTER I. WHAT IS SCIENCE ? A piece of common charcoal and a diamond are in one sense the same. They are composed of the same material—viz., carbon. Yet, by the different arrange ment of their particles, they are very different in quality and value. So, likewise, are science and common knowledge composed of the same material—viz., facts. Common knowledge, however, consists of facts, un organised and unconnected ; science, of facts organised —connected by the bands of law. It is this organisa tion which gives them scientific value. A collection of separate, unconnected facts resembles the raw material of manufactories. Lumps of iron are of little value in an unorganised state; but they become invaluable in the form of machinery—that is, when brought into a state of organisation. One pound of iron, when made into watch hair-springs, is worth ^12,500. An army and a mob are both collections of individuals; but one is organised, the other is not. A confused, unarranged heap of books differs from a library. So common knowledge differs from science. Science makes use of separate facts as her raw material; they serve her only as means to an end. Her object is to arrange them under the laws of nature by which they are governed. This, then, is her ultimate goal. �IO SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. Having been told that the distinguishing characteristic of science is the discovery of the laws of nature, an in quirer would naturally ask, “What is a law of nature?-’ Here, again, we must notice the difference between the popular meaning of a word and its scientific meaning. The word law, in popular language, means “ the com mand of a superior to an inferior.” Law is the expres sion of the will of a stronger to a weaker, and is always associated with the idea of personality. The scientific meaning of the word law is entirely different. The idea of personality is altogether absent. Law, in a scientific sense, means simply order. A law of nature is a formula which expresses correctly the invariable order in which facts occur. For example, the formula, “Every particle of matter attracts every other particle of matter with a force proportional directly to its mass and indirectly to the square of the distance,” is a law of nature—that is, it expresses correctly the invariable order in which certain facts always occur. A law of nature is simply a statement that certain facts always have, and always will occur in, a certain order. The idea of personality is entirely absent. There are but two things implied : (i) an invariable order among facts; (2) a correct statement of that order. If one single exception can be found to the statement, it cannot be a law of nature in the scientific sense. Science assumes that the universe is a cosmos ; that all is order, invariable and eternal; that chaos is nowhere to be found in time or space; that every fact, mental and material, exists or occurs in accordance with the invari able law of cause and effect, the same cause being in variably followed by the same effect. In a scientific sense, therefore, a law of nature cannot be broken; it would be a contradiction in terms. If there is invariable order, and if the formula correctly expresses this order, it follows that no exception can be found. �WHAT IS SCIENCE ? II We have said that science assumes that the universe is a cosmos—a region where invariable order reigns. Some may be astonished at the idea of science being founded on an assumption. “We have always heard,” they may say, “ that the great characteristic of science is, that she demands convincing evidence of everything before admitting it to be true.” Here it will be necessary to explain the nature of truth. Truth is divisible into two kinds : (i) Subjective ; (2) Objective. By the first is meant knowledge of our own states of consciousness. In strict language, these are all we can correctly say we know. Of the existence of a feeling or an idea we can have no doubt; our knowledge is absolute. In fact, in this case knowledge and existence are one and the same. But of everything outside of self, or objective, we can have only inferential know ledge. In scientific language, we do not know that anything outside of ourselves exists; we infer it. All we know or can know of matter is the mode in which it affects our states of consciousness. Its existence is a matter of inference. We infer or assume that certain states of our consciousness are caused by something external to self. That supposed something is what we call matter. Of it we can know nothing, except as it affects us. Hence objective knowledge is said to be “ relative.” For example, we see a rose to be red, we smell it and perceive it to be fragrant, we touch it and feel it to be soft. Now, all we know is that we had the states of consciousness called redness, fragrance, and softness. That a something external to self exists which caused these states of consciousness we do not know, but infer or assume. Practically, an inference, if con firmed sufficiently by experience, becomes as certain as absolute knowledge. No one practically doubts of the existence of things outside of self. But it is most �12 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. important to recognise the distinction between absolute knowledge and inference, or, in other words, between subjective and objective truth. Of the first it is impossible to doubt; the second, being in its nature a matter of inference, varies accord ing to the amount of evidence from a mere guess to a practical certainty. It is true, therefore, that science is based on an assumption; but on an assumption verified by experience to such an extent that, to those capable of understanding it, no practical doubt remains. Still, in correct language, it is not an absolute certainty that invariable order exists throughout the universe. For us to know that absolutely, it would be necessary for us to be omniscient both in time and space. Grant that in all our experience the same cause has invariably pro duced the same effect, it remains possible that, outside of our experience, both in time and in space, it may not be so. All that science asserts is that, as a matter of fact, no single instance has been verified where uniformity, in the order of cause and effect, has been interrupted. Every manifestation of force, exhibited in a certain way under certain conditions, science assumes will invariably manifest itself in the same way so long as the conditions remain the same. To those who feel unable to assent to this assumption science has nothing to say. If any spot in the universe can be pointed out where chaos reigns, science would acknowledge that there she could not enter; but, having once laid the foundation-stone of invariable order, science goes on with her work of dis covering the laws of nature. The scientific test by which every theory is tried before it is admitted and acknowledged to be a law of nature is experience. Not until a theory is found to give the power of prophecy is it allowed to be a law of nature— that is to say, not until given certain conditions can we with certainty foretell the results. Is there, then, no �WHAT IS SCIENCE? T3 such a thing as chance? The answer is, “Objectively, no; subjectively, yes.” Chance is a word which expresses a state of our mind, not a quality in an objective fact. A few examples will make this plain. A traveller about to cross an unex plored range of mountains would say that it was a “ chance ” whether on the other side there was an im passable precipice or an inclined plane. Having by experience found out the truth, all chance would vanish. This change did not take place in the objective fact, the shape of the mountain, but in the state of mind of the traveller. The word “ chance ” referred exclusively to the subjective fact that the traveller was in doubt in con sequence of his ignorance, and, with the disappearance of this, chance vanished and certainty took its place. Again, on a die being shaken in an opaque box and thrown on the table, it would be said that it was a chance what number fell uppermost. On the other hand, if the die had been placed in a transparent glass box, and the movement had been so slow that the eye followed every turn of the die until it rested on the table, the spectator would have said that the number turned up was a certainty, not a chance. This substitution of the word certainty for the word chance was evidently caused by the change in the mind from ignorance to knowledge, and not by anything in the objective fact. When we come to speak of “the methods of science” it will be seen that the not distinguishing the objective from the subjective, in the meaning of words, is a prolific source of error. It would save a great deal of confusion of thought if it was always borne in mind that such words as chance, necessity, etc., refer to the state of our mind, not to the objective facts. In discovering the order of nature, science is said to “explain things.” Now, what does science undertake when she tries to explain a thing ? �14 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. To explain a thing is to bring it into causal con nection with other things, with the nature of which we are already familiar. By the nature of anything we mean the manner in which it behaves in manifesting force. When a manifestation of force takes place, either appa rently uncaused or from causes unconnected with any thing the nature of which is familiar to us, it startles us : no one knows how it may behave. An unexplained fact resembles a loose, untrained horse, kicking, plung ing, and galloping about in a field in the most erratic and incalculable ways. The animal is a cause of terror and of a desire to get him under control, trained, and harnessed. So it is with an unexplained fact, apparently unbound by the chain of cause and effect. It creates uneasiness, because its ways of acting are incalculable ; and we desire to get it under control—brought from the unfenced field of ignorance into the highway of know ledge. For example, an explosion of a boiler takes place, and demands an explanation. This is given thus : We are already familiar with the nature of heat in ex panding water at and above ordinary temperatures : we know that the force with which the particles of water separate from each other increases with every increase of temperature ; we know that the particles of the iron boiler cling together with a certain force; we know that, if the force of cohesion between the particles of the iron is less than the force of repulsion between the particles of the water, the particles of iron must be torn asunder. Now, if we know that the temperature of the fire rose to such a degree that the particles of water were repelled by one another with a force greater than the force of cohesion by which the particles of iron clung to one another, we know also that the latter were con sequently compelled to separate. . Here, then, we have the fact of the explosion shown to be in causal connection with other facts already familiar �WHAT IS SCIENCE? 15 to us. The explosion is now scientifically explained by being thus brought into subjection to law and order. When this is done the work of science is finished. The fact is proved to be in accordance with the assumption of science—viz., that the universe is a cosmos, a field over which reigns eternal, invariable order. This order it is the business of science to discover and to express in formulas (commonly called “ laws of nature ”). When this knowledge has been gained, and when facts can be thus explained, the work of science is finished. Theology, as well as science, is a “ theory of things,” and in primitive times had precedence of science. Theology might be called “infantile science.” At the first dawn of intelligence theology was the first attempt to explain things, and, like science, was founded on an assumption (the only possible one under the conditions} —viz., that the nature of man was double; that there was a visible person and an invisible. Many things suggested this idea. Drcams, echoes, shadows, reflections—all these suggested and supported the theory that man was duplicate; that within the visible man there was an invisible ghost. By means of the assumed existence of this ghost the primitive mind explained things. All action was similar in nature to human action. Everything had within it an invisible ghost as the cause of all its action. This stage of theo logy is called fetishism. Every object is a god, because containing an invisible ghost. When man becomes suffi ciently social as to live in a society the organisation of which is controlled by a single chief, the idea of one having authority and power over many becomes familiar to him. The chief, when alive, had the power to benefit or injure, and this power remained with his invisible ghost after his death. From this followed the worship of local and many gods, or polytheism. As societies increased in size from tribes to great nations,, and �16 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. examples were thereby furnished of a single king ruling over the whole of the known earth, the worship of the ghost of such king naturally led to the idea of mono theism, or the worship of one man-like god, “ King of kings and Lord of lords.” From this theory it rationally followed that, if things were to be regulated for our benefit, it must be through this god or man-like ghost. The ghost of a dead chief was feared, flattered, and bribed in the same manner as he had been when alive. If things were to be regulated for the benefit of the living, this god must be propitiated kept in a pacific and friendly state of mind, every evil being the result of his anger, and every good the gift of his benevolence. As customs differ in different countries, so the manner of gaining the favour of God differs in different systems of theology ; but in prin ciple all theologies are similar. An African does not flatter in the same manner as a European; his song of praise, accompanied by the monotonous noise of a tom tom, differs, it is true, from a European anthem and organ music ; but that is only a matter of detail. The character of the gods in the different theologies varies as the character of the people varies ; but all theologies agree in ^this—that God is a man-like ghost. That is their fundamental assumption, and, grant that assump tion, the conclusions drawn are rational enough. Civi lised man wonders and smiles at the absurdities of the theological dogmas of the savage ; but, in reality, they are quite as rational as his own. The great question, then, is this, “ Is the fundamental assumption of theology true ? Have we any evidence that God is a man-like being ?” We have seen that science as well as theology is based on an assumption. Science, however, appeals to facts to verify it. This theology cannot do. From the nature of the case experience is excluded. All our experience is �WHAT IS SCIENCE? *7 confined to facts as they affect our states of conscious ness. What lies behind these states is, and must remain, a mere assumption only. That there exists in every man a ghost distinct from man as recognisable by our facul ties is a theory. So is the assumption that the cause of all things is a man-like ghost describable in terms of human consciousness, such as wise, good, jealous, angry. But such theories are unverifiable. Theologians try to sustain their theories in two ways : (i) by an appeal to historical evidence of miracles and of supernatural means of gaining knowledge of an un seen universe unknowable by our natural faculties ; (2) by an appeal to facts in nature as demonstrating the existence of human attributes in God—such attributes as wisdom, goodness, and anger. The first it would be impossible for us to consider at any length. It is sufficient to say that science, by his torical criticism, has completely destroyed the authority which in pre-scientific times was attached to tradition, written and unwritten. Books which were supposed to have been written in some supernatural manner by the man-like God communicating knowledge to the writers are now shown to be most erroneous, so far as they refer to verifiable facts, and therefore to bear the marks of a human origin. This is now acknowledged by theologians themselves. The late Archbishop of Canterbury said on a recent occasion: “How many of the supposed diffi culties as to numbers and national or family genealogies, and even as to geographical, chronological, or physio logical accuracy, may be allowed quietly to flow away without our being able to solve them, if we bear this acknowledged fact (viz., that there is a human element in the Bible) distinctly in mind ! When laborious in genuity has exerted itself to collect a whole store of such difficulties, is it wrong to answer, ‘ Suppose what you say is true, what on earth does it signify ?’ ” In pre-scientific �l8 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. days it was thought to be sufficient to show that a doctrine was sustained by any part of the sacred book. Now it is acknowledged “ that there is a human element ” in it; so the fact that a statement is in the Bible or Koran, or other sacred book, does not, it is admitted, necessarily give the statement supernatural authority. We are not told by what means this “ human element ” can be distinguished from the superhuman. If of the statements in the book many that can be tested are found to be inaccurate, the inference is that the ones which cannot may be inaccurate too. In theological works many questions that should be satisfactorily answered are seldom even alluded to; as, for instance, “ What was the nature of the process by which a writer was inspired?” “ If it was accompanied by signs capable of being witnessed by others, what were those signs, and where is the testimony of the wit nesses ?” “ If inspiration was an eternal process, by what means did the writer distinguish the inspired from the uninspired thoughts ?” “ If the writer’s assertion is the only evidence of his inspiration, how do we know that both his mental and moral nature were such that we may rely upon his evidence ?” The fact is that there does not exist any evidence by which these questions can be answered. For scarcely any of the so-called sacred books have we any reliable evidence at all as to the time in which they were written, or as to their authors. In this respect they differ in nothing from other ancient books such as Homer. Yet, on the author rity of these unknown writers, we are called upon to believe that a multitude of events took place—events so improbable and so contradictory to all experience as to be absolutely incredible even on evidence inconceivably stronger than any that has ever been produced. His torical evidence, therefore, falls infinitely short of that on which an intelligent person could believe in supernatural events. �WHAT IS SCIENCE? 19 Instead of the fact that miracles are related in ancient books being evidence that such events took place, it would be almost a miracle if they were not related in such books. Miracles are happening now every day, always have happened, and will continue to happen among people ignorant of scientific principles ; but they are subjective, not objective events. Historical support for the assumption of supernatural knowledge, therefore, may be put on one side as worthless. The second support relied upon as proving that God is man-like is of a different kind : theologians appeal to our own experience of natural events as evidence of the existence of a man-like God. It is said the mechanism of plants and animals exhibits design. Means are beautifully adapted to ends. The arrangements are similar to what the intelligence of man is capable of in venting. The quantity of the intelligence is larger, but the quality is the same. The inference, then, is justified —God, the cause of all things, has man-like intelligence. This reasoning is plausible and, to minds in some states, unanswerable. We have already seen that to primitive man the ghost-theory reasoning was similarly plausible. When he dreamt of the chase one part of him was in his hut, the second was miles away hunting. The sound of the echo was similar to what he himself produced; it must, therefore, be produced by a being (invisible indeed, but) similar to himself. We can see the mistake; but primitive man, ignorant of such things as physical cause (cerebration, undulation of the air, reflection, etc.), formed the best theory possible to him under the circumstances. So is the argument from design a plausible one, and to minds in some conditions conclusive; but, as the principles of science attain influence, its inconclusiveness is revealed. Moreover, if the conclusion was justifiable that, wherever we perceived facts which appear to us �20 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. similar to those that might be due to an intelligent man, they must have been produced by a being similar to a wise man, it would be equally justifiable, when we see facts such as might be the work of a fool, to conclude that some idiotic being was their cause. To make a machine adapted to serve a purpose, and then wantonly destroy it without allowing it to fulfil its functions, would be conduct such as we could expect only from a fool. Now, in nature we see the immense majority of the seeds of plants produced but to perish, and the immense majority of the young of animals formed but to die. This prodigality of waste in nature is most remarkable. But should we be justified in thinking that this waste was produced by a man-like idiot? Many facts in nature are just as suggestive of foolish ness as others are of wisdom : such as organs useless to the creatures in which they exist; as teeth in the jaw of the whale. Before the principles of science were under stood the argument from the adaptation of means to ends was plausible; but since science has brought for ward the doctrine of evolution by the survival of the fittest, even its plausibility is gone. The argument for the existence of the human attribute of goodness in God is founded on the same imperfect reasoning as that we have just considered. Facts pro ducing results such as a good man might produce are cited as proofs of the goodness of God; while facts such as only the most cruel and wicked would or could be guilty of are either passed over unnoticed, or put aside labelled “ mysteries.” A healthy and beautiful child is taken as a proof of God’s goodness ; but nothing is said of infants born in a state of disease or deformity, and destined to a short and miserable existence. What, again, is to be said of creatures so formed that life to them is possible only by the sickness, pain, and death of other living creatures ? �WIIAT IS SCIENCE ? 2I If facts similar to what human goodness would pro duce are proofs of God having the attribute of human goodness, it follows that facts similar to what human cruelty and wickedness would produce—and they are just as numerous—are equally proofs of God having the attributes of human cruelty and wickedness. But the truth is, neither one nor the other is any proof at all that the nature of God is man-like. It is said in the Hebrew Scriptures, “ God made man in his own image.” Turn the statement upside down, and it becomes true: “ Man makes God in his own image.” And whether the representation consists of the clay figure made by an African negro, or the mental image constructed by civilised man, it is equally a vain and foolish idol. The most ignorant savage and the Archbishop of Canterbury are equally unable to form any true conception of the nature of God. Let us suppose one of those small shell-fish in the slime at the bottom of the ocean trying to form a con ception of the forms of existence on the surface of the earth. It knows and can know nothing of light or colour, of air or sound. Its experience has been con fined to a few feet of mud two thousand fathoms below the surface, where there must be utter darkness and eternal silence. All the forms of existence known to it have been creatures more or less like itself. Imagine such a creature trying to form and express a conception of the forms of existence of the plants and animals as known to us I—such an attempt must be in vain. Then suppose further this tiny creature trying to conceive the idea of God, the cause of all it knew, and to describe him as an invisible shell-fish, with a shell enormously large and tentacles infinitely long; in fact, a magnified image of itself. The folly of this attempt to enter what was to the shell-fish the region of the unknowable would be very plain to us. But let us suppose still further that �22 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. this little creature not only formed this conception of God, but felt so confident of its virtues as a correct one that it assured the other little shell-fish that any of them that did not thus think of the deity would “without doubt perish everlastingly.'’ The ludicrous presumption of the creature would amuse a child. Now, there is really no essential difference between the folly (thus imagined) of this tiny creature and that of the theologian. Astronomers, trying to give us a faint idea of the distance of the fixed stars, tell us that, if we had set off to travel to one of them, and had got one hundred and eighty millions of miles on our way, we might consider that we had not yet begun our journey, one hundred and eighty millions of miles being as nothing compared with the entire distance of the star. So may we say that, though the folly of the little shell fish at the bottom of the ocean trying to conceive and express ideas of God in terms of its own experience is actually greater than that of man, yet the difference between them may be disregarded, that difference being as nothing compared with the remoteness of both from their common object. The following extract from an ancient Indian writing shows that the folly of making images of God had been discovered even in very early times : “ How can any one teach concerning Brahma [God] ? He is neither the known nor the unknown. That which cannot be expressed by words, but through which all expression comes, this I know to be God. That which cannot be thought by the mind, but by which all thinking comes, this I know is God. That which cannot be seen by the eye, but by which the eye sees, is God. If, then, thou thinkest thou canst know it, then in truth thou knowest very little. To whom it is unknown, he knows it. One cannot attain to it through the word, through the mind, or through the eye. It is reached only by him who says, ‘ It is, it is.’ ” �WHAT IS SCIENCE ? 23 Atheism and Theology are both guilty of the error of assuming a knowledge of the unknowable. The Atheist who asserts that there is no God pretends to knowledge of what lies beyond the horizon of human thought. He asserts that outside the range of his facul ties nothing exists. As well might the little shell-fish at the bottom of the ocean deny the existence of anything beyond the range of its faculties. The theologian, again, commits the very same mistake, not by expressing belief in an existence beyond our horizon, but by assuming a capability of knowing the nature of such existence, and by describing it as man-like. Science, on the other hand, while admitting that what we know of mind and matter leads us to believe that behind the infinite and endless forms of facts, mental and material, there exists a source of power, the cause of all, asserts that, from the limitation of our faculties, a knowledge of the nature of this causal power is and must be impossible to us. To try to conceive or express it in terms of either matter or mind is and must be futile. It is a mistake natural to mind in its childhood—a mis take, however, often carried on by its own vis inertia, so to speak, into manhood; thus men of great intellect, and with minds imbued with the principles of science, sometimes continue to imagine that they believe that God is man-like in his nature, and can be thought of as having the attributes of man. Whether, then, we examine the argument from his torical evidence or the argument from supposed design, as proving the man-like nature of God, the proof is found to fail. It is often said: “Grant that the evidence available is not fit to bear scientific tests, yet our own minds tell us that we must cither think of God as man like, and describe him in terms of human consciousness, or become practical Atheists by ceasing to think of him at all.” The only reply to this is, that any one who thus �24 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. feels will continue to assent to the assumption of theology without any proof. Such are those who, with splendid inconsistency, accept science and refuse to part with theology; who pray to God as if they believed that everything would happen during the day just as he would at each moment personally determine, and then, prayer over, expect all things to happen in accordance with the law of cause and effect as revealed by science. It is well, in one sense, in this age of transition from the principles of theology to the principles of science, that many minds are little, if at all, disturbed by their own inconsistency. The same person is able to think at one time as a theologian, and at another as a scien tist, though the principles of the one are exactly the reverse of the other. This power of dividing the mind into separate compartments is a source of safety, just as it is for a ship to be built on the plan of water-tight sections. The idea of being in the dark, either mental or material, is to many minds terrifying. Any argu ment does to convince those who wish to be convinced; and those who are afraid of being in the dark wish to be convinced by theology. To such it is a great comfort to think that they know that the invisible Cause of all things is such a one as themselves; that they can talk to him, sing to him, please him by flattery and other means, and so get him to act for them as a friend—aye, even to have him bound by a covenant. Theologians, when they accuse others of Atheism, should not be understood as meaning that their oppo nents deny the existence of God. To a theologian an Atheist is any one who denies that we have reason to believe in the existence of the God the image of which has been drawn by that theologian. Suppose a blind man drew a picture of a cow, and a spectator said that he did not believe there ever was any animal at all like the picture, the blind man would not be justified in �WHAT IS SCIENCE ? 25 accusing him of “ acowism ”—that is, of expressing dis belief in the existence of any cow. The Pagans accused the primitive Christians of Atheism because the latter denied the existence of Jupiter, Jupiter being the Pagan picture of God. It must be acknowledged that this theological mistake is a natural one. The only deity a theologian knows is one corresponding to his own pic ture ; wipe that out, and to him there ensues a complete void, and hence, naturally though erroneously, he accuses of Atheism the man who has wiped his picture out. We have now considered sufficiently the main argu ments for the existence of a man-like God, and are forced to the conclusion that this assumption, the funda mental assumption of all theology, is unverifiable. It may be said, perhaps: “Grant that, strictly speaking, there is no proof of the man-like nature of God, still surely the fact that almost the whole human race have held the belief is a strong presumption that it is true.” On the contrary, the presumption is that it is false. Girls, when very young, naturally and inevitably attribute to their dolls the same states of consciousness that they experience themselves. A broken leg in the doll brings a copious flow of tears. But, when older and more experienced, girls abandon this belief, notwithstanding that all the younger girls of the race continue to hold it. The race itself, as a whole, is still in mental infancy; its assumption in regard to God is, consequently, no more worthy of belief than the assumption of the infant girl in regard to her doll. It may be truly said we are all born theologians. Imagination is strong and active long before reason, and, while thus uncontrolled, builds many a structure which reason afterwards finds to be a castle in the air. The works of the imagination, while unchecked by verification, appear just as strong and substantial as if they were real �26 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. (witness dreams); but, in the presence of reason, these become “the baseless fabric of a vision.” Into the territory behind facts (as they appear to us) reason cannot enter, and verification is impracticable. There imagination has the field to herself. The intellect of man can penetrate a certain distance, and no further. Beyond the scope of his faculties hangs a veil of abso lute blackness of darkness. On this black veil theology throws her images from the magic lantern of her imagi nation, and fancies that the light comes from beyond instead of from herself. All the beings inhabiting this region—God, angels, devils, and human souls—are images of man. Like the pictures of the kaleidoscope, the combinations are new; but all are made up exclu sively from the same original materials. Theology is a “ theory of things ” based, as we have seen, upon an error natural and inevitable to the infancy of man—the error of trying to know what must remain unknowable, and thereby deceiving oneself, of not recog nising the difference between dreams and realities, of furnishing the invisible world with the facts of experi ence, of creating God after our own image. We may now contrast science with theology. In two respects they are similar; in all others they are opposed. Science and theology are both “ theories of things,” and are both based upon assumptions. > The assumption of science is “that eternal, invariable order reigns over the whole universe; that no fact, mental or material, exists except as a link in an endless chain of cause and effect, the same antecedents being invariably followed by the same consequents.” Theology assumes that God is a being in nature similar to man; that invariable order does not exist; that miracles have happened, do still happen, and may happen at any time; that no fact exists except as a product of the will of the man-like God. �WHAT IS SCIENCE? 27 Science regards it as the proper object of inquiry— to ascertain, and to express in correct formulas, the order in which facts occur. These formulas, when found by invariable experience to be correct, she calls “ laws of nature.” A broken law of nature is, from a scientific point of view, a contradiction in terms. Theology asserts that the proper aim and object of all inquiry is to know what is the will of the man-like God; that this knowledge is to be found in books called col lectively “ Divine Revelation,” written by men of old time, who were inspired in a miraculous manner, or in the word-of-mouth utterances of men of a certain class set apart to communicate it, and that all other knowledge is at best comparatively useless and, if opposed to this, detrimental. The breaking of God’s laws by man is not only possible, but constant ; and a large proportion of theological forms and ceremonies consists but of devices to propitiate God, with a view to escape the punishment which his anger thus caused would certainly bring. These forms and modes of propitiation, identical in principle with the means adopted by peoples to pro pitiate earthly rulers, include sacrifice, prayer, flattery, self-abasement, and self-inflicted pain, such as fasting, injury to the body, wearing of filthy clothing, living away from friends—in fact, all forms of misery—all of them self-inflicted in this world to gain the favour of God in the next. And, granting that the nature of God is man like, these theological customs are rational. In the theologies of people in the same stage of intel lectual and moral development as the Hebrew Abraham, whose God was supposed to be compelled to come down from heaven to investigate by personal inquiry rumours of bad conduct which he had heard (Gen. xviii. 20, 21), there is no incongruity in the supposition of men being able to break God’s laws as they had the power to break the laws of their earthly king. But, when the attributes �28 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. of omniscience and omnipotence came to be conceived, the idea of man breaking the laws of God became absurd. “ No man can enter a strong man’s house and spoil his goods unless he first bind the strong man.” If two forces meet, the weaker cannot prevail. To suppose so is as much a contradiction in terms as it is to talk of a broken law of nature in the scientific sense. If God wills that man shall not do a certain act, and man says he will do it, and does it, it follows that man’s will is stronger than God’s will. This contradiction is veiled by the supposition that, although man can for a time overcome God, yet ultimately God’s superior strength will be proved. Another explanatory supposition is that God has created in man a thing called “ free will,’’ which has been left unconditioned by any cause. Still another mode of treating the difficulty is to put it aside ■with the remark that the fact of man acting contrary to the will of God is a “ deep mystery.” “ When crime is committed, if it was allowed that man could not break a law of God, nor act contrary to his will, God would be made a direct participator in the crime—a supposi tion that would be blasphemy. Yet, on the other hand, it is a contradiction in terms to say that a creature could overcome his Almighty Creator. This is a great mystery, and as such it must be left.” In theology this resource for getting rid of a difficulty by labelling it a “ mystery,” and so putting it on one side, is a very necessary one. In science, when facts and theory do not agree, the theory is at once and without hesitation rejected. In theology this is impos sible. The fundamental theory, that God is man-like, is contained in a miraculous revelation. Touch that with the hand of criticism, and theology ceases to exist. Hence the origin of the theological dogma, that of all virtues faith is the greatest, and that of all sins doubt is the most fatal. “ He that believeth and is baptised �WHAT IS SCIENCE ? 29 shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.” Science says: “ All I assume is that facts exist, and will continue to exist, in an invariable order. My dogmas are to be accepted not absolutely, but always subject to verification by experience; and, if any of them do not stand that test, they are at once to be discarded.” Theology, on the other hand, deals with a subject in which verification is impossible, the nature of God not being a subject of experience. The contrast between science and theology has been very tersely expressed by Dr. Magee, the present Bishop of Peterborough : “ Science abhors finality in belief; but that is just what theologians like. Science discovers facts, but theology accepts revelation, and clings to creeds.” Science, as the Bishop most truly says, could not accept “ finality in belief,” seeing that her dogmas rest entirely on the verification of experience. Theo logy, on the other hand, dealing as she does with things outside the range of verification, can accept this finality ; and, feeling instinctively that her feet rest upon the ground, not of reason, but of imagination, she naturally hates the idea of being liable at any moment to criti cism and correction. Science is content to spend all her time in laboriously searching for facts—that is, for truth—within the horizon of the knowable. In the eyes of a theologian this is miserable work. While science is grubbing (as he thinks) in the earth—in the narrow field of experience—theology is soaring in the sky, in the boundless universe of existence, seeing what eye has never seen, hearing what ear has never heard, and learning what it is impossible for the unaided human mind to conceive. Here indeed, in her natural element, beyond the realms of experience, theology does enjoy the freedom she desires : she is beyond the reach of criticism, and exempt from all necessity to change. Seeing, then, that science and theology are the very �3° SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. opposites of each other, it must be a futile task to re concile them. The one is the product of reason and experience, the other of imagination and feeling. Yet repeated failure does not seem to discourage the attempt. The explanation of this is simple. A person born, reared, and schooled under the influence of theology naturally clings to the creed of his mother. To pull up what has its roots deep in the feeling necessarily causes great pain. On the other hand, it is impossible to deny the triumphs of science. The evidence for her truths is overwhelming. What, then, in this age of transition, more natural than the wish to accept the teachings of science without giving up the dogmas of theology ? They both profess to be true, and truth is single ; there must, therefore, be only a seeming contradiction. Let us find out the way of reconciliation. The task, like the discovery of perpetual motion, is a fascinating one; but it is equally hopeless. Science and theology are mutually opposed: the “discovery and acceptance of facts” is, from the nature of things, incompatible with the “accept ing of revelation and clinging to a creed.” There is but one plan by which one and the same person may be both a scientist and a theologian, and that plan is to make a division of time and become each in turn. A certain time—generally a very small fraction of the whole—is told off to theology, and during it the person tries to talk, think, and act as a theologian. The remainder of the time is devoted to the service of science, and to acting in accordance with the facts she has discovered. The great Faraday himself, one of the most eminent scientists of the century, lived in this two fold existence. During the day he thought and acted on the strictest principles of science, while in the evening he would talk and act as a member of the obscure theological sect called Sandemanians. Faraday during the day and Faraday in the evening were prac- �WHAT IS SCIENCE ? 31 tically two distinct persons. But, in this, Faraday only represents the vast majority of men. People go to church on Sunday, and there, with grave and solemn faces, “ accept revelation,” assenting to the dogmas and legends of an age when theology was in its prime and science an infant, and then for the rest of the week they think and act without hesitation, as if they had never heard of revelation and had no faith in ancient legends. This inconsistency, if conscious, would be productive of great moral deterioration by lessening the love of truth ; but as it is for the most part unconscious—people generally not really believing what they think they believe—this evil is much less than might be expected. The attempt at reconciliation by twisting and stretching revealed doctrines to make them fit perforce with the facts discovered by science is much more deteriorating morally than unconscious inconsistency. It is really melancholy to see attempts made to stretch twenty-four hours into millions of years; to transmute the legends of Noah and Jonah into history ; and to try to force the word “ creation ” to mean its opposite, “ evolution.” These and such-like endeavours to reconcile modern science with ancient theology are worse than futile; they have a distinct tendency to destroy the greatest of all virtues—truthfulness. Why not let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest? The law of the survival of the fittest will be the true reconciler. Theology and science are both “ theories of things.” The one the natural product of imagination, the other of reason. The conditions in which theology germinates and grows luxuriantly are absolutely stifling to science. Where science thrives, theology dwindles away. When science first began to occupy the ground where theology had hitherto undis puted possession, an angry and determined struggle could not be avoided ; but that period in this country �32 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. is nearly ended. They both exist; but the one must increase and the other decrease. The fears, however, of those who imagine that this change may come with a suddenness which might be destructive are not well founded. This change, like all evolutionary changes, must be slow. Such changes as the Protestant Refor mation and the French Revolution are sudden only in a subjective sense—that is to say, the suddenness they appeared to have was due solely to our ignorance of the long chain of causal facts which preceded them, and of the length of time they were gathering strength. Science and theology will long co-exist, though they be antagonistic. Those who recognise in science the great means of human progress naturally feel impatient at the influence of her antagonist and her power to retard. But we must be satisfied in knowing that, just as surely as each individual, when a child, spoke as a child, thought as a child, and then as he became a man gradually threw away childish things, so surely will the race gradually take more and more interest in science and less and less in theology. Even in the present day we are- struck with the pro gress of the change. Faith, in the revealed pictures of the unseen, it is true, remains; but, if we look back a few generations, it is manifest that our faith at its strongest is but weak compared with the faith of our fathers. Creeds are still “ clung tobut the clasp is not so firm. The nature of science is better understood now than it was; though still, in the education of the young in school and college, the time given to the teach ing of real knowledge is but too small compared with that devoted to the legends of theology, ancient and modern. The value of real knowledge, however, is surely though slowly being recognised; though the speed with which this is taking place is not proportional either to the san guine hopes of the scientist or the fears of the theologian. �CHAPTER II. WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE ? 1 he answer which many would give has been expressed by the poet thus :— “ What is truth or knowledge but a kind Of wantonness and luxury of the mind ; A greediness and gluttony of the brain, That longs to eat forbidden fruit again ; And grows more desperate like the worst diseases Upon the nobler part, the mind it seizes?” Again, the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes says : “ In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” Ihere is a great deal of truth in these opinions if the word “knowledge” is used in the popular sense. But we have seen (page 9) that there is a difference between “ common knowledge ” and “ science.” Common know ledge consists of unconnected and unrelated facts only ; whereas science consists not only of facts, but of facts organised on the basis of their connections and relations, and not only of these, but of laws—laws of nature as they are called—the product of such organisation. The question, then, to which we have to seek an answer resolves itself ultimately into this : What is the use of a knowledge of the laws of nature ? By the word “ use ” is meant the power of satisfying some want of our nature. A thing is of use so far as it is the means �34 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. of satisfying some desire. How, then, does science give us the power of satisfying our desires ? Let us first take a general view of man’s position on the earth. In personal strength man is inferior to many other animals; while, compared with the material forces of nature which surround him, his strength is as nothing. Judged, indeed, by what he accomplishes directly by his own strength, man is contemptible. Yet judged, on the other hand, by what he accomplishes through the use of means, man is the most powerful, and incomparably the most marvellous, creature in the universe as known to us. The description given of him by the poet is no exaggeration: “What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving how express and admirable 1 in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God 1 the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals !” Of infinitesimal force, from one point of view, he is from another a creature “ infinite in faculties,” towering in strength beyond others towards infinite power. He can ascend above the clouds, he can descend into the bowels of the earth and to the bottom of the sea. He can make his voice heard for hundreds of miles, and, with the speed of lightning, his thoughts known all round the globe. He is not to be stopped in his course either by the highest mountains or by the deepest oceans. He forces a way through the solid rock, and along this way and across the storm-tossed waters he can pass, carry ing with him thousands of tons—and that with a speed like that of the swiftest of his fellow-creatures. He has increased his food a hundred-fold, turning one grain of corn into a hundred; he can replace a desert by a garden. Such and so vast is the physical power of man. The vastness of his power over mind, again, is shown by the influence that a single mind can exercise over multitudes of others. Founders of empires and of �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE? 35 religions move and control the thoughts and feelings of millions. The orator can excite to fury the passions of vast audiences or soothe into calm the tempest of anger, as Antony did over the dead body of Ciesar. The writer, again, by his books, in which are stored up the thought and feeling of his individual mind, can sway the lives of myriads for generations to come. Here, then, we have a paradox. How can deeds so mighty be achieved by a creature so puny ? It is by commanding other forces than his own. The personal capability of man is confined within a narrow boundary. The multitudinous effects produced by him in mind and matter are the result of the exercise of one single per sonal power—viz., the power of transfer. That is to say, man can transfer matter from one position to another by muscular power, and transfer ideas from his own mind to the minds of others by speech or signs; but, when this operation of transfer is over, man’s direct personal power is exhausted. By the exercise, however, of this power of transfer it is possible for him to call forth and command all the mighty, inexhaustible forces of nature. This single power of transfer is like the wand of the magician—insignificant in itself, yet, by various motions, capable of calling forth tremendous manifestations of force. It is strange—indeed, at first incredible—that man’s direct and personal share in all the mighty and marvellous work done by him is confined to this one operation of transfer; but analysis verifies it in every instance. Let us take a few examples. Rocks are riven and hills laid low by the force of explosives. When examined, the process of the chemist by which this mighty force is evoked consists of transfers : particles of sulphur, char coal, and saltpetre are, by transfer, placed in certain positions, forming the substance called gunpowder; �36 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. next, a particle of matter of a certain temperature is transferred to the gunpowder, and, with this latter transfer, man’s share in the work is exhausted; the natural force of the explosive now bursts forth, not created, but only evoked by man. Again, a steamship carrying ten thousand tons at a speed of twenty miles an hour over a stormy ocean is a mighty manifestation of force. What direct personal share in it has man ? From the moment the metal was dug from the mine, and the wood cut in the forest, until the construction of the ship and her machinery was complete, the personal share of man consisted solely in the transfer of matter. Again, in causing the engines to act with the power of ten thousand horses, he transferred coal and water into certain relative positions; transferred ignited matter to the coal, transferred a lever from one position to another, thereby allowing the steam to rush into the cylinders, and that huge ship is driven against wind and wave, not by man’s power, but by the forces of nature. Again, from the time the farmer transfers his seed from his barns to the ground, until the harvest of a hundred-fold is brought home, his personal part consists exclusively of transferring seed, manure, and earth into certain relative positions; the marvellous work of growth is done by the forces of nature. In the mental world, again, we know that the direct personal action of mind on mind is confined to transfer. Ideas and feelings can be transferred by signs and sounds ; but there ends the direct personal power of one mind on others. The after-effects are the results of the natural working of the recipient mind under the influence of the transferred ideas or feelings. No preacher, teacher, or orator can directly compel the mind of another to think or feel in a certain manner. They, like farmers, can sow the seed : what the harvest may be they have no power to influence by direct interference. �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE? 37 We are now in a position to see the use of science. Science discovers the order of facts—the laws of nature. With this knowledge we gain the gift of prophecy, the order of nature being invariable. The forces of nature are manifested under certain conditions, and, under those conditions, always in the same manner. Science, by discovering these conditions, places it in the power of man to command the forces of nature, to call them into activity at any time and set them to work to fulfil his desires. All man has to do is to bring about the conditions, placing things by transfer in certain relative positions, and the forces of nature leap into activity to do his work. Science thus gives to man, in relation to these forces, the position of a monarch. A monarch, as a man, has no more personal power than any other man ; his power as a monarch is his ability to bring to his aid his mighty hosts—to command his servants “ to do this, and they do it.” Exactly similar is the sove reignty with which science has invested man: she has subjected to his service the forces of nature—converting them, it may be, from enemies into friends; and so has rendered him not only the most powerful of living creatures, but the veritable master of the world. The forces of nature are practically infinite both in quantity and quality; no one, therefore, can place a limit to the gifts of science in the future. If we want to measure the benefit of science in the past, we have only to compare the capabilities of civilised with savage man. The difference between the capabilities of the Andamanese, the Bosjesmans, the Fuegians. and Eng lishmen, French, or Germans, is the measure of what science has done for man. Compare the capability of a canoe with an Atlantic steamship lit with the electric light. These are posts marking the distance travelled on the road of evolution entirely by the means of science. It is by the discovery of a law of nature—the �SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. law that wood will float on water, and by faith in its always doing so, that the savage can pass across his river. The Atlantic steamship, also, is the product of the discovery of the laws of nature and faith in theninvariability. But the discovery of the laws of nature and faith in their invariability is science. Just in pro portion as man becomes scientific does he advance in power and capability. The rapidity of this advance is greatly increased when man becomes conscious of the source of his strength, recognising intelligently what he acted on practically indeed, but unintelligently, before— viz., the fact that the universe is a cosmos, not a chaos; that invariable order everywhere exists, could we but perceive it; and that almost all our power is derived from our knowledge of it, and faith in its stability. The following parable may illustrate the use of science. A traveller who was compelled to pass through a strange, unknown country sought some information of its nature and the character of its inhabitants. He was fortunate enough to meet a friend who told him : “ The country you have to pass through is one in which you may enjoy yourself very much; on the other hand, you may find it a most dangerous and disagreeable place. If you know the roads to take and how to approach the inhabitants, you may become a king among them. By keeping on the roads marked out as safe you will escape all acci dents, and by treating the inhabitants in certain ways they will not only not harm you, but become your most willing servants, working for you night and day; and, as they are infinitely stronger than you, it is difficult to say what you may or may not be able to do with their help. Your enjoyment during your stay will depend upon the number of introductions you have to the in habitants, and on your acting exactly as I am about to direct. I will give you cards of introduction. Each card has a formula written upon it, describing how you �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE? 39 are to behave and how the inhabitant to whom it is addressed will respond. The inhabitants have a pecu liarity which makes these cards of great value. They are perfect Tories—so conservative in all their ways that, from time immemorial, not one of them has ever once been known to act except in strict accordance with the formula on the card of introduction. Again, there is no danger of these cards getting out of date, by giving you information true at one time, but true no longer owing to change in the nature and manner of the people: neither the people nor the formulas ever change. I have a large collection of these cards, which I have accumulated during a number of years. For a long time very few knew there were such things as these formulas. Travellers depended upon different modes of gaining the favour of a supposed king, in nature similar to themselves, who lived in some undiscovered place. This king was supposed to make all the inhabi tants act in accordance with his will, and therefore the only way of getting anything done was to get into his favour. So long as people were under this impression they did not come to me for my cards and formulas. Latterly, however, the number of people who have been applying to me has greatly increased. The reason of this is the success of my plan proved by experience. In response to the increased demand, I am every day engaged writing out the formulas on cards of introduc tion to new people.” The traveller asked this friend how he got the information which enabled him to write out the cards ? His reply was : “ I get all my knowledge by worshipping and loving with all my heart and soul a certain lady called ‘ Truth.’ I follow her everywhere, and try never to lose sight of her. Seeing my devotion to her is so constant, she every now and again hands me another card of introduction with a formula written upon it. This remains a treasure for ever.” �40 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. It is scarcely necessary to add the explanation. Man is the traveller bound to pass during his life through a strange country. The inhabitants are the Forces of Nature; and the formulas written on the cards of intro duction are “ The Laws of Naturethe friend who supplies these cards is Science. The use of science is to enable us during our passage through life, on the one hand, to escape hurtful collision with the forces of nature which surround us; and, on the other hand, to gain their aid. As we may see from savage life, man, dependent upon his own personal powers, is a miserable creature. Every step he has risen from that low estate to the level of Newton, Spencer, Darwin, Watt, or Faraday, he owes to the aid of the forces of nature. For that aid and addition to his powers he is indebted to his knowledge and faith—knowledge of the unvarying order of facts, and faith in its persistence. For long ages this knowledge and faith were exercised, so to speak, unconsciously. It is only in very recent times that man has become conscious of the fact that the universe is a cosmos—that in his knowledge of this universal order, and in his faith in its eternal stability, lie the only means of his advance from lower to higher on the road of evolution. This knowledge and this faith is what we call Science. It is she who has bestowed upon our race all the benefits by which man has become “ the paragon of animals.” It is she who has placed in our hands the chain of cause and effect by which, as with a bridle, we guide the powers of nature for our use, or save ourselves from injury by their action. Electricity, which under the form of lightning is, in the absence of science, a source of terror and death, becomes in her presence not only perfectly harmless, but a gentle Ariel engaged in carrying our messages round the earth. �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE ? 41 “ Lo ! the world is rich in blessings ; Earth and ocean, flame and wind, Have unnumbered secrets still, To be ransacked when you will, For the service of mankind. Science is a child as yet, But her power and scope shall grow, And her triumphs in the future Shall diminish toil and woe, Shall extend the bounds of pleasure, With an ever-widening ken, And of dens and wildernesses Make the happy homes of men.” Having explained how science is of use to man, we have now to consider the question, “ What is the use of theology ?” In considering the nature of science and theology, we came to the conclusion that, as “ theories of things,” they are the opposites of each other. The one is the product of reason and experience, the other of imagination and emotion. The one employs herself in “ discovering facts,” the other in “ accepting revela tions and clinging to creeds.” The one confines herself entirely within the bounds of the knowable and the verifi able ; the other lives beyond that horizon, guessing at what “ eye has not seen nor ear heard,” and what to the mind of man is inconceivable. This being so, it would appear that there could be only one reply to the question, “What is the use of theology ?”—viz., “ None at all.’’ Directly—that is, as regarding the performing of what she intends and what she believes herself capable of— theology is not only useless, but pernicious : by her representations leading men astray, and causing him to waste his time and energies in the pursuit of a phantom. Indirectly, however, she is of use. A squirrel turning a barrel cage in the hope of getting out is engaged in a useless way, if we consider his chance of succeeding in his direct object of getting out; but indirectly his efforts are of some use, affording, as they do, amusement to us �42 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. and healthy exercise to himself. A theologian, in a similar way, is engaged in the task of finding a passage by which he may get from the knowable to the unknow able. So far his work is and must be useless. But in some indirect way theology is of use, otherwise it would not continue to exist; that is to say, it satisfies some desires, though not the one principally intended. What are some of the desires of man satisfied by theology ? There seems to be, from the dawn of intel ligence in man, a desire for a “ theory of things.” If there are any people who have never felt any craving for an explanation—of some sort—of the facts of expe rience, they are the very lowest and most brutal. Theology is universally the first attempt to satisfy this craving. The existence of invisible man-like nature as the cause of facts is the guess which is naturally first made, and which first serves as an explanation. The number of different “revelations accepted and creeds clung to ” by different people is great; but the central core of all is, as we have seen, the man-like nature of God. Now, there is no doubt that comfort is derived from this idea. It is pleasing to think that the reins of the universe are in the hands of such an one as our selves. Again, theology allays the dread that generally arises from the feeling of being in the dark, though no doubt she creates much of the terror she gets the credit of allaying. Man, being now in course of transition from the soli tary, selfish, and savage state to the social, sympathetic, and civilised, carries in his nature the qualities suitable to both states. The theological image of God, being a reflection or copy of man, partakes accordingly of this his dual nature, and the terror created by the anger and revenge of God is equal to the pleasure anticipated from his love. Although, as the Bishop of Peterborough says, “ finality in belief is just what theologians like,” �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE ? 43 the fact remains that the image of God changes as the nature of the people changes. The verbal description of God which literally expressed the ideas of savages may remain in the “ accepted revelation ” of civilised peoples; but practically it is wiped out, so that the extreme terror which one would expect, if faith was real instead of nominal, does not result. Besides, every one thinks of the savage element of deity as a danger to others rather than to himself, each expecting salvation for himself by use of the means provided by the par ticular theology to which he “clings.” Science and theology have existed together from the earliest dawn of intelligence in man. When a savage proceeds to cross a river in his canoe, or to light his fire by friction, he acts from faith in science ; he expects that what happened before will, under the same circum stances, happen again. But this faith is unconscious and inarticulate. The eye of his mind will have to increase greatly in strength before it can perceive the universal and invariable order of nature, and in the meantime theology serves as a “ theory of things.” In a later stage, when science has completely sup planted theology in the mind, a feeling of irritation is often felt where veneration existed before. The exist ence of theology is felt to be an impediment to progress, and it is asserted that theology is not only of no use, but a serious evil. Those especially devoted to the service of theology are looked upon as a set of cunning hypo crites, who have devised the theological dogmas as a means of making money and gaining power. In the main this is untrue and unjust. One might as well get angry at the sight of a baby’s long petticoat, because he felt that, if he was obliged to wear such clothes, it would be a great obstruction, forgetting that, under certain circumstances, and for a time, these clothes are a com fort and no impediment! Just as the child grows its. �44 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. skirts are made shorter, and of a shape adapted to its needs; as war, slavery, and polygamy have come to be recognised evils, though at other times, and under different circumstances, they were of use ; so with theo logy : it is and has been of use to minds in a certain state, and, like war, slavery, and polygamy, will gradually die out as, from change of circumstances, it is felt to be not only useless, but an evil. It is interesting to note the progress that has been made in our own country. Two centuries ago theology was a subject of such interest to even the most intelligent that they took an active part in theological discussion : even Newton, the greatest scientist of his age, spent his time in writing on the Jewish prophecies. Faith in a man-like God and his constant personal interference in affairs was every where as strong as it is now in the Celtic parts of Ireland. Not only did the faith of the time accept the existence of this man-like God as a very grave reality, but it filled the world, indeed all space, with a multitude of witches, fairies, goblins, ghosts, angels, and devils—in short, a host of miniature gods. The intensity of faith in their existence, and in their causal connection with events, was shown by the flames of the many poor wretches burnt on the charge of holding intercourse with them. The most learned judges had no hesitation in saying that there could be no doubt in the mind of any rational creature as to the existence of these beings. And cer tainly, if their existence could have been established by human testimony, this is true. It might be truly said that, if all the sworn testimony as to the existence of witches and other imaginary beings was written, “ the whole world could not contain the books.” But, though “ finality in belief is just what theologians like,” see what a change science and her methods have made in a few generations. All that mighty mass of testimony is swept away as rubbish. Poor creatures �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE? 45 trying to make a penny by pretending to have influence over the unseen are sent to the treadmill, not as witches, but as rogues. This is a change due to the influence of scepticism, as the burning was to the influence of faith. Better let it alone, and leave experience to teach the truth.* Only harm is done when force is used to influ ence opinion. “ Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind.” The fact that this principle is now very largely acted upon is a notable sign of the change wrought by science. Grant that “ heretics cause eternal pain to their fellow creatures,” and you justify the con tention that they ought to be killed. In the days of our fathers theology was a very serious affair. Great wars were carried on and kingdoms upset by its influence. A theological war in Europe at present would be an impossibility. The answer of any one to the question, What is the use of theology ? would formerly have been that it was the guide of conduct in everything here, and the only ground of hope hereafter. The value of it seemed so great that everything else was contempt ible. Now great masses never enter a house of worship. Though a few have faith as fervid as that of our fore fathers, the great majority attend public worship from custom more than from conviction; from the motive * It is difficult to see the principle upon which a poor gipsy fortune-teller can be justly punished, while clergymen, who like wise profess to knowledge of the future and power over the unseen, are not only not punished for their pretensions, but honoured on account of them. If it is said the one is honest and the other dis honest, the question arises, How do you get this knowledge? The clergyman who professes to work on a child at baptism an invisible change, by repeating some words and sprinkling some water, that will save it from great danger of eternal pain, may be quite sincere; but why may not the fortune-teller be the same ? Both processes give pleasure to certain minds, and, as they are not forced on any one, surely both had better be left unnoticed by the law. �46 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. that it is esteemed, not by themselves, but by others, the proper thing. Theology has now become, to a great many, a matter of emotion and nothing more. To them it is a mere source of pleasure. It acts as a stimulus to the feelings, such as awe, wonder, hope, pride; these and other emotions are pleasantly excited, just as music gives pleasure by exciting a pleasant flow of feeling, while the intelligence is at rest. It is a humiliating and depressing thought that the nature of God is and must remain to us incomprehen sible ; that there are bounds to our capabilities beyond which there is absolute darkness. Now, theology gives pleasure by affecting us with a delusive sensation of knowledge. Further, it gives pleasure by persuading us that God is in his nature such an one as ourselves, that we possess means of making him our friend, and that he is, in fact, bound by covenant to ensure our future happiness; and so far as it gives pleasure, so far it is of use, especially in the time of sickness and approaching death. There are many natures to which the sensation of darkness is repulsive and terrorising, and to which, in the absence of light, a trustful calmness is impossible. Theology is of use to all such. Perhaps it may be thought strange that we have not mentioned the promotion of morality as the great use of theology ; that we have gone into holes and corners, as it were, searching for minute benefits, when the great good stood before us, in comparison with which all the benefits we have mentioned are insignificant. It is very generally taken for granted that it is in theology we find both the origin and sanction of morality; and it is to this supposition that theology in the present day owes its principal support. The rapidity with which numbers would openly abandon it would be astonishing if they could only rid themselves entirely of this traditional idea, that morality could no more exist without theology than �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE? 47 a limb if cut off from connection with the heart. When we come to speak of Ethics it will be necessary to con sider both the origin and the sanction of morality, and to contrast the scientific with the theological theories. It has, therefore, seemed better to postpone all discus sion of this subject for the present. We do not deny that theology, with minds in a certain stage of develop ment, has been and is of some benefit for the regulation of conduct. But when we come to examine the matter closely, reasons will be given for thinking that the amount of aid morality receives from theology is very much less than is generally supposed. But whether we are right or wrong in detail as to the ways in which theology is or has been of use to man, there can be no doubt—this the doctrine of evolution would teach us—that the fact of its being a natural product proves it to have served at some time some purpose or other. That purpose seems to have been to answer the question, put when intelligence became sufficiently developed to shape the inquiry, “ How can these things be ?” As we have already pointed out, the growing reason demands a “ theory of things,” and the first and most natural theory is the theological one—viz., that the unseen cause of motion of everything objective is similar to the subjective cause of motion in ourselves. Behind each fact is a mind. First comes fetishism, when every event has a soul for its cause; then polytheism, when one spirit can control many facts, as little chiefs can command a number of men ; and, finally, mono theism, universal monarchy, when one single spirit is supposed to be the universal cause. This “theory of things” satisfies the craving of the mind during certain stages of its development. By degrees, however, the theory, or, in other words, theo logy, becomes inadequate and unsatisfactory. Facts are recognised which cannot be made to fit with it. �48 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. Another—the true—theory is sought, and, after long search, is at last found in science—viz., that of a cause beyond experience xve know and can know nothing; that our boundary of knowledge is the law that facts follow each other in invariable order; that, in that order, cause is but the name we give a fact which invariably and necessarily precedes another ; and that of a cause we know nothing more than this, that every similar cause is invariably followed by a similar effect. Gradually theo logy becomes not only of less use, but an evil—as an obstacle to the progress of science. Organs of the body which are of service when first evolved may by change of conditions become useless, and by want of exercise gradually dwindle away ; but during this process, though a process of nature, they are a burden and an evil. So with theology. By the rise of intelligence it gradually becomes useless and dwindles away. The conception of God, as the unseen cause of all facts, has been gradually losing its human qualities. In the times of the writers of the Pentateuch (Gen. iii. 8, xviii.; Exod. xxiv. 9-11) God had the bodily as well as mental qualities of man. In the time of Christ the bodily qualities are becoming extinct, the mental alone remain. These, again, have been since gradually decaying and dropping off. Anger, jealousy, sorrow, joy, and such-like emotions are used now by the most advanced only in a figurative sense. Love and intelligence are the chief remnants left of the original human conception. Finally, Science is heard saying : “ All attempts to know the unknowable, which reason leads us to believe in as existing behind knowable facts, are and must be futile.” Theology, or the creation of God in the image of man, is, no doubt, as we have said, a natural product of the earlier stages of the human mind, and is, then, of use; but, as the intelligence advances, its benefit decreases, and, finally, when science arrives, it becomes �WHAT IS THE USE OF SCIENCE ? 49 a direct evil as an antagonist. The time and energy spent in “ accepting revelations and clinging to creeds,” which might be used in “ the discovery of facts,” is so far a loss to science; but, besides this serious loss, she has at times to sustain the active opposition of theology— an opposition by which she is delayed in her beneficent work of giving man command over the forces of nature, and so enabling him, on the one hand, to relieve the sufferings, and, on the other, to multiply the pleasures of human life. �CHAPTER III, THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. By the methods of science we mean the ways and means that science employs to accomplish her object—viz., the attainment of truth. A picture is a true picture when it is a correct representation of the facts symbolised. So is a mental picture true when it is a correct representa tion of facts. A proposition is true when it suggests or symbolises a true mental picture. Truth is the corres pondence between a symbol and the fact or facts sym bolised. Verification is the process of proving this correspondence. When complete correspondence is found between our thoughts and the facts they represent, we are said to know the truth. Now, as there are two distinct classes of facts, so knowledge is of two distinct kinds. One class of facts consists of our states of consciousness; these we call “subjective the other class consists of facts other than our states of consciousness—that is, of facts outside of and distinct from self; these we call “ objective.” Our knowledge of subjective facts has one characteristic which clearly distinguishes it from our knowledge of objective facts. Subjective knowledge is absolute. There is never room for doubt: the symbol and the fact sym bolised coalesce, as it were, so that disagreement is impossible. If we have a state of consciousness, an �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 51 idea or a feeling, we cannot doubt that we have it: having the idea or feeling, and knowing that we have it, is one and the same thing. On the other hand, our knowledge of objective facts, whether it be correct or incorrect, never can be absolute ; it is only inferential, not immediate; it is always more or less open to doubt, and our faith in it may vary from practical certainty to the feeling that it is a mere possibility. We can always imagine the negative of an objective proposition, never of a subjective. Nothing is more important than a clear perception of the difference between the nature of subjective and objective knowledge; the confounding of the two is a frequent cause of error. Many things which we think are absolutely certain as matters of subjective experience are really not so, being but matters of inference. Take, for example, the statement, “ I saw the sun rise this morning.” This statement in its subjective sense means, “ I had the states of consciousness called ‘ seeing the sun,’ and the image of the sun appeared to rise above the earththe fact asserted is a subjective experience; that I had those states of consciousness there was not, and could not be, any doubt, and hence the truth of the statement is to me an absolute certainty. But the state ment in its objective sense, on the other hand, means, “ I saw the object, the sun, move and rise above the earth, therefore I know without a doubt that it actually didand in the statement in this sense there is a con fusion between what is subjective and absolutely certain and what is objective and only a matter of inference. That the subjective sensations of the images of the sun and the earth separating were felt by me was absolutely certain, but the inference that these sensations were produced by the motion of the sun was not certain; it might or might not be true. The sensations and the cause of those sensations are two things—different and �52 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, ANO ETHIC>. distinct. The first is a matter solely of subjective ex perience, the second a guess or inference as to the cause of that experience. This inference, that the movement of the sun was the cause of the sensations at sunrise, was made for ages by the human race; yet it was false, as science has proved. No evidence is re quired—no evidence is, indeed, possible—for subjective facts except their existence. We cither have certain states of consciousness or we have not. Their exist ence is the only possible proof; but it is absolutely certain. On the other hand, an inference may or may not be correct, and depends entirely upon verifying evidence. This evidence may be so convincing as to leave no practical doubt; but in precise language no objective inference can be absolutely certain. The inference that matter—or, in other words, an objective cause of our subjective states of consciousness—exists is practically, but not absolutely, certain. The fact that we cannot be absolutely certain of the existence of matter, and cannot prove it to a demonstra tion, leads some to deny its existence. These idealists, so called, are right in saying that all we know for certain is our present states of consciousness, and that the belief in the existence of something called matter outside of self as a cause of our states of consciousness is only an assumption. This is true, and, if the idealists stopped here, they would be unassailable. But, although it is not accurate to say that an assumption can ever be absolutely certain, yet it may by verifying evidence become practically certain. That the sun will rise to morrow is an assumption, and practically certain, though not absolutely so. We have already stated that the so-called laws of nature are assumptions. "That the order of facts observed in the past will continue in the future is not absolutely certain; but practically we have no doubt on the subject. �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 53 It may be thought mere trifling to draw these fine distinctions between absolutely certain knowledge and more or less certain inference; but it is not so, as igno rance of this distinction between subjective and objective knowledge is a fertile source of error. For instance, nothing is more common than for people to believe in the existence of ghosts, because they have been told by some one (of whose veracity there can be no doubt) that he “saw a ghost.” Now, that the person saw, in a subjective sense, a ghost, there need be no doubt. That is to say, the person had certain states of consciousness, called visual images, and of this fact his veracity does not permit us to doubt. But whether these visual images were caused by something outside of himself, or by some particular state of his brain, is a matter of inference only, and the believability of it depends on the character of the verifying evidence. In such cases it is said that “our senses sometimes deceive us.” This statement, however, is not correct: when we look at a straight stick one-half of which is in water, and conclude that it is crooked, we are no doubt led into error; the source of deception, however, was not in our eye, though the eye gave us a bent image of the stick. Where the error began was in our inferring that that bent image was caused by a bend in the stick, whereas it was caused by refraction. It must always be borne in mind that the existence of states of consciousness is one thing, and the cause of these is another. If the first exist, it is impossible for us to doubt the subjective fact; but that is all we can be absolutely certain of. Any inference we may. draw as to what is objective depends upon verifying evidence, and this may vary both in quantity and quality to any extent, thus producing faith of varying strength as to the truth of the inference. Another error (referred to on page n) that similarly arises from the confounding of subjective and objective �54 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. truth is the regarding the qualities of an object as in herent in it, instead of being subjective conditions in ourselves; for instance, when looking at a rose we say, “ That rose is red,” or “ That rose is fragrant.” Taken in a subjective sense, these propositions are true. They then mean, “ That rose gives me the sensation of red ness,” or the sensation called “ fragrance,” and I infer that the matter of the rose is of such a nature as to be capable of causing in me those sensations ; but all I can assert to be absolutely certain is that those states of consciousness called “redness” and “fragrance” exist in me. But, if these propositions are taken in an objec tive sense, and understood as asserting that the redness and the fragrance are in the rose, they are not true. Of this we can easily satisfy ourselves. If we put on a pair of spectacles with green glasses, the rose is no longer red, but of a very different colour; yet this change was, clearly, not made by any alteration in the rose. And, if we have a cold in the head, the rose loses its fragrance; but the alteration was entirely in ourselves, not in the rose. We see now very clearly that the common suppo sition, that the qualities of an object are inherent in it, is erroneous. All the axiomatic truths on which we base our reason ing are subjective truths. We cannot conceive their negatives. The proposition stating the negative of an axiom is a contradiction in terms, or, in other words, affirms that we have certain thoughts which we know we have not. For example, the axiom, “A part is less than the whole,” affirms that my idea or mental picture of a part is not, and cannot by any endeavour be made to appear, as equal to or greater than the whole. The negative of this axiom, stating that “ a part is not less than the whole,” is but affirming that my idea of the part is different from what I know it to be. This nega tive is also a contradiction in terms. It first affirms that �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 55 a part is a portion less than the whole from which it was taken, for that is the definition of the word “ part,” and then affirms that it is not less. The same is true of all axioms; their negatives are inconceivable, stating that we have ideas which we have not, and they are also contradictions in terms. All such propositions are incapable of any proof or verification : assent follows immediately on their statement. They are, in fact, nothing but affirmations that we have or have not certain states of consciousness, and whether we have or not admits of no doubt at all. Such is the nature of absolute knowledge. All other so-called knowledge is of a different nature altogether. Once we step out of self we are out of the land of certainty and into that of inference and doubt. When we affirm anything of the non-self, or objective, we make a guess, which may or may not be true; our assent depends upon verification or proof. If we put our finger into the fire, we have certain states of consciousness which we call pain. This is subjective and absolute truth. That there exists something outside of us called matter; that this matter was in a certain state which we call hot; that this hot matter was the cause of our feeling of pain—all these propositions are inferential, may or may not be true. Their truth rests upon evidence, and this varies in pro portion to the amount of verification. There are in scientific method two great processes in regard to inferential truths—viz., induction and deduc tion. Induction is the process by which from particulars we infer generals—by which from some known facts we infer others which we do not know. For instance, when we burn our hand by placing it on red-hot iron, and find that the same result occurs every time we touch it, we draw from these particular cases the general conclusion that all red-hot iron has the property of burning us. �56 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. Extending our experiments from red-hot iron to red-hot copper, red-hot platinum, &c., we have in each case the same result as before : we now draw accordingly the more general conclusion, that all red-hot metal has the property of burning us. Again, extending our experi ments to still other substances in the red-hot state, we have again the same result: we now draw accordingly the still more general conclusion, that all red-hot matter has the property of burning us. This process of in ferring that what is true of all the individuals we know of a class is true of the whole class, or that what is true of certain classes of facts—classes that we know—is true of the whole class to which these classes belong : this is the process of induction. In its practical application all danger of error is excluded by aid of precautionary formulas known as the canons of induction. Deduction, on the other hand, is the process by which we proceed from generals to particulars. It is thus in order of procedure the reverse of induction—the latter beginning with particulars and ascending to generals. If from the general proposition, that all “ red-hot matter has the property of burning us,” we proceed to infer the particular fact that a red-hot coal will burn us, the process is that of deduction. If the general proposition from which we start is true, and we can show that the particular comes under it, that particular must also be true. Thus, if it be true that “ all red-hot matter burns,” and if it be true that a “ coal is red-hot matter,” it must be true that red-hot coal burns, for this was really implied, though not expressly stated, in the general proposition. If, on the other hand, the particular be shown to be implied in the general, and at the same time false, it must follow that the general proposition itself is false. In this way the deductive process, incessantly applied as it is to all general propositions, serves as a constant test of their truth. Found false in a single instance, they �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 57 must at once be discarded. The deductive process is used, again, not so much to test the truth of general propositions as to render the truth implied in them ■apparent—and so, in this sense, to discover it in regard to particular cases. The general proposition, that “ the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles,” states nothing more than was already stated by implication in the axioms and definitions. What the deductive reasoning does, and all that it does, is to make this apparent. Mathematical truth is absolute for this reason, that its propositions are built up of nothing but definitions and axioms—axioms the negatives of which are contradictions in terms, or which, in fact, assert that we have thoughts which we know we have not. On the other hand, when a general proposition is derived from particulars which are inferential truths only, it cannot be anything else itself than inferential. Thus the following syllogism (or argument stated at full length and in logical form) is composed of propositions each of which is inferential only :—“ All animals are mortal. Man is an animal; therefore, man is mortal.” This mode of reasoning is perfect—that is to say, if the first and second propositions (the premises) are true, the third must be true, as a necessity of thought; but it must be always kept in mind that a syllogism does not create any truth ; it merely exhibits it. If the links in a chain are perfect, the chain will be perfect; but its strength is no greater than that of any of the links. Induction and deduction, then, are modes of dis covering and testing truths. In induction we begin with particular facts, and from these we construct general propositions; in deduction we begin with a general pro position, and proceed to find out the particulars of which it is composed. The process of induction resembles the work of building a house with certain materials, and deduction an investigation of the house to see of what �SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. material it is built and what are its internal arrange ments. If a proposition stands the tests of both induction and deduction, we have the best warrant possible for believing in its truth—that is to say, for the truth of a general proposition we have the best verification when all the particular facts known to us are in accordance with it, and when experience verifies all the particular propositions logically deducible from it. What all veri fication consists in is appeal to experience. When Newton first formed the conception of the general pro position, that “ every particle of matter attracts every other particle with a force directly proportional to its mass and inversely as the square of the distance,” he proceeded to test its truth by experience. Assuming the truth of the general proposition, he found from deduction that the motion of the moon must be of a certain nature. An appeal to experience—or, rather, supposed experience—failed to verify this deduction, and Newton put aside, for a time, as untrue the so-called “ law ” of gravitation. Some years afterwards he learnt that the reputed length of the earth’s radius—an im portant element in the calculation—was not correct, and also what, approximately at least, the true length is. Newton now again tested his general proposition by an appeal to the particular fact of the moon’s motion, and so found in experience the verification he sought. Ex perience since Newton’s time having been, without exception, in verification of his general proposition, it is now called “ a law of naturebefore verification it was only a theory. Theories built upon facts lying outside the range of experience—that is, upon imaginary facts— must remain theories, or castles in the air, possible (if not a contradiction in terms) only so long as they are not inconsistent with some fact or facts of experience; but belief in them is entirely irrational. �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 59 Let us suppose that the following proposition is held by any one to be true :—“ There is, exactly in the centre of the moon, a being who is in nature similar to man, and who, in unseen ways, affects circumstances on the earth.” All that could be properly said of this theory would be, that until we could appeal to experience in its verification, it was a mere theory, faith in which would be irrational. If there were facts known to us which appeared consistent with the theory, these would give a certain amount of probability to it, and our faith in it would be proportional to the difficulty we felt in suppos ing these facts to be true and the theory false at the same time. On the other hand, if known facts appeared inconsistent with the theory, a feeling of improbability would be attached to it, and our incredulity would be proportional to the difficulty we felt in supposing the theory and the facts to be both true. This balancing of probabilities is the process by which we accept or reject all inferential or objective proposi tions to which we are not able or not disposed to apply any direct process of. test. Such are the mass of pro positions that come to us on testimony, and have as their subject-matter personal and other incidents of ordinary life. If a person of veracity states that he met in the street to-day one whom we know to be alive and well, the probability that the statement is true is much greater than that such a person is lying—so much greater that we believe what he has said. But, on the other hand, had he stated that the person he met was Shake speare the poet, the probability that the statement was false would be immensely greater than that it was true ; in other words, to conceive it to be true would be a much greater difficulty than to conceive the narrator tohave stated what was false, and accordingly we would believe the statement to be false. Hence it is that in minds which feel little or no difficulty in conceiving. �6o SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. the happening of a miracle, the statement that one has happened is believed on very weak evidence; while, on the other hand, to a mind pervaded by scientific prin ciple and acting under scientific habit, the statement would hardly be credible even if supported by any con ceivable amount of testimony. In mechanics there is the axiom, “ Force always travels along the line of least resistance.” So it is with belief. That which is least difficult to conceive offers least difficulty to belief, and so will always be believed in preference to that which is more difficult to conceive, and so offers more. To make us believe that on a certain night, at a music-hall, one of the Christy Minstrels sang a nigger song and danced a breakdown, the amount of evidence required would be very small; on the other hand, to make us believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury had done the same would require very strong evidence indeed. The reason of this is plain : the probability of the one event would be exceedingly great; of the other exceedingly small. This is the principle upon which rests Hume’s argu ment against miracles—viz., “It is more probable that human testimony should be false than that miraculous stories should be true, because all our experience verifies the non-existence of miracles, and at the same time the frequency of false testimony.” Chalmers has made the best of the many attempts to answer this argument. “True,” he said, “we have experience of false testi mony, and not of miracles j but we have no experience of such testimony being false as the testimony we have for the gospel miracles. No instance can be quoted of twelve men, whose writings prove them to have been both moral and intelligent, spending their lives in testi fying that they sawr and heard what they did not see and hear nay, even of suffering pain and death for their testimony of the facts. We have examples of men giving up their lives for opinions which were false, but �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 6l none for saying they saw what they knew they did not see. In fact, it appears to us more improbable that such testimony should be false than that a miracle should be true.” Such is the substance of Chalmers’ reply, and the argument is sound in principle. The only answer to it is, that the facts assumed are not true. Instead of it being true that we have the testimony of a number of eye-witnesses to the miracles, we have not the testimony of a single one. Instead of the knowledge that twelve men spent their lives in testifying that they saw the miracles, we have not a particle of contemporary evidence of the life of any one of the apostles, or of Christ himself, or of one single eye-witness of what we would consider a miracle. Even in the writings of St. Paul it is remarkable that, although he speaks in general terms about “signs and wonders,” he does not once state that he either himself wrought, or saw any other man work, a specific miracle. It is not necessary to go any farther into the details of the processes of reasoning called induction and deduc tion : these can be found in any book on logic. All we wish to do is to point out the general principles of the methods used to get exact knowledge, and the means by which our guesses at objective knowledge are verified or proved false. If a theory is verified by an appeal to particular facts, and if, again, all the particulars deducible from it are found in experience, we are practically certain of its truth. Such, then, are the two great methods of science. We shall now consider some of the chief characteristics of science in her use of these methods. Foremost among these characteristics is accurate observation of facts. That science may attain her great object, of discovering the laws of nature, such observation is manifestly essential. Observation is of two kinds : (i) simple; (2) experimental. �62 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. In simple observation we are mere spectators, as in observing the facts of the weather, or the motions of the heavenly bodies; we exercise no control over the facts to be observed. In experiment, on the other hand, as in chemistry, we ourselves arrange the facts; in other words, create the situation, and then observe the effects. It may be supposed that, for simple observation, all that is necessary is to have acute senses—to be able to see, hear, taste, smell, and feel acutely. Other qualities, however, are required, and really good observers are, as a matter of fact, few in number. The difference in power of correct observation between such men as Faraday and Darwin and the majority is almost im measurable. The errors of observation are twofold—error of omis sion and error of addition : we may think we saw what we did not see, and we may fail to observe what was really present. The error of addition is made in two ways: (i) we mistake our inferences for experiences; or (2), having a dominant idea or desire, we mistake the creations due to it—creations of imagination for objective realities. 1. For example : observing that a substance has the colour of gold, we conclude that it is gold, believing and asserting afterwards that we saw a piece of gold. Here only one quality, colour, was actually observed ; all the rest—weight, ductility, chemical qualities, &c.—were not observed, but inferred. 2. Being affected by the dominant idea that a picture has been painted by a great artist, we see in it great beauties and meanings which, without the dominant idea, would have been invisible. There are pictures in the National Gallery, in London, painted by the great artist, Turner, near the end of his life; these pictures are daubs so confused and indistinct that it is very diffi cult to make out what they were intended to represent, �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 63 er which is the top and which the bottom of the pictures. The committee, we have been told, have more than once changed the position in which they were hung. Indeed, to give some explanation of their appearance, it has been said that they wrere painted probably when the artist was under the influence of drink. Yet numbers have seen in them wonderful beauties and meanings which would have been invisible had the pictures been thought to be the work of some obscure artist. Again, a book is read with a dominant idea in the mind that it is the miracu lous production of God—such a book, for example, as the Koran, the Bible, the Zend Avesta, or the Book of Mormon: to the reader with this dominant idea every sentence is infallible truth and the highest wisdom, though it may be the most childish nonsense, or even a contradiction in terms of some other sentence equally sacred. This which to an indifferent reader would be palpable at once, is invisible to the other. Dominant emotion has the same disturbing effect: “ The wish is father to the thought.” A scientist, when observing facts bearing on some theory which he wishes to establish, has to be always on his guard, lest he fail to observe those which look against as well as those which appear to support him. It is for tunate for the cause of truth that, though one observer may so fail, there are always among his fellow-observers some with a desire—a desire as dominant—to establish some theory or other counter to his. These complete his partial observation by observing and reporting every fact that is adverse to his theory. Such is the beneficent effect of perfect freedom of criticism : it is the breath of life to science. Only in the bracing air of scepticism and criticism can theories, the infants of science, grow up to be recognised as laws of nature herself. Every true friend of science must be the advocate of the most perfect freedom of speech, for without this the progress �64 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. of truth is barred, and the evolution of man into a higher state of existence is impeded. Another characteristic of scientific method, and one hardly less important than that of accurate observation of facts, is the definite and accurate use of language. Very considerable is the error that penetrates our minds through the inaccurate use of words, while the indefinite use of words leads us often to think we have real know ledge where in reality we have none. By indefinite language we mean words which are not accompanied by any clear idea or feeling. Such words are mere sound, not symbols of thought. By inaccurate language is meant the use of words which are not constant but variable symbols, producing in the mind at one time one state of consciousness, and at another time a dif ferent one. One might imagine that a rational being would not use indefinite language; in other words, instead of speak ing intelligently, merely make a noise. Yet nothing is more common. One can easily convince myself of this by asking for a definition of the word representing the subject or the predicate. One hears the charge brought against a politician of having acted “ unconstitutionally." If we ask for a definition, it is most probable that the user of the word will be found to have had no definite idea, of which the word was a symbol. Many general terms, such as “ freedom,” “ civilisation,” “ Christianity,” “ religion,” are commonly so used as to be indefinable : they may mean anything or nothing. People profess to believe (and imagine that they do believe) many proposi tions which are really unthinkable. It is, therefore, impossible that, in the accurate sense of the word, they could believe (that is, perceive that the mental representa tion corresponds with the facts symbolised): the propo sition places facts in unthinkable relative positions, of which it is impossible to form a mental picture. Such �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 65 propositions may be and often are assented to ; but they cannot be believed—that is, their truth cannot be per ceived. For instance, when we come to the chapter on Ethics it will be seen that the expression “ free will ” is unthinkable. Yet a great majority assent to the exist ence of “ free will,” and much talent and temper have been lost in disputation about what cannot be repre sented in thought. For many years the unthinkable proposition, “ Nature abhors a vacuum,” was considered a satisfactory explanation of the force of suction, and as such it was assented to. As we shall see when consider ing its methods, theology supplies many examples of unthinkable language, and consequently of propositions which, though assented to, and often with much fervour and great expenditure of emotion, are in reality un believable. It will not be necessary to occupy any time in con sidering the danger of error from the inaccurate or ambiguous use of words. It is evident that such use must vitiate the whole process of reasoning. If we add up a column of figures and find the sum to be ioo, and then in after calculations, by inadvertently adding a little tail to one of the ciphers, make the figure a nine, the final result must be wrong. So, if in reasoning some word during the process changes its meaning, the conclu sion must be unwarranted. Language, even the best, is a very imperfect instrument for expressing every shade and change of our states of consciousness. Words have . to be used in more senses than one, and hence the liability of error through ambiguity of language. The greater portion of conversation being of merely trifling value, and having as its principal use the mere expendi ture of emotion, it does not much matter whether the language has any definite or accurate meaning : the tool is fine enough for its work. An old blunt hatchet answers for cutting up firewood, while a surgeon’s �66 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. instruments must be accurately made and perfectly sharp. So, if we set ourselves the task of finding truths, language, our instrument of thought, must be as clear and accurate as possible. Seeing, then, how easily error may find an entrance into our work in the use of the means and methods of searching for truth, science insists upon a constant appeal to verification. Where this appeal is impossible she refuses to enter, because there her work is impos sible. Such a region is a dreamland, a territory of imagination, and of imagination alone; science and reason have no business there. We now pass on to examine the methods of theology. The objects of science and theology being so distinct, we may expect to find very great differences between their methods. In the words of Bishop Magee, the first “ discovers facts,” the other “ accepts revelation and clings to a creed.” By the word “revelation” we understand “ a number of truths made known to us by some superhuman means.” The act of “ accepting ” can be best performed in very early life. At that period the reasoning faculty—perhaps the slowest in growth of all the faculties of the mind—is in its infancy compared with simple perception and imagination. Then is the time, before reason begins to ask questions, or hesitates to “ accept ” until they are answered, to begin the work of theology. There may be a few individuals here and there who have “accepted” a revelation after having examined it and its credentials by the reasoning facul ties ; but, speaking broadly, it may be said that people everywhere “accept” their revelations in the same manner as they do their dress, manners, customs, and language; that is to say, in their youth, and without reason. When a revelation has been once “ accepted ” the process of deduction is used to form or maintain a “ creed to be clung to.” The form of reasoning, put into �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 67 the syllogistic mode, is as follows : “ All the statements in this revelation, having been communicated by God, are true. Z is a statement in the revelation. Therefore Z is true.” The form of reasoning is quite sound, and, if the major premise (this revelation, having been com municated by God, is true) could be established by induction, we might place faith in the conclusion. But the chief characteristic of theology is that it depends upon deduction alone. To verify by an appeal to facts is repulsive. As Bishop Magee says, “ Science abhors finality in belief,” while “ that is just what theologians like.” The very proposal to verify a revelation that has been “ accepted ” implies doubt; and even to appear to doubt is of the nature of crime. To lay an “ accepted” revelation on the dissecting table of criticism, to be cut up with a view to examine its nature, is irreverent and even blasphemous in the eyes of a theologian. Hence faith without verification is the greatest of theological virtues—Blessed are those who believe like little chil dren. If one have not the spirit of a child, he cannot enter, much less enjoy, the theological world. To doubt in the least an “ accepted ” revelation is thus shown to be impertinent. The greatest men have for ages “ accepted ” the revelation. Who, then, is he that makes this demand for verification that he should set himself up in the pride of his intellect to doubt what so many men, men so good and so great, have for ages “ accepted ” ? There is no answer to that terrible question. If one is not satisfied to “accept” on authority, he is out of his element in the theological world. Perhaps it may be said: “ Scientific statements are accepted as well as theological ones on authority. The captains of ships accept the statements in the Nautical Almanack on authority, and on authority alone. They do not verify the calculations for themselves. In fact, to the great majority all scientific statements are matters received on �68 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. authority.” This is true. Both scientific and theological statements are often received on authority alone; but the reasons in the two cases are different. A scientific statement is “accepted” on authority because we know the verification is to be had on demand. A theological statement is accepted on authority because we know there is no verification to be had. A Bank of England note payable on demand, and such government notes not payable on demand as the French assignats of the Revolution, may be both “ accepted,” but for different reasons and with different results. The one is accepted because for it gold is to be had for the asking; the other is accepted but for the promise—the payment is not within measurable distance. In the words of the Bishop, “ Science abhors finality in belief,” while “ that is just what theologians like.” Scientific statements are never final, never authoritative, always acknowledged to be dependent upon verification. Theological statements are “ accepted ” without verification, and “ clung to as a creed.” When we consider the nature of theology it is evident that no other method is open. Theology treats of facts which lie outside of the range of human faculties, both in space and time. What is beyond the horizon cannot be subject to test, at least in our present state. We are told that in some indefinite time we shall be able to verify theological statements ; but at present this is of no use to the doubter, nor will it be of use to him in the future, because when the time of verification has arrived he will find himself where he will be supplied with an eternal verification by being eternally burned yet not consumed. But the “ accepted revelations ” contain statements of facts within the horizon of human ex perience, such as “ numbers, genealogies, geographical, chronological, physiographical, and geographical facts.” These can be tested by appeal to experience, and they �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 69 have been so tested. But it was a mistake to mix these facts of experience with theological revelation, even although the writer thought they were true to the best of his skill and knowledge. This mistake has been recognised by eminent theologians. We have already seen (page 17) that the Archbishop of Canterbury says it is “ an acknowledged fact ” that there is “ a human. element ” in our revelation. The errors discovered, therefore, in the statements that are capable of test, far from disturbing our confidence in revelation, may be “ allowed quietly to float away.” So satisfied, indeed, was the Archbishop with the “quiet ” way in which he had got rid, as he supposed, of the “ human element,” that he went on, with more courage, it is to be feared, than discretion, to ask, “ What on earth does it signify ” if a “ whole store of such difficulties are collected ?” Theology is safe on one condition only—viz., that she confine herself exclusively to things out of the reach of experience, such as the nature of God, souls, spirits, and the scenery and incidents of their ghostly surround ings and careers. Concerning herself with these, she can remain undisturbed by science. As to them may be had that “finality in belief” which theologians like. When science was young and wreak many and deter mined attempts were made to kill her. Since she has become strong, however, and evidently entered on a course of triumph, attempts are now frequently made “ to effect a reconciliation ” between her and theology. We have already seen that in the nature of things all such attempts must fail. Peace can be procured on one condition, and on one condition only—viz., separation. Theology can claim by right, as exclusively her own, the region of the supernatural. Her supposed facts are beyond the test of experience. They may be “ accepted,” but cannot be proved. Her methods are suitable to �7° SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. her nature—dogmatic assertion on and by authority. Deduction without induction is the method that yields the best results in “accepting revelations ” and “ clinging to creeds.” So long as theology remains within this, her natural sphere, there can be no conflict with science. Into that sphere science is unable to enter, and as to all things in it she both feels and acknowledges her ignorance: of them at least she can make neither affirmation nor denial. The motions of the moon she is able to deal with ; but to deal with a man-like being in the centre of it, should any one allege the existence of such a being, is beyond her powers. Such an alleged existence, being outside verification by any facts of ex perience, is not capable of being treated by scientific methods. So long, then, as theology confines herself to the supernatural, so far as science is concerned there will be no war. On examination it will be found that the battlesbetween science and theology have been fought about what the Archbishop calls “ the human element ” of revelation, never concerning the superhuman. There have been great conflicts on such questions as the age and authorship of books, the credibility of such narra tives as those regarding Noah’s flood, Joshua and the stoppage of the sun, Jonah and the whale, the pool of Bethesda, the resurrection of the dead, creation and evolution; but for all these conflicts theologians them selves have been to blame. The cause of all the un pleasantness lay in their not recognising the fact that all these are “ human elements,” and therefore amenable to the methods of science. It will be well when all theologians can, like the Archbishop, “ acknowledge ” this, and allow the “ difficulties ” of Jonah and his whale and Noah and his ark “quietly to float away.” Attempts to reconcile science with such things are not only ludicrously vain, but, by leading as they do to �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 71 quibbling with words and even to attempted denial of facts, tend to immorality. It is surely time to cease from all these attempts at reconciliation, and to acknowledge that theology should have nothing to do with any “ human element,” and should confine herself exclusively to the superhuman. A theologian has the same hatred and fear of science as one has of a wicked dog by which he has got terribly worried. There is but one way of safety for him —let him keep outside the length of the chain. The scientist, being bound by the chain, as we may call it, of verification, cannot pursue the theologian into the unknowable: here, then, let the theologian remain. Nor, again, is it possible for theologians to use the methods of science without producing effects destructive to theology. Let us suppose that, instead of “ accept ing ” a revelation, they attempted to prove one by scientific methods. Many questions would have to be answered, as, for example, what is meant by revelation. If it is the making known of truths by a superhuman method called “ inspiration,” that process would have to be described, and the means stated by which inspired thoughts were distinguished from uninspired. The facts would have to be collected by which might be inferred inductively the inspiration of any particular writer or speaker. Where are such facts, and how can they be verified ? Where, when, and under what circumstances were the “inspired” books written? Give the verifying evidence for beliefs on these subjects. If it should appear that the writer or teacher was mistaken as to certain facts verifiable by human means, state the reasons for believing he must be correct concerning superhuman facts unverifiable by human means. How, when, where, and by whom were any particular books chosen and selected from all the other books in exist ence which have been “ accepted ” by multitudes as �72 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. inspired ? By what means did the selectors distinguish between the genuine and the spurious ? It is quite evident that these and other such-like questions would be fatal to every supposed revelation. If any one doubts this, let him try the experiment, and he will be convinced that the Bishop of Peterborough was quite correct when he said that a revelation is a thing to be “ accepted,” and a creed a thing to be “ clung to.” In speaking of the methods employed by science in “ discovering facts ” we stated that it is to her a matter of utmost concern to ensure correct observation. With correct observation, however, theology, from her very nature, has nothing to do. As she deals with what “ the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the mind of man conceived,” it is evident that observation is, at least in this life, impossible. What may be open to observation hereafter, under circumstances totally dif ferent from the present, is matter for “ acceptance ” only. Again, we mentioned that science “ abhors ” as a source of error language with either no meaning at all or with an uncertain and varying one. We shall now see that such language is “just what theologians like.” We have already said (page 46) that one of the great objects of theology is to generate emotion. For this end there exist no means more efficient than indefinite ness of language. One can listen with pleasure to conversation, preaching, and oratory, and yet, on asking himself afterwards what definite truths were stated or proved, find that he has to search in vain for an answer to the question. General terms are commonly used in such a way as to mean anything or nothing—generally nothing. If we once try to give any definite meaning to the words, the pleasurable stream of emotion is im mediately dried up. This is easily verified by taking the speeches of politicians and the sermons of theolo gians and subjecting them to a critical examination by �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 73 substituting definite expressions for the general terms used in them. The result will show that the residuum of thinkable language bears a very small proportion to the whole, and has as little to do with the effect. Let us take a case. In the year 1875 there assembled a number of eccle siastics in Bonn. The object of their meeting was to find a solution to the question, How can the differences in the creeds “clung to” by the Eastern and Western Churches be so adjusted as to allow a practical recon cilement ? These grave theologians spent many days in solemn prayer and meditation and in deep conference together. No doubt the flow of emotion was copious, all of them feeling the immense importance and the tremendous responsibility of their position. The results of their united efforts were at length communicated to the world, and among these we find the following lan guage, embodying the conclusion they arrived at as to the origin and nature of the “ Holy Ghost ” : “ That the Holy Ghost issues from the Father, as the beginning, the cause, the fountain of the Godhead. The Holy Ghost issues from the Son, because in the Godhead there is only one beginning, one cause, by which all that is in the Godhead is produced. The Holy Ghost is the image of the Son, the image of the Father, issuing from the Father, and resting in the Son as the power reflected by him. The Holy Ghost is the personal product of the Father belonging to the Son, but not out of the Son, because it is the Spirit of the mouth of the Godhead, which pronounces the Word. The Holy Ghost forms the connection of the Father and the Son, and is, through the Son, associated with the Father.” Now, if we attempt to give some definite meaning to the words, Ghost, Father, Son, Godhead, fountain, issue, image, resting, power, reflected, personal product, mouth, connection, it will immediately appear that the whole �74 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. becomes mere sound, unpicturable in thought. The reasoning also is something astounding. A issues from B because there is only one beginning in C. Again, A is the personal product of B, belonging to, but not out of, D, because it is E which pronounces F. All this indefinite, unthinkable language, perfectly useless for any intellectual purpose, is most efficacious in the production of emotion. During the time these worthy theologians were sitting in incubation over this production nothing could exceed, no doubt, in volume the emotional flow of awe and solemnity ; and in this result we recognise its theological use. In theological language such a mixture of unthinkable words is called “ high, holy, and mysterious truth." We should always bear in mind that this word “ truth ” has a very different meaning in theology from what it has in science. In science truth means a statement giving a correct repre sentation of facts ; in theology truth means a statement supposed to be in accordance with the revelation “accepted” and the creed “ clung to.” In fact, theo logy and science do not speak the same language. This fact, if remembered, will explain many things which otherwise are not to be accounted for. A theolo gian, with apparent faith in the truth of his statements, proclaims to his hearers that an infinitely good God has prepared two places—one of torture and one of delight. Into the first he has determined to place the greater portion of the human race, and into the second a select few. During eternity the majority will be gnashing their teeth with anguish, while the few will be singing the praises of God, his infinite wisdom and his infinite goodness. If we follow the preacher and his hearers home from the church, we shall find them in half an hour at lunch, eating and drinking and laughing over frivolous gossip. Did we imagine the preacher and his hearers to believe, in the scientific sense, in the truth �THE METHODS OF SCIENCE. 75 of these statements, what we should conclude would be that they must all be plunged into inconsolable grief and terror. But how different from this, as we have seen, is the actual fact! This anomaly is accounted for by the difference between the theological and scientific senses of the words “ truth ” and “ belief.” The theological exhibi tion of “ truth ” was confined to the use of language taken from the “ accepted ” revelation, and the belief, the “ accepting ” of the revelation, to the evoking of a -certain amount of pleasurable emotion. In a similar manner it would be most offensive to interpret in a scientific sense the description of a certain most solemn rite. To eat the body and to drink the blood of our greatest friend would, in this sense, be the most revolt ing cannibalism ; but in the theological sense the rite is simply an awe-inspiring ceremony, calling forth much emotion. To take the language in a scientific sense would be a grievous error, and give great pain to those who, in the theological sense, “believe” in its truth. The means adopted by the Society of Friends to evoke theological emotion—viz., of sitting together in silence —has the advantage of avoiding the danger of turning theological language into nonsense by interpreting it in a scientific sense, and of so failing to produce pleasur able emotion. Another means for the same end is that of using a language not understood by the people. But perhaps the most pleasing and efficacious means of all is the judicious use of flowers, music, and architectural beauty, and it may be anticipated that, as science gets a stronger influence over the mind, making it more difficult to avoid inter preting theological language in a scientific sense, these will become more and more popular as theological means. But the “ human element,” which, when mixed up with theology, tends more than any other method of �76 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. action to sustain and prolong her life, is charitable and sympathetic conduct. Those who neither believe nor care for theology as a “ theory of things” cannot avoid admiration for the exhibition of “ the human element ’’ of sympathy in the school and in the hospital. So long as a theologian is known as one who goes about doing good, he is safe from all attack. This “ human element,” unlike that which the Archbishop acknowledges to be found in the “ accepted revelation,” raises no “ diffi culties ” which had better be allowed “ quietly to float away.” It is to be hoped that theology itself, as a “ theory of things,” will “ quietly float away,” leaving nothing behind but the religion of the heart, shown by acts of goodness in helping to lessen pain and to increase pleasure by the means sanctioned by scientific know ledge. We say advisedly “ by the means sanctioned by scientific knowledge,” because “ evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart."' This marriage between “ thought ” and “ heart,” bringing forth the blessed fruit of goodness, would be indeed a grand reconcilement; but it can become possible only when theology has “ floated away,” and religion has taken its place. When the intellect is no longer commanded to “ accept revelation ” and to “ cling to creeds,” and when the mind can look with solemn wonder indeed, but with out fear, upon the impenetrable darkness that surrounds us, science, though she will most assuredly have dissolved the whole fabric of theological credulity, “ leaving not a wrack behind,” yet will have left undisturbed the peace ful trust. And when she has silenced the prayer of words, it will be but to substitute for it the prayer of work, to enforce the duty of labour—labour to reach the light of knowledge, and labour ever to do the right: “Laborare est orare.” This leads us to the next part of our subject, “Ethics; or, the Science of Social Conduct.” �PART II. ��CHAPTER T. ETHIC'S---- INTRODUCTION. Before considering the origin and nature of ethics from a scientific point of view we must answer the question, Is a science of ethics possible I We have already seen that science is based upon the assumption of invariable order. Facts in a state of chaos, or subject to miraculous interference, are entirely outside of the scope of science. Now, ethics being concerned with social conduct, the facts to be dealt with must be of two classes—mental and material. All scientists, and some theologians, in the present day are convinced of the reign of invariable law over material facts. But even among scientists there are still to be found some who feel a repugnance to the idea of the facts of mind being, equally with the facts of matter, subject to invariable law. Theologians, of course, are compelled by their system to dissent from this conclusion. To assent would be destructive of the theological assumption that the government of the world is directed by the personal interference of a man-like God. It will be well, there fore, to examine briefly some of the objections generally urged against the conclusion that law reigns over the facts of mind. Perhaps the three following objections are those most generally felt:—(i) “If mind was under law, free will �8o SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. could not exist;” (2) “If mind was under law, moral responsibility could not exist;” (3) “ If mind was under law, man would be degraded to the character of a mere machine.” In examining the first objection we shall have specially to remember the caution of science as to the use of words. We have seen that the inaccurate use of lan guage is a frequent cause of error. When one considers the immense amount of mental energy that has been expended in discussing “free will,” one cannot help thinking that a great deal of this labour might have been saved had the disputants made sure of the exact meaning of the words used. The confusion of thought upon this subject has, in a great degree, arisen from neglecting to ask the question, What is the meaning of the words “free” and “will”? Had this been done, it would have exposed the uselessness of the dispute whether free will exists or does not exist. Let us now examine this preliminary question. The word “ free ” is applic able only to an organism or machine. A machine is free when its functions can be exercised without impediment. A clock is free when it can, by the unimpeded move ments of its different parts, tell the hours. If its pendulum is tied, the clock is not free. A piano is free when nothing prevents it from giving forth the sounds of the vibrating strings ; it is not free if its keys are jammed or its strings covered with cloth. A man as an organism is free when he can exercise all his functions. The eye, as a separate machine, is free when it can see; it is not free when bandaged. The arm is free when it can move ; it is not free when it is tied. Wherever the word “free” is used correctly there are two things suggested—viz., (1) an organism or machine, and (2) the absence of any impediment to the exercise of its functions. Next, what is the meaning of the word “ will ” ? Will is a word used as the name of a certain �ETHICS—INTRODUCTION. 81 state of consciousness, as are “ wish,” “ desire,” anger.” Will is the state of consciousness that is the immediate antecedent to an act, as wish is a state of consciousness immediately antecedent to will. All we know of will is as a state of consciousness. Now we understand the meaning of the word “ free” and the meaning of the word “ will.” The first, “ free,” denotes absence of impediment to organic action. The second, “ will,” is a state of consciousness. But what is the meaning of the expression, “ free will ” ? or has it any meaning at all ? Is it translatable into thought ? Let us see. If we say that a piano, as an organisation, is free, the meaning is plain and intelligible ; wc assert that the piano is in such a condition that its functions can be exercised without impediment. But if we say that the melodiousness of the piano is free, applying the word “ free,” not to the organisation, but to a condition of it, the expression is unmeaning and unthinkable, or nonsense. The melodiousness exists or does not exist; but it is absurd to speak of it as free or not free. It would not be more incorrect to say that it was square or oblong. It is correct to say of a clock that it is free, our meaning being that its wheels and other parts are unimpeded in their motion. But it would be ridiculous to say that one o’clock—a mere condition of the clock —is free. We might as well say that one o’clock is polite. Such a combination of words is mere sound, not intelligible language. So, when we apply the word “ free,” not to the organisation, but to a state of it—the state of consciousness called “ will ”—and say that the will is free, we are using the word “ free ” incorrectly, and really talking nonsense. The sentence, “ The will is red,” would not be more unmeaning or more unthink able than the sentence, “ The will is free.” We can think of the state of consciousness called “ will,” and we can think of the colour called “ red but we cannot �82 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. form the mental picture of the two together—a “ red will.” Free will, then, we see, is simply an unthinkable expression, totally devoid of any intelligible meaning. What is most probably meant when it is said the will is free is, that each individual is free. This is quite in telligible. Man, as an organisation, may be free or not free. When man can exercise his functions he is free ; and when, by reason of some impediment, he cannot, he is not free. Again, as the state of the organism varies, our states of consciousness vary. But the organ ism, being matter, is acknowledged to be under the law of invariable order; hence our states of consciousness, as the products of its action, must be so likewise. If the existence of states of consciousness depends upon the action of matter, and matter is subject to invariable order, it necessarily follows that mind and matter are equally under the law of cause and effect. But it is often said : “ Grant that I cannot answer the arguments adduced to prove facts of mind to be under the law of invariable order equally with facts of matter, yet I feel I can will and act as I choose, and follow my own strongest desire.” This is thought to be a practical and conclusive answer to, and refutation of, all argu ments for mental order. But it is entirely irrelevant— rather, indeed, it is a statement of an example of mental order. It is quite true that our will not only may be, but invariably is, preceded by our own strongest desire. The desire which may have been the antecedent of the will on a certain occasion was itself the effect of other antecedents; and, those antecedents being absent or modified, that desire would be absent or modified. In other words, that state of consciousness called a desire is a link in a chain of invariable cause and effect. The links in this chain of causes and effects which influence facts of mind are either but imperfectly seen, or else entirely unseen, by us. In this we have the explanation �ETHICS—INTRODUCTION. 83 of the belief that facts of mind are not bound by the law of invariable order. Because we cannot see and trace the links we imagine that they do not exist. This error prevails in other branches of knowledge, and from the same cause. When, as in astronomy or mechanics, the mind can trace the links of cause and effect in the motions of the heavenly bodies or the wheels of a machine, it feels no difficulty in acknowledging law and order; while in meteorology, the science of the weather, the facts are supposed to be in chaos, because we cannot trace the links of cause and effect. Yet there is, no doubt, just as much regularity and invariability of order in the move ment of every drop of rain and breath of wind as there is in the movement of a planet or in that of a wheel in a machine. But, in reference to mind, not only is there a difficulty in recognising the existence of mental order, but a repugnance is felt against such a recognition. This is caused by a misconception. When we speak of our mind being as much under the law of invariable order as matter is, the expression has a tendency to convey the idea that there exists objectively to us an entity that has power to control our mind irrespectively of our own desires ; that, wish and will as we may, this ruling entity, “ invariable order,” will force us to follow a certain course. In the chapter, “What is Science?” we stated that a law of nature meant, simply and solely, the order of facts—the order in which, under certain conditions, we invariably find them occur. When we assert that mind is as much under law as matter, we do not mean to say that there is a something distinct from mind which will force the facts of mind into a certain order. Thus we do not assert that, quite irrespective of any action of a particular individual, the mind of that individual will, at a certain time and place, have a certain train of ideas ; �S4 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. that these will be followed by a certain desire; that that desire will become dominant, and so pass into will, and this into some particular action. What we do assert is, that if the mind, under certain conditions, was affected in a certain manner, we may be perfectly confident that, under exactly the same conditions, it will be affected in exactly the same manner. But it is said : “ If this be so, and we knew what the conditions, both subjective and objective, of any person would be, we could foretell to a certainty his thoughts, feelings, and acts.” This is true ; but it is quite consistent with perfect freedom in the person. Knowing the conditions, we can foretell what position the hands of a clock will be in at a certain time. If nothing prevents the clock from exercising all its functions, of acting in accordance with its nature, that clock is free. Our knowledge of the nature of the clock can have no influence upon its freedom. So, if the conditions are such that a person can exercise every function of his nature without restraint, that person is free in the only intelligible sense of the word. Suppose we know the evidence about to be given in a case before a certain judge, and that it will show beyond a doubt that justice lies on one side; and suppose also that we know the judge to be a competent and righteous man : in such a case we can foretell to a certainty the decision of the judge. But surely it would be a misuse of language to say that, because we foretold how the judge would act, the judge himself was not free. But, paradoxical as it may appear, it is true that even those who deny that mind is under law, act every hour of their lives on the faith that it is. The stoutest denier of invariable order in mind is astonished if any one he knows acts in some unexpected way. But why aston ished ? If the same cause is not invariably followed by the same effect, how is the astonishment produced ? If mind is not under law, he could not have anticipated �ETHICS—INTRODUCTION. 85 any particular action at any particular time or under any certain conditions. Practically, then, no one believes in mind being chaotic. We conclude, therefore, that invariable order and freedom are not inconsistent with each other; that while the expression, “ free will,” is unmeaning, each person may be perfectly free—that is, capable of exercising without impediment every function with which he is endowed. We now pass on to consider the second objection, “ If mind was under law, moral responsibility could not exist.” Our first object must be to understand what we mean by moral responsibility. A person is responsible when he can be rationally and justly called upon to respond to an inquiry as to his conduct, with the object of ascertaining whether punishment or reward ought to be dispensed to him. When we stumble over a stone, we attach no responsibility to the stone : we neither punish nor reward it. But if a dog trips us up by running between our legs, we hold him responsible, and administer punishment. If the peculiar shape of a stone attracts our attention, causing us to lift it, and in consequence to find a valuable diamond, we do not reward the stone. But if a dog fetches a wild duck for us out of a river, we reward him. In other words, we attach responsibility to a dog, but not to a stone. If an idiot, or an infant, displease us by some of his automatic, involuntary acts, we do not hold him responsible; we do not apply punishment to him. But if a sane adult injure or benefit us by his conduct, we show that we think him to be a responsible being by dealing out to him punishment or reward. What, now, is the essential feature in all these cases, the absence or presence of which causes or destroys responsibility? Why do we attach responsibility to a dog and not to a stone, to a sane adult and not to an idiot or an infant? The answer is, Wherever we have reason to believe that �86 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. punishment or reward will be effectual in procuring what we desire or preventing what we dislike, there we place responsibility. Where punishment or reward would be evidently futile and irrational, there we do not place res ponsibility. An idiot steals something, but he is not held responsible, because we have no reason to believe that punishment could have any influence in preventing a similar act in the future. A sane adult steals, and we hold him responsible and punish him, because we have reason to believe that the pain of the punishment will cause a new link in the chain of cause and effect in his mind, thereby altering his conduct. When the thief stole, the strongest, the dominant desire, at the time, was to possess the property of another. This desire is called the motive or cause of the will to steal. By punishment we aim at creating a stronger desire than the desire to steal—viz., the desire to avoid the pain of punishment. When this change has been made, the conduct of the thief is altered, and the object of the punishment is attained. The man has been treated as a responsible being. The same process takes place when we attempt to change the motive by offering a reward. The motive in another to act in a certain manner which we desire is not strong enough to become dominant, and so the cause of will. By attaching some benefit to that conduct we increase the strength of the motive to such a degree that it becomes dominant. In the same way, when we try, by reasoning with a person, to influence his conduct, we endeavour, by the ideas produced in his mind, to create some dominant desire which will be a motive to conduct. Where punish ment and reward are rationally applicable as means of affecting conduct, there we place responsibility; where these would be futile we do not recognise any responsi bility. We have now investigated the origin and nature of �ETHICS—INTRODUCTION. 87 xesponsibility, and nowhere have we been obliged to assume that mind is not under law. On the contrary, the assumption that mind is under law has, in every case, been necessary before responsibility is recognised. Nay, more, not only is the existence of invariable order in the facts of mind necessarily assumed, but, unless we have some perception of that order, and so in some degree are made capable of altering effects by altering causes, no responsibility is recognised. The minds of idiots and infants are, no doubt, under law quite as much as those of sane adults ; but, the links of cause and effect being untraceable by us, we are incapable of any control or power to produce desired changes by punishment or reward, and therefore in them we do not recognise the existence of any responsibility. In the case of an infant, just in proportion as the order of the facts of its mind becomes apparent to us, and our power thereby becomes greater to effect changes in that mind— to alter the motive desires by punishment or reward—so do we recognise the growth of responsibility. The con clusion, therefore, to which we are compelled is, that so far is it from being true that invariable order in the facts of mind would destroy moral responsibility, the very reverse is the truth—viz., no responsibility is recognised by us where invariable order does not exist, or is not in some degree perceivable by us. We come now to the third objection—viz., “ If mind was under law, man would be degraded to the condition of a mere machine.” A machine is a whole composed of different parts, so constructed and related that the functions of each can be exercised. The number and quality of the functions of a machine depend upon the number and construction of its different parts. The more simple the machine is, the fewer its functions or forms of work; the more complex, the more numerous. By the word “ degraded ” is meant reduced in number �88 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. or quality of functions—in other words, become more simple and less complex. A man would be degraded by becoming a dog, and a dog would be degraded by becoming a plant. Each of these steps would be from more numerous and more complex functions to less numerous and more simple. All machines or organisa tions may be divided into three classes—(i) simply material, (2) automatic, (3) self-conscious. The capa bility of the first is confined to the transmission and change of force, the force being supplied to it by other means than its own. A steam-engine, a lathe, or a watch would never exercise any function were they not supplied with energy from some external source. (2) The automatic machine is a material one with the addi tional capability of self-supply of energy in the form of food. To this class belong plants and the lower animals. (3) The self-conscious machine has the same qualities as the simply material and the automatic, with self consciousness besides. To this class belong the higher animals and man. An organ-grinder, with a flower in his buttonhole, would illustrate the three classes of machines—simply material, automatic, and self-conscious. The flower is higher in organisation than the organ, the man higher than both. Degradation being a descent from a higher and more complex state of organisation to a lower and more simple, it would be correct to say that a plant would suffer degradation by becoming a simply material organisation, or a man by becoming either a simply material or an automatic one. But it is incorrect to speak of man being degraded by becom ing a machine. In fact, he would be degraded by becoming less of a machine—that is, less organised than he is. It is exactly because he is, of all beings on this earth, the most highly organised (the most highly machinificd, so to speak) that he is the most exalted of all —“ the paragon of animals.” The whole process, indeed, �ETHICS—INTRODUCTION. 89 of his growth from the embryo to the complete adult is one of increasing organisation, and therefore of con tinuous ascent in the scale of beings. This third objec tion, then, we find to be as unfounded as the previous two, and due, like them, to unscientific thought and inaccuracy of language. We conclude, therefore, that there is no valid objec tion against the assumption that facts of mind, as well as facts of matter, are under the law of invariable order. That being so, a science of ethics is possible. It must at the same time be acknowledged, not only that this branch of science is at present very imperfect because in its infancy, but that from its nature it is probably destined to remain imperfect. The perfecting of a science depends upon our capability of gaining a knowledge of the facts with which it deals. For instance, astronomy and mechanics arc more perfect sciences than those of biology and meteorology, because the known facts in the former subjects are more numerous than those in the latter. This enables us to discover the laws of nature more easily in the one case than in the other. But though a particular branch of science may be very imperfect, it does not follow that it is useless. On the contrary, the little we may know may be very valuable. The test of perfection of a science is the capability it gives us of foretelling events. Now, our power of foretelling weather events is, no doubt, comparatively limited. We cannot foretell what the temperature will be on a particular day at a particular place; but we can foretell that January will be colder than July. Our knowledge, though very imperfect, is still very useful, helping us, as it does, to grow our crops and to save our harvests. So, in like manner, our power of foretelling the conduct of any particular individual on any particular occasion is very imperfect; but our power of foretelling the general effect of certain condi- �9o SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. tions on a mass of individuals is itself very valuable. And while our ignorance of the links of cause and effect in individual conduct may prevent us from foretelling individual acts, science can discover the laws by which the conduct must be governed if certain results are to be obtained, and the conduct that must be avoided if certain results are to be prevented. It is evident, then, that, even though the science of ethics be necessarily imperfect, it is within its scope to shield man from much evil and to procure him much good. �CHAPTER II. THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF ETHICS. A single individual on a desert island, where no act of his could have an effect upon any one but himself, might be wise, but not virtuous—a fool, but not a criminal. The terms, “moral” and “immoral,” “good” and “ bad,” in an ethical sense,^would be inapplicable to his conduct. If one plays the piano when there is no one else in the house who can be pleased or pained by the noise, such an act has nothing in it of an ethical nature, because the effect of the conduct is confined to self. The moment, however, that another who may be pleased or pained comes within hearing distance, such conduct becomes ethical. Ethics is the science of social conduct. All the action done by a person as a unit of a society—that is, all action the effect of which, passing beyond self, extends to others, is ethical, and is called good or bad, virtuous or vicious, moral or immoral, according as it causes benefit or injury. The object of the science of ethics is to discover the laws of social conduct. Now, what is the exact meaning of the word “ conduct ” ? Conduct is a species of which action is the genus. All conduct is action, but all action is not conduct—just as all crows are birds, but all birds are not crows. The species of action that is called conduct is that which is �92 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS, adjusted to an end or purpose. For example, a cough? produced by the automatic action of the muscles is merely action, but a cough given to interrupt a public speaker is conduct, because it is action adjusted to an end. The adjustment to an end is the characteristic that marks off conduct from other forms of action, and that which distinguishes ethical conduct from other forms of conduct is, that the end to which its action is adjusted affects others as well as the actor. While, therefore, it is with social conduct alone we shall have to do in our inquiry into the nature of ethics, we shall be aided in understanding social conduct if we first examine into the nature of life action in general, of which social conduct forms but a part. The life-history of every living organism is one of struggle for preservation and of struggle against destruc tion. It is manifest from this that, in the growth or evolution of organs, those only whose functions were helpful in this battle for existence could ever have been established in any organism; for, if the action of an organ had brought the organism into contact with destructive conditions, that organism could not have survived. We have, therefore, reason to conclude that the functions of the organs in every organism tend to its preservation. There is one condition important for us to notice upon which the continued existence of every organ depends—viz., that the organ should have healthy exercise. We know by experience that exercise, within certain bounds, tends to strengthen, and disuse to weaken, every organ. For example, the arms of sailors and blacksmiths become by exercise developed and strong ; while the arm of an Indian fakir becomes by disuse shrivelled and powerless. The eyes of fish that live in the light are preserved by the continued exercise of their functions ; while those of fish that live in dark caves dwindle away and lose their functions. �THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OE ETHICS. 93 A11 living organisms, without exception, become what lhey are, then, subject to two laws—(i) the functions of •every organ tend to the preservation of the organism to which it belongs ; (2) exercise of the functions of every •organ is necessary for its preservation. Again, the action of each organism depends upon the •complexity and number of its organs. Of the innumer able forms of living organisms there are only a certain number which manifest any action similar to what we know in onrselves, as that connected with mind. Where mind becomes a factor in life action there is always found •one peculiar kind of organised matter—viz., nerve matter. Of the nature of the connection of mind and nerve matter, however, we know nothing. All we can observe is the order in which the facts occur. All the states of consciousness of which our mind is composed are divis ible into three classes—emotional, ideal, and volitional. By emotional states we mean simply states of feeling, as anger, love, pleasure, desire, hatred, pain. Ideas are mental representations, sometimes called thoughts ; thinking might be described, indeed, as a succession of mental pictures. Volition is the state of consciousness which immediately precedes deliberate action. A great part of the action of our organism is not accompanied by any state of consciousness at all, emotional, ideal, or volitional, as, for instance, the healthy, normal action of the heart, liver, stomach, etc. Some kinds of action, as weeping, are accompanied by emotion and thought, but not by volition. The action which will specially engage our attention—viz., conduct—is accompanied by all three. Conduct, being action adjusted to an end, requires thought to determine the means ; the emotion of a desire as a motive ; and volition as the antecedent of action. Our object now must be to find the laws of conduct, or, in other words, the invariable order of those facts of which the action called conduct is composed. �94 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. Among the emotions there are two which particularly demand our attention—viz., pleasure and pain. One or other of them may be said to accompany all other emotions. The words “ pleasure ” and “ pain ” are not used for them, indeed, until they attain such strength as to thrust themselves upon our attention ; yet, when we consider their nature, it would seem to be correct enough to speak of them as being always present with all other states of feeling. The characteristic of plea sure is the absence of any desire that the emotion experienced should cease ; and that of pain, the presence of a desire to escape from the feeling. A desire is a motive to change the present for some other state of consciousness. The state desired must be one of plea sure. In fact, it is a contradiction in terms to say that we could desire pain. It wrould be equivalent to saying that we desire what we shrink from and do not desire. This may appear at first sight to be opposed to expe rience. Do we not often desire a state of pain ? For instance, when we desire to have a tooth drawn, or to part with a person we are fond of, do w'e not in such cases desire pain, not pleasure? The answer is, No. In these cases the pain of drawing the tooth or parting with the friend is not the object of desire, but the pleasure of getting rid of the toothache, or of benefitting the friend. The accompanying pain is submitted to as a necessity, but not desired for itself. If it was, the feeling w’ould be no longer pain, but pleasure. What ever, therefore, be the object of desire which forms the motive of an act of conduct, it must necessarily contain the element of the bringing of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. If we seek an explanation of the genesis of these emotions, pleasure and pain, the doctrine of Evolution will aid us. We have already seen reasons for con cluding that in the building up of an organism by the �THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF ETHICS. 95 slow and gradual process of the evolution of organs, each of these by their functions must be of such a nature as to be preservative of the organism of which it forms a part. When an organism has arrived at that stage of evolution when states of consciousness form a part of the product of the normal exercise of some of its functions, those states of consciousness must be of a pleasurable nature. For let us suppose the contrary—• that is, that the state of consciousness attached to the exercise of the functions of any organ were of a painful nature, or, in other words, one which the organism shrank from and tried to avoid, the result would be that that organ would not be exercised. But wc have already seen that every organ left without exercise dwindles away and becomes defunct. It follows from this that the state of consciousness attached to the normal exercise of every organ must contain the emo tional element which we call pleasure. All experience, so far as we can observe the order of facts, confirms this conclusion, as also the corresponding conclusion that the feeling of pain is a state of consciousness in variably attached, not to the normal and healthy exercise of the functions of some part of the organism, but to the process of destruction or injury. So far, then, as we can observe, the process of injury to any part of the body, if accompanied by any state of consciousness at all, is accompanied by one of pain ; while the normal, healthy exercise of functions has attached to it the emotion of pleasure. Pain is invariably the flag or signal of distress, and pleasure of well-being. Pain may be likened to the heat produced in a machine by destructive friction, and pleasure to that musical hum which comes from a machine that is doing its work without injury to itself. If this be true within the entire range of our observation, we are justified in con cluding that it is true also in those cases where the �96 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. links of cause and effect are beyond our ken. We may not be able to observe the connection between pleasing sounds and the normal, healthy exercise of the organs of hearing, and between painful sounds and injury of those organs—nor may we be able to observe the con nection between painful thoughts and injury of the organism ; still, it is legitimate to conclude that there is such a connection, since analogous observable facts are, without exception, in unison with it. Indeed, if painful sounds or thoughts are sufficiently intensified, the mag nification enables us to perceive the injurious result, though the precise manner of its production be hidden from us. Injury to health, and, in the case of painful thoughts, even death itself, we see among such results. We conclude, therefore, that pleasurable emotion is attached to the normal, healthy exercise of every part of the organism that is connected with consciousness, and pain, on the other hand, to action tending to des truction. There are facts which may appear to be inconsistent with this theory, but which are really not so. For example, the primary effect of alcohol, sweets, and such things, is pleasurable ; and yet we know these things may be injurious. But it should be observed that, at the time, and in that part of the organism producing the pleasurable emotion, injury has not begun. When, afterwards, injurious action has set in, pain takes the place of pleasure. Even rest or inaction, when injurious, is accompanied by the feeling of pain. Young people full of vigour, whose muscles and nerves require much exercise for their healthy development, suffer absolute pain when obliged to remain at rest for any length of time. When they arc older, and the need of exercise is no longer necessary for the preservation of the organism in health, this pain from inaction diminishes and the injurious �THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF ETHICS. 97 effect lessens. A similar fact is to be observed in a person of large and active brain placed in a position where intellectual exercise is impossible ; he suffers pain because that part of his organism is being injured. In fact, perfect happiness, or the sum of all pleasurable feelings of which a person is capable, might be defined as the result of the full and healthy exercise of all his functions—or, in other words, of a perfectly full and free life. In the causal order of the mental facts which invari ably precede conduct, will is the immediate antecedent, and desire or motive the antecedent of will. Next in order comes thought or ideas. Thought becomes a link in the cause of conduct only when it generates a desire. Any number of mental pictures or ideas may be pre sented in consciousness without becoming a cause of action : thus, in the absence of desire, one can look at many different dishes without their producing any effect upon the conduct. If, on the other hand, a desire to taste a dish arises and becomes dominant, then comes will, and then the appropriate conduct. In such a case, it might be said, it was the sight of the dishes that was the cause of the conduct of tasting one. This is true, in a sense ; but it is very important to remember that the sight of the dishes was only mediately the cause of conduct, and that it was only by creating a dominant desire—a desire passing into will—that it became the cause of the conduct. So the thoughts or mental pictures of many possible modes of conduct may pass through our mind without any of these ideas becoming even mediately the cause of conduct, unless a desire becomes dominant, and so the motive or cause of will. We have used the expression, “ dominant desire,” instead of the word “ desire,” without the qualifying adjective. We have done this advisedly, and for this reason : It is possible for us to have present in our con- �SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. sciousness several different desires at the same time, not one of which may become the cause of will, because none of them prove so strong as the desire, the strongest, not to act in the manner they suggest. And, as the desire strongest at the moment is always the one wrhich becomes the cause of the will and the conduct, it is named the dominant desire. As in mechanics force always travels along the line of least resistance, so does the mental motive spring from the desire strongest at the moment. This theory, that in all conduct every one acts from the motive of his own strongest desire, may seem equivalent to the assertion that every human creature is a perfectly selfish being. This, however, is not so, and we shall be easily convinced that this infer ence is not a just one when we examine it by scientific method. In this case, as in so many others, the error springs from want of precision in the use of words. Let us first ask, What is the exact meaning of the word “ selfish ” ? A selfish person is one whose acts, although others are to be affected by them, spring from motives in which there is no consideration of any being but self. Now, it is true that every voluntary act must be a self act—that is, the act of ourselves, and not of any other person. But a self act and a selfish act are not neces sarily the same thing. A benevolent act—that is, one motived by consideration for others—is as much a self act as the most selfish. An illustration will make this plain. Three wounded soldiers lie together on the battle-field; two have their water-bottles, the other has none. Both of those who have the water see the agony caused to their companion by the want of it; both hear his groans. On one, A, the sight of the parched lips and feverish eyes has a powerful effect; his sympathy is aroused, and he shares with his companion his bottle of water to the last drop. On the other, B, the sight of the sufferings of his com- �THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF ETHICS. 99 panion falls with no more effect than the sight of the stones lying on the ground, and he drinks without a thought of offering him a drop. There is no doubt that A was a benevolent person, and B a selfish one; but it is equally certain that each acted from what was, at the moment, his own strongest desire. The fact, therefore, that all our acts must be the result of our own strongest desire is not inconsistent with the existence of the greatest benevolence and so-called self-sacrifice.* In these two chapters we have had under considera tion some of the general principles that govern all life action and conduct—a consideration necessary before treating of the peculiar branch of conduct with which ethics has to do—viz., social conduct. The following is a summary of the conclusions we have come to, and which, in the following pages, will be assumed to be true :— 1. Facts of mind are equally with facts of matter under the invariable law of cause and effect. 2. Every living organism has become what it is by the process of evolution. 3. The functions of every organ are of such a nature as tend to the preservation of the organism to which it belongs. 4. In those organisms in which states of conscious ness exist the normal and healthy exercise of every organ * Self-sacrifice consists in a motive that contains an element of sympathy with others, overcoming another in which self alone was regarded. For example, a father is engaged reading in his library ; a child enters, and asks him to join in some play in the nursery. To this he assents ; though, if self alone was to be considered, he would remain in the library. This is self-sacrifice. All that has taken place, however, is this : the motive or desire leading to con duct affecting self alone was overmastered by a stronger one, leading to conduct affecting others as well as self. In both the actor acted from what was at the moment his own strongest desire. �IOO SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. connected with consciousness is accompanied by the feeling of pleasure. 5. The feeling of pain is always attached to some organic action of a destructive tendency. 6. The immediate mental antecedent of conduct is the state of consciousness named will. 7. The immediate antecedent of will is the state of consciousness named desire or wish. 8. Every person acts always from what is at the moment his own strongest desire. We now pass on to consider social conduct. �CHAPTER Hl. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE. All social conduct is divided ethically into two kinds—■ viz., good and bad. The good is called virtuous or moral; the bad, vicious or immoral. As our first step/ towards a knowledge of the nature of this distinction or basis of the moral code, let us translate into clear thought these words, good and bad. What is their pre cise ethical meaning? Anything adjusted for some end* or purpose, and efficiently accomplishing it, is called“ good.” A piano is good when it fulfils the end for which it was made—viz., to give out pleasing musical sounds. A road is good when it makes travelling easy.A rifle is good when it throws the ball in the direction* intended. The root idea of goodness in all these cases is efficiency. That which satisfies our wish and intention* we call “ good.” On the other hand, that which fails todo what it was intended and expected to do we call “ bad.” A piano is bad when, instead of giving pleasing musical sounds, it gives harsh and unmusical ones. A road is bad when it is uneven, making travelling difficult instead of easy. A rifle is bad when it does not throw the ball straight, but crooked. Inefficiency is thus the characteristic of badness, as efficiency is of goodness. Before pronouncing any act of social conduct to be good or bad, it will be necessary to understand what is. �102 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. the end or purpose which the regulation of social con duct is intended to serve. Until we know this we have not the means of judging whether it is efficient or not. Now, social conduct is conduct adjusted for social pur poses, or, in other words, for the preservation of a social state—society, and the purpose or end of a society is co-operation. In the chapter on “The Use of Science” it was shown that man, so far as his own personal strength is concerned, is a weak and puny creature, and that it is almost entirely by the aid of the forces of nature outside of himself that he is enabled to accomplish all he does. For the possibility of availing himself of these forces he is, as was shown, indebted entirely to his knowledge of the laws of nature. But even with this knowledge he would be comparatively helpless if unaided by the co operation of his fellows. From the moment of his birth he is dependent upon the aid of others. The lowest races, those the least raised above the brute, are those among whom there is the least social co-operation. Those nations which have risen the highest in the scale of civilisation are those in which social co-operation has been most highly developed. The more man becomes a social animal, the more he becomes dependent for his existence on the co-operation of society. The preserva tion of society thus becomes a matter of self-preservation. Now, certain conduct tends to enable individuals to live in social contact; other conduct tends to prevent them from doing so. The first is efficient for social purposes, and is therefore called, in an ethical sense, good. The second is inefficient for social purposes—antagonistic, and is therefore called bad. Good social conduct is conduct that tends to draw individuals closer together; bad social conduct tends to repel them from one another, and thereby to make society impossible. The one is efficient, making cooperation easy; the other is inefficient, �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE. 103 making co-operation difficult or impossible. Just as a road is called good if it is efficient by making travelling easy, and bad if by its inefficiency it makes travelling difficult, so social conduct is called good if it makes co-operation easy, and bad if it makes co-operation difficult. The moral code consists of two divisions : one con tains the good conduct or virtues, the other the bad conduct or vices. It is necessary here to distinguish the two senses in which the term, moral code, is used— viz., the subjective and the objective. In the first it denotes what are esteemed, or considered by any society, virtues and vices; in the second, what are, in matter of fact, virtues and vices. The subjective might be called the opinionative code, and the objective the absolute code. These two codes may or may not agree. The failure to mark the distinction between them has led to the following error. “ Morality,” it has been said, “ is a mere matter of custom, and depends entirely upon the latitude and longitude of the country. In Cairo poly gamy is a virtue, in London a vice. Even in the same country the code differs at different times. Duelling fifty years ago was a virtue in England, and now it is a vice. On the Continent it is a virtue still.” Now, in the subjective sense this is true, but in the objective sense it is not true. In the opinionative code of Egypt, no doubt, polygamy is a virtue ; but whether it is so in the absolute code depends entirely upon the question of fact, whether polygamy benefits society or whether it does not. With this question opinion has nothing to do. Polygamy either tends to benefit society or it does not; what people think is irrelevant. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy—a subjective or opinionative sys tem—made the heavenly bodies to revolve round the earth. The Ptolemaic opinion, however, had no influ ence on the motions of the heavenly bodies; and, as a �104 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. matter of objective fact, they did not revolve round the earth. Similarly, the fact of conduct being entered as virtuous in the opinionative code does not make it so in the absolute code. The doctrine of evolution justifies us in supposing that, at the time when any conduct was first adopted, there was some agreement at least between the subjec tive and objective codes. The reason of this is the same as led us to the conclusion that the functions of every organ which has been evolved in an organism must have tended to its preservation. Had such func tions been destructive, the organism could not have survived to form a race. So any society that adopted as a virtue some line of conduct that was in reality a vice would have been so far weakened, and accordingly less able to survive in the struggle for existence through which every society, as well as every organism, has to pass. But, though the opinionative and absolute codes may be in agreement at one time, they may differ at another. The reason is this : conduct that under cer tain circumstances would tend to strengthen a society may under a change of circumstances tend to weaken it; just as the clothing and food that are in the Arctic regions preservative would be in the Tropics deleterious and destructive. The ethical character of conduct must change, if circumstances change the ethical results of that conduct. As a matter of fact, conduct, however good it may have once been, is no longer good when it tends to injure a society. It must be, therefore, in the absolute code, a vice. In the opinionative code, how ever, from the force of custom, the same conduct may be found still registered as a virtue. We know that all conduct, when long repeated, has a tendency to become instinctive and stereotyped, and therefore to exist in the character long after the original cause of it has ceased to exist. In some nations this conservative tendency is �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE. 105 more marked than in others, and no doubt by giving stability would prove of some benefit, especially in the earlier period of their history. But if it is so strong in a people as to destroy the power of changing as surround ing circumstances change, that people, after a certain stage of evolution has been reached, remains stationary. This is illustrated by such countries as India and China. Lines of conduct which, by increasing the rigidity of the structure, so to speak, of a society, were efficient at one time for the preservation of the society against the assaults of surrounding enemies, may at another time be potent to hinder its advance in civilisation, and be there fore injurious. In other words, conduct which at one time was a virtue, in both the opinionative and the absolute codes, may come to be a virtue in the first only, and a vice in the second. The quality of goodness or badness in conduct is determined by the nature of the co-operation for which the society exists. Social co-operation is divisible into two principal kinds—viz., military and industrial. The end or purpose of military co-operation is to defend the society against the attacks of enemies, and to subjugate other societies. The characteristic of military co-opera tion is that in it the conduct of the many is regulated by the few : the desires and wills of the mass are subordi nated to the will of a commander. The purpose of industrial co-operation is the mutual supply of indi vidual wants. The characteristic of industrial co-opera tion is that in it the conduct of the individual is voluntary, and regulated by individual desire. In military co-operation the initiative of individual conduct rests with a chief; in industrial, with the individual himself. Every nation exhibits within itself both mili tary and industrial co-operation. In the earliest period of a nation’s history, however, the military preponderates greatly over the industrial. The nation spends the �106 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. greater part of its energy either in defending itself from, or in conquering, neighbours. As a nation advances in civilisation, or, in other words, becomes more social, the industrial type of co-operation advances, and the military loses ground. These two systems, the military and the industrial, are so distinct and, in many respects, so opposed to each other, that conduct which would be good where the military system prevails might be bad where the industrial prevails. Conditions which would strengthen an industrial might destroy a military organi sation. What a member of the one would esteem as a virtue a member of the other might hate as a vice. Individual independence, for example, and liberty of action to the greatest extent possible consistent with the like liberty in others, would be beneficial in the indus trial state; they would be destructive in the military. The chief bond wrhich keeps a military society together being the fear of physical pain, the sympathetic emotions are but little regarded. In an industrial society, on the other hand, co-operation being voluntary, manifest dis regard of emotion would be repellent, keep the members asunder, and thereby prevent co-operation. Conduct, therefore, of a tyrannical and cruel nature, which might be esteemed virtuous in a military state, would be vicious in an industrial. But, though the moral code differs in its specific details under different circumstances, the principle on which it is formed remains the same : con duct tending to make co-operation easy is good, and conduct tending to impede or prevent it is bad. But the moral codes of different peoples, and of the same people at different times, differ greatly, not only in specific details; they differ also greatly in extent and complexity. The acts enjoined as good or forbidden as bad in a primitive society are very few, and the rules of conduct very simple compared with such acts and rules in a civilised nation. The reason of this is evident. �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE. 107 The wants and desires of man in the primitive stage are few and simple. All of them, again, or almost all, are capable of being satisfied by his own exertions. There is, indeed, but one important exception—viz., the want of protection from enemies. For this almost alone he needs the aid of others. Hence military co-operation, and that only occasional, covers for him almost the whole area of social conduct. His rules of social con duct are therefore few and simple, and such as belong mainly to the military type. In a civilised nation, on the contrary, the rules of social conduct are both numer ous and complex. Besides those contained in public legislation, there are the innumerable rules of private social conduct in the family and other divisions of society. The extent and complexity of the moral code varies directly as co-operation increases, and co-opera tion increases as the wants of man increase. As man becomes evolved from a solitary and selfish into a social animal, the necessity of co-operation constantly increases. Self-preservation and the preservation of the society arc indissolubly linked together. Now, a society, like all other things that exist, can exist only on certain condi tions. One condition essential to the existence of a society is that the social conduct of the members of it should be such as to draw them together. If the mem bers of a society conduct themselves in such a manner as to repel one another, all co-operation must cease, and this, when man has once become a social animal, must entail destruction. By his own solitary exertion he could not provide for the wants of the body ; what his mental experience would be we may judge from the well-known fact that solitary confinement, if prolonged, causes the destruction of the mind. The scientific account, then, of the origin and nature of the moral code is this. The rules of social conduct of which the moral code consists arise from the necessity �io8 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. of social co-operation for the preservation and well-being of man. The aim of the moral code is, on the onehand, the prevention of all modes of conduct that are bad, or, in other words, prevent or impede social co operation, and, on the other hand, the encouragement of all modes of conduct that are good, or, in other words, promote it. Before considering what is called “the sanction of the moral code,” or the means by which good conduct is encouraged and evil restrained, we will examine the origin and nature of the moral code from the theological point of view. In the chapters on science the foundation of all theology was shown to be the theory that the unknown cause of known facts is of man-like nature. This theory is the outcome of another, which (from its universality among peoples who have risen to some degree of intelli gence) seems to be a natural product of the primitive mind—viz., that man is a twofold being, consisting of a visible element and an invisible—the man and his ghost or spirit. All manifestations of force are attributed to the same cause as man knows to exist in himself as consciousness. Primitive mind throws itself, so to speak, into the objects around it. This is the fetishistic stage of theology. When society becomes developed enough to be governed by a chief, and when the ghost theory has established the custom of worship ping the ghost of such chief after his death, the poly theistic stage has been attained. From this stage to the monotheistic is but another easy and natural develop ment of the invisible-ghost theory. Indeed, as the range of power of personal government increases from that of the local chief of a small tribe to that of a monarch over all known people, the conception of monotheism becomes inevitable. One man-like ghost rules over the whole universe—“ King of kings and Lord of lords.” �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE 01' THE MORAL CODE. O9 Now, the early state of society is almost wholly of the military type, and in it consequently the form of govern ment is despotic. The regulation of social conduct comes from the desires and will of the chief. The industrial type of society, where the initiative of conduct comes from the desires and will of the individual mem bers of the society, has in primitive times scarcely any existence. Theology at this time supplies the ruling theory of things. The desires and will of the invisible man-like ghost—the God of the nation, are the source of all authority, and from him come all commands regu lating conduct. The visible and .living chief is the executive officer of, and derives all his authority from, the invisible God. Where this theory is dominant the natural and rational deduction is, that the origin of the moral code is the expression of the will of the invisible man-like ghost, and that its nature is to make goodness of conduct to consist entirely in obedience to that will, and badness in disobedience. Conduct in conformity with command is virtue; conduct in violation of com mand is vice. In this theological theory the natural results of conduct are not only irrelevant, but to take them into consideration partakes of the nature of sin. The single and only object in all conduct should be to please and gratify the desire of the God by obeying his command. To justify this account of the theological theory of the origin and nature of the moral code we shall give here some theological utterances. These will be taken from the theology most familiar to us in this country ; but all systems of theology are in principle identical, however different in detail. In the Hebrew theology the first man and woman are represented as having been placed in a garden, in which was “ every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of �no SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. knowledge of good and evil.” “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Here it is to be observed that the command was, to all appear ance, a perfectly capricious and despotic one. No reason is given why the fruit should not be eaten ; a threat of punishment, simply, is uttered against the eater. A person of any intelligence would, if he listened to the dictate of reason, have come naturally to the con clusion that the fruit of this tree was the fruit be ought to eat of. Just introduced into a strange world, without any experience either of his own or of an ancestor, he might well think that a knowledge of the difference between good and evil was the very thing he ought to try and get. The tree, indeed, appears to have been made in every way desirable—“good for food,” “ pleasant to the eyes,” “and a tree to be desired to make one wise.” Yet to eat of that fruit—and simply because a command had been given against it—was so great a vice that the misery of the whole human race does not, to the theo logical mind, appear a punishment too great for it. Let us take, again, the case of Abraham. “ God did tempt Abraham, . . . and he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. and get thee into the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Here we have a command to commit one of the greatest crimes possible. Yet Abraham, because he obeyed, and without hesitation agreed to become the assassin of his son, is held up to all the world as a pattern of virtue. The God is represented as so delighted as to be moved to swear : “ Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son : that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OE THE MORAL CODE. I II seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed ; because thou hast obeyed my voice” Acts thus become instantly reversed in their nature the moment a command is given : that which was a virtue becomes a crime, that which was a crime becomes a virtue. The whole moral code originates in the mere will of the man-like God. The nature of virtue is that it fulfils this will, and so pleases the God; the nature of vice is that it thwarts this will, and so angers him. The effect of conduct may be, in the nature of things, bene ficial to man ; but that does not make the conduct virtuous. Nay, this fact tends to destroy any virtuous quality in it, making the conduct to appear the result rather of the desire and will of the actor than of simple obedience to the will of God. The great feature of Abraham’s virtue was, that while the conduct prescribed was revolting to his whole nature, he yet obeyed the voice of command. It was the one quality of obedience that so pleased the God as to make him swear that he would pour blessings upon Abraham. From the theo logical point of view, the first step towards goodness is unquestioning obedience—becoming like a little child” —being ready to do violence to our own conscience and feeling and reason. “ If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters—yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” “ So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” The contrast, then, between the theory of theology and that of science is quite as great in regard to the origin and nature of the moral code as we have hitherto found it to be in other respects. Science traces the origin of the moral code to the nature of things. Co- �112 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. operation becoming necessary, rules of conduct become necessary. The fact that man has become a social being carries with it the genesis of the moral code. Theology supposes the origin of the moral code to be found in the mere desires and will of a man-like God. Science asserts that the nature of the moral code, or the distinc tion between moral good and moral evil, consists in the effect of social conduct. If conduct tends to make co operation easy, it is good ; if conduct makes co-opera tion difficult or impossible, it is bad. Theology supposes that all conduct in accordance with the desire and command of a man-like God, whatever may be its natural effect, is good; and that all conduct not in such accord ance, whatever may be its natural effect, is bad. Virtue is simply that which gives pleasure to the God; vice, that which gives him pain. Science accounts for the fact that the moral code is changeable, that it differs at different times and places, by the fact that the results of conduct—-on which results the qualities of goodness and badness entirely depend—vary as circumstances vary. Conduct, therefore, which, under certain conditions, was of benefit to man as a social being may, by change of conditions, come to have an opposite result—in other words, virtue and vice may change places. Theology, in primitive times, had no difficulty in accounting for changes in the moral code : the God had changed his mind. It was a matter of frequent experience to sec the living chief change his desires and will, to hear him order to-day and counter-order to-morrow. It seemed but natural, then, that the invisible ghost-chief should similarly change his mind and orders. Abraham does not appear to have been in the least astonished at getting a command to do what he would have expected to be punished for doing the day before. In the first chapters of Genesis, God is represented as looking at his work of creation and being pleased—pronouncing it “ good.” �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE. II3 A few chapters further on we read of him being in a state of disgust and despair at the way in which man, his greatest work, had turned out. The Lord repented, and “ it grieved him at his heart ” that he had made man at all, and he determined to annihilate him. Un fortunately, however, for the success of this scheme, one family had pleased him—so pleased him that in the work of annihilation he made an exception of it. As a consequence, the race was preserved, and, as we are told in the after-history, man turned out as bad as before. To the early mind, then, no incongruity appeared in the idea of change of mind on the part of the God. It is otherwise with those in the present day who are capable of attaching the attributes of infinite knowledge and infinite wisdom to the God—attributes plainly inconsis tent with change of mind. To such it is difficult to conceive of infinite wisdom maintaining at one time that “ an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ” is good as a principle of conduct, and maintaining at another time that it is bad (Lev. xxiv. 20 ; Matt. v. 38). This, however, is only one of those difficulties which, theologians think, are best “ allowed quietly to float away.” The contrast between the scientific and the theo logical explanation of the origin of the different moral codes is very similar to that of the origin of the different languages on the earth. The scientific explanation of the origin and existence of different languages, as of different race-characteristics, physical and mental, is that they are the product of slow changes—subjective and objective. Languages grow as the organisation of man grows. The contrast between the Bosjesman language, consisting of a few clicks and grunts, and the English is similar to the contrast between the mental organisation of one of those savages and of Shakespeare. The English language has become what it is by gradual �114 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. growth, according to the nature of things, under the law of invariable order. The theological explanation of the origin and existence of different languages is that the man-like God created the different languages in a moment of fright, caused by an attempt of some people to build a tower by which they might be able to get into heaven, his abode. “ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower.” The result was that the Lord considered it necessary to scatter the people by “ con founding their language,” so that they could “ not understand one another’s speech ” (Genesis xi. 1-9). Similarly the theological account of the origin of the moral code is that it sprang into existence by the God expressing his desires and will as to the conduct of man. As his desire and will have changed, so the moral code has changed. Whether the will of the God be declared in such a striking manner as when he wrote a code with his finger on two stones and delivered them on a mountain burning with fire, or whether it has been made known by some prophet or priest, or by some occult process in each man’s mind, the moral code is simply the expression of this will. The contrast, therefore, between the theological and the scientific theory of the origin and nature of the moral code is so great as to preclude the idea of any reconcilement. We have already been compelled to arrive at the same conclusion in comparing the prin ciples of theology and science in regard to other branches of knowledge. When the human race was in its infancy it thought as a child and spoke as a child ; but as it became more advanced it threw away its childish theories. No one would hesitate for a moment to acknowledge that it would be inconceivable folly for us to cast away all the knowledge that science has given us in astronomy, mechanics, chemistry, anatomy, surgery, and go back to the theories and practices of primitive �THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE MORAL CODE. 115 man. Yet men of great intelligence in regard to other matters try to persuade themselves and others that it is the highest wisdom for us to accept the theories of primitive man concerning the most important subject of all—the science of social conduct. Men who would laugh to scorn the idea of exchanging our ocean steamers for canoes hollowed by flint flakes, each from a single tree, gravely ask us to “ accept ” the theories of the infants of our race about ethics as a “ revelation from God.” �CHAPTER IV. THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. Before examining the means by which social conduct is guided, good conduct encouraged, and the bad pre vented, it will be well to consider a preliminary question. The idea of the necessity of a sanction for the moral code naturally suggests to our mind that there is an inherent weakness in it, and that force of some descrip tion is necessary to ensure its observance. The ques tion then arises, Why is this? Why is it necessary to adopt means to encourage good and prevent bad conduct ?—or, in other words, What is the origin of moral evil ? The social conduct of man is of a mixed nature, tending in part to increase social co-operation, and in part to prevent it. What explanation can science give of this undoubted fact? It certainly seems strange that out of the same fountain should spring forth both sweet water and bitter ; that at one time human conduct should be attractive and beneficial to society, at another disruptive and destructive. The doctrine of evolution supplies the explanation of this seeming anomaly. Man has been, and is, slowly changing from a nature solitary and selfish to a nature social and sympathetic. Faculties which in the first state would be preservative are carried over into the second, where they are destructive. As the change �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 117 proceeds, the social and sympathetic faculties gain strength by increased exercise, while the solitary and selfish dwindle from corresponding disuse ; but the latter are still in existence. It has been said, “ Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar”—the meaning being that in the Russian the sympathetic and social are but very superficial. So, indeed, it may be said in regard to even the most advanced nations, that man has but partially changed from the solitary to the social, and from the selfish—aye, even from the carnivorous—to the sympathetic and benevolent. We have our hospitals and orphanages, it is true ; but the scenes of the battle field are still familiar to us. The spectacle now and again of a strong man kicking the life out of a weak and helpless wife, and the daily records of our police courts, are proofs sufficient that, though man has, with out doubt, become to a great extent a social being, he has not ceased altogether to be a brute. In his mental nature man occupies at present a position analogous to that of an amphibious animal in physical evolution. Such an animal has both lungs to breathe in air and gills to breathe in water, and lives in both these ele ments. So man has faculties, some suitable only for the carnivorous, selfish, and solitary life, others only for the social and sympathetic. These are the facts which science finds to be explanatory of the existence of both moral good and moral evil, and of the necessity of some sanction for the moral code. To the theologian so far advanced as to conceive infinite goodness and power to be attributes of the man-like God, the existence of moral evil is an inscrut able mystery. If the God is infinitely good, in the human sense, he must desire that moral evil should not exist; and if he is infinitely powerful, he could make his will prevail. The theologian has often made the most desperate struggle to get off the horns of this �118 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. dilemma, but always in vain. It has been argued that moral evil comes, not from the good God, but from an evil spirit called the Devil. But, then, there is no answer to the question, Why did the good God create the Devil ? Another attempt at explanation has been the theory that God, having granted free will, could not interfere with it even to prevent evil. But then, again, comes the un answerable question, Why—the effect that must follow being known, why was free will given ? This, even granting that such a thing as free will exists, is fatal to the explanation. The fact is that the existence of moral evil is, and must be, to the theologian what he calls a “mystery”—that is, a contradiction in terms to some other theological theory. We may now proceed to discuss the means by which the moral code is enforced. These means are divisible naturally into two classes—the subjective and the objec tive. By the subjective sanction is meant the forces controlling social conduct, that originate entirely in self. When the organisation of a person is such that he shrinks from injuring another as he would from injuring himself, he carries within himself the means of ensuring obedience to the moral code. He is, as St. Paul says, “ a law unto himself.” If every individual in a society was of a perfectly sympathetic nature, no other sanction would be required; no laws, in fact, would need to be formulated for the regulation of social con duct : the whole moral code would be contained in one short sentence—“ Love your neighbour as yourself.”* If every individual claimed the right to exercise all his functions so far only as was consistent with the equal right of all the other members, there would be no hindrance, no limit, to social co-operation, and each * This formula, used by Jesus Christ, the Jewish reformer, as an epitome of the moral code, was, we believe, so first used by the Chinese reformer, Confucius. �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. I IQ would get his just share of the result. We are far yet from such a state of society. The old inherited nature of selfishness is still strong enough to make itself felt in all, and to preponderate in many. This being so, an objective sanction becomes necessary. If within each self there is not that which is able to secure obedience to the moral code, then objective means must be found. If the conduct of any member is such as to make social co-operation difficult or impossible, the question at once arises, Shall the social organisation be broken up and destroyed, or shall the destructive, unsocial conduct be prevented ? “ Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed.” If the conduct of one gives pain to another, that other will shrink from the cause of pain, as a deer shrinks from a tiger. Supposing, then, the subjective sanction absent, evidence that pain is being inflicted on another will have either a stimulating influence to con tinue the hurtful conduct, or, at least, none to prevent it: hence it is evident that either such conduct must be prevented by some objective force, or society must be destroyed. This objective force must be of such a nature as either to cause a change of conduct or to make the conduct impossible. To effect the first, the dominant desire in the actor, which caused the offensive conduct, must be replaced by another which will become the motive of other conduct. To make the offensive conduct impossible, the actor may be constrained by physical means, such as imprisonment, or he may be put to death. The objective sanction may be divided into two sec tions—the public and the private. The first consists of the means supplied by the co-operative strength of the whole society—public legislation, an army, police, judges, gaols, gallows, &c. The private means are sup plied by individuals, or by sections of the general society, such as the family, the club, the mercantile �120 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. firm, and other forms of social organisation, the sum of which constitutes a national society; just as the eye, the ear, the heart, &c., each a complete organisation in itself, form in one connected sum the organisation of the body. Whether the means to control the conduct be derived from the whole nation, from a section of the nation, or from an individual, they are of the same nature, and vary only in strength. There are but two modes of controlling the conduct: (i) the motive and will as the invariable antecedents may be changed ; or (2) the conduct may be controlled either for a time or permanently by physical force. When the nation aims at changing the motive of the conduct, it does so by attaching pain as a result, in expectation that the fear of that pain will prove stronger than the desire which caused the conduct; and, conse quently, that, as every one must act from his strongest desire, the conduct will be avoided in future. Among the pains inflicted for this end are fines, imprisonment, rigid discipline, hard labour, flogging. The means of the private sanction differ from these in detail, but are exactly the same in principle; that is, they are founded on the law that conduct is the effect of the strongest desire. The object is, invariably, to replace, by a stronger desire, the desire that caused the offensive conduct. Among the private means of making pain one of the results of conduct that is offensive to others, is the exhibition of dissatisfaction, by look or speech, by ridicule or sarcasm. If by such means as this the object is not gained, and the offensive conduct continues, then either the society must be dissolved, or the offending individual must be expelled. In the latter case his acquaintance is shunned; he is expelled from the club, partnership with him in the mercantile firm is dissolved. This latter means, in the private sanction, corresponds to hanging or penal servitude for life in the public. �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. I2 I Bad conduct and social co-operation cannot co-exist, any more than the physical organisation of the body can continue if poison be introduced. Either the dose of arsenic must be expelled, or the body must die; or if the quantity of the poison be not sufficient to kill, yet the health and strength of the body are proportionately weakened. In a similar manner bad conduct weakens or kills a society. The results, again, do not depend on the size of the society, any more than the chemical action of arsenic depends on the size of the body. The princi ples that govern a party of three, co-operating to play a musical trio, are identical with those which govern a nation of thirty millions. Suppose one of the musical party plays out of tune or time, either that conduct must be changed or the concert is at an end. Four, again, join together to play a game of whist. If one insists upon revoking, that party or society is broken up. The millions of the nation, like the party of three or four, are but a number of individuals joined together for the purpose of co-operation. If that state is to con tinue, certain rules of conduct must be obeyed. The moral code is a collection of these rules ; the sanction, the means used to enforce them. It might be thought at first that the public sanction was by far the more important, and that the aid afforded by the private sanction was comparatively small. Judges, gaols, army, and police thrust themselves so con spicuously upon our notice that this opinion is apt to be formed. But, when we consider the matter, this is seen to be an error. The amount of conduct that is regulated by the private sanction is immensely greater than that regulated by the public. The daily and hourly conduct of every individual during life is influenced by the private sanction. The portion that requires the com bined strength of the nation to control it is a mere residuum. The persons that come before judges and �122 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. magistrates form but an insignificant fraction of the nation. But every individual “lives, moves, and has his being ” under the influence of the opinions and feelings of those of his fellows with whom he comes into social contact. We have now traced the origin of the moral code to the evolution of man from a solitary to a social nature ; and of a sanction to the fact that faculties which naturally belong to the solitary, still remain, more or less vigorous, in the social state. We have seen that the destructive, unsocial exercise of these must be restrained if society is to continue; and that hence arises the necessity for a moral code, as also for a sanction or means of rendering it efficient. We may now proceed to inquire into the relative strength and efficiency of the different sanctions, public and private. When one thinks of the marvellous com plexity of a civilised society, “ the wheels within wheels,” by which the functions of the social organism are exercised, the question forces itself upon the mind, How is such a machine kept in working order?—how is it, in other words, that society continues to exist? What a contrast there is in the conditions of life between the individuals forming such a society—some whose difficulty it is to invent a new desire to be gratified, others so poor that their whole life is spent in a con tinual struggle for a miserable existence 1 How is it that all those who have nothing do not make a rush and take from those who have ? The answer is— Because, if they did, the safety of private property, the right, indeed, of possessing it, would be at an end, the whole structure of society would crumble into dust, and primitive savagery would take its place. To sustain and preserve such a structure as modern civilised society, the sanction of the moral code, it is evident, must be of great strength. �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 123 We have now to consider the question of the effi ciency of this sanction. A more important subject could not engage our attention. The imagination fails to picture to us the results which must inevitably follow a failure of the means by which social conduct is so con trolled as to be preservative of society. The preserva tion of the Dutch people depends upon the strength of the dykes, which prevent the devastating flow of the ocean over their country. The efficiency of these dykes is the object of the vigilant and constant attention of the people. If a breach is made, it is instantly repaired ; if allowed to continue, the rush of waters would soon become uncontrollable, and all the fruits of the labour of generations would be swept away. A land of beauti ful gardens and fertile fields—a scene of peaceful plenty —would be replaced by an angry ocean and its barren waves. So would it be if the sanction of the moral code gave way, and proved unable to restrain the selfish and carnivorous instincts of human nature. It cannot be denied that civilisation, the product of the social and sympathetic instincts, is still threatened by the solitary and selfish. Society must therefore be vigilant in stop ping at once any breach of the moral code—any breach in the barrier on which the safety of society depends. In examining into the efficiency of the sanction, there is one part of the inquiry that need not detain us long— the efficiency of the national application of physical strength. It is very evident that the co-operative strength of the whole nation must soon overpower that of any small minority of determined wrong-doers. If, again, we suppose the latter to constitute a considerable minority, approaching, say, to half the community, the case is simply one of the dissolution of the nation, as under such conditions no society could continue to exist. The efficiency of the public sanction in producing in the criminal a subjective sanction—that is, in changing his �124 science;, theology, and ethics. motives—is, at least, with those directly operated on, only very partial. This is shown by the numbers who find their way back to the gaols. It would seem that it was impossible in some that the desire to avoid punish ment should for any length of time be stronger than the desire to act criminally. The latter appears by the con stitution of their nature to be so strong that it is im possible to substitute a stronger by any fear of punish ment. The other alternative in dealing with them, to evoke and cultivate the social faculties in the hope that the desire to exercise these may became dominant— stronger, that is, than the desire to act unsocially—must depend for its success upon the innate character of the criminal. If the social and sympathetic faculties are entirely absent (as they seem to be in some), of course they cannot be cultivated, any more than the faculty of distinguishing musical sounds can be cultivated in those who have been born without it. It is only of late years that the idea of trying this mode of changing the character of criminals has been suggested. The time, therefore, has been too short, and the experience too meagre, to enable us to judge what proportion of the criminals are of such a character as to render this mode of treatment successful. We need not, again, consider at any length that division of the private sanction which we named the subjective—that is, the sanction which consists in the natural character of the individual being such that the desires which rule his conduct lead him in the right path. Some there are whose nature is so thoroughly social and sympathetic that to injure another would be to them attended with pain, and consequently from such injury they necessarily shrink. In such natures the old, ancestral, selfish qualities seem to have died out, or to have become so weak as to ensure the efficiency of the subjective sanction. The number, however, of those who are “a law unto themselves,” like that of �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 125 those who have to be constrained by the united strength of the whole society, is but a very small fraction of the whole. What we have to inquire into more particularly is the efficiency of the moral sanction over the daily conduct of the great majority—the neither extremely good nor extremely bad. So far, indeed, as these are by nature of a social disposition, they possess in themselves the subjective sanction. The desires which rule their con duct are such as tend to sociality. But they have also, in more or less strength, desires which, if allowed to become dominant, would be destructive of sociality. What are the means which are efficient enough to check these unsocial desires ? To find an answer to this ques tion we must look hack into the evolutional history of the race. The primitive man being nearly altogether selfish and solitary, requiring for his preservation little help from his fellows, had consequently little to fear in the loss of social co-operation. Gradually, however, as he became less solitary and more social, his preserva tion became more and more dependent upon the co-operation of his fellow-men, until, as in modern civilised nations, the individual is entirely dependent on the society. This fact—viz., the entire dependence of the modern social man upon the co-operative help of society—though one seldom thought of, is a very im portant one, and easily recognised to be such on a little consideration. During the social and civil war in Ire land in 1880 and 1881 Mr. Parnell, one of the leaders, gave the following advice in a speech to the people : “ Now, what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted? [Various shouts in answer to the question, among them “ Kill him !” “ Shoot him !”] Now, I think I heard somebody say, ‘ Shoot him !’ but I wish to point out to you a very much better way, a more Christian and a �126 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, /IND ETHICS. more charitable way, which would give the lost sinner an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must show him on the roadside when you meet him, you must show him in the streets of the town, you must show him at the shop counter, you must show him in the fair and in the market-place, and even in the house of worship, by leaving him severely alone, by putting him into a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his kind as if he was a leper of old ; you must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed, and, you may depend upon it, if the population of a county in Ireland carry out this doctrine, that there will be no man so full of avarice as to dare the public opinion of all right-thinking men within the country, and to trans gress your unwritten code of laws.” Air. Parnell was right in saying that this alternative to shooting was quite as certain a mode of destruction, though it took a little more time—and avoided the risk of being hung. No individual in modern society could exist deprived of the co-operation of society. Let us consider the amount of co-operative help one takes advantage of by using a pin. Before that pin became available shafts had to be sunk into the bowels of the earth, and the labour of mining carried on to procure the crude ore ; this unrefined metal had to be passed through all the processes of purification; roads had to be made ; large buildings had to be erected ; the most elaborate machinery had to be constructed ; many workmen had to contribute their skill ; shopkeepers had to stand behind their counters. All these, and many more forms of co-operative work, were necessary before the use of a pin became possible. But none of these forms of labour would be possible had not capital been saved by many generations, and left to us in the form of the products of the labour of our fathers. Each generation inherits �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 1 27 the accumulations of all those that lived before it. This mighty inheritance is often imagined by unreflecting people to be enjoyed only by the rich ; but it is easy to see that every beggar who uses a pin to patch his ragged clothes enjoys the results of incalculable labour not his own. During the ages of evolution, as the nature of man grew from the solitary into the social, his social de pendence constantly increased. With this increase of social dependence increased his fear of the loss of social help, until the fear became instinctive. No more general and pronounced instinct exists in man than that by which he detects and shrinks from any appearance of failure in the social bands between him and his fellows. A change in the eye, so minute as to be inexpressible in language, when the result of good or bad will, is immediately detected. Nothing is more valued than the good will, and nothing more feared than the ill will, of those with whom we are in social contact. In this dread of the ill will of our fellows we find the answer to the question, What is the principal and most efficient sanction of the moral code ? In fact, this instinctive shrinking from the loss of friendly social relations with others becomes identified with the dread of attack upon our means of self-preservation. Just as an organism passing from the nature of an animal breathing in water to that of an animal breathing in air becomes more and more sensitive to the loss of air, so does man, as he changes from a solitary to a social being, become more and more sensitive to any sign of the loss of social co operation. Perhaps the fact that few ever think of social help as a necessity or a means of self-preservation, or reason about it as such, may be thought to be a proof that it therefore could not form a motive to conduct. The answer to this is evident. The portion of our conduct that is mediately caused by conscious thinking �I2S SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. is a very small fraction of the whole. By far the greater portion is impulsive and automatic. Not one in a million knows, or has ever thought of, the cause of the necessity of breathing, or how it serves as a means of self-preservation. Yet this does not prevent us from being most sensitive to any obstruction in the passage of air to the lungs. Similarly, though we do not think or reason about the necessity of society as a means of self-preservation, we act from the instinct which has been evolved by the fact that it is so. In practical daily life the strongest objective force regulating social conduct is the manifestation of the good or ill will of our fellows. If the organisation of society is to be preserved, certain modes of conduct of the units of which it is composed must be observed—or, in other words, the sanction of the moral code must be efficient. In like manner, if the organism of the body is to be preserved, the action of its parts must be of a certain kind. When the action is not of this kind, but such as tends to the destruction of the body, the action is accompanied by the feeling of pain. So when conduct tends to the destruction of society it causes pain, and from this we shrink, as a symptom of danger to our power of self-preservation, as in fact it is. When, therefore, our conduct tends to deprive us of the good will and social help of our fellows, we shrink from it, and so are prevented from repeating it. This instinctive dread, then, of the loss of social help—a dread of which the manifestation of repugnance in our fellows is the objective cause—forms the efficient sanction to the moral code in the greater part of social conduct. As we have already said, the bad conduct which it fails to prevent, and which has to be dealt with by the public sanction, forms but a small fraction of the whole. The following is a summary of the means by which the moral code is preserved :— �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. I 29 1. The sanction of the united strength of the whole society exercised by public officers. 2. The subjective sanction, consisting of the sym pathetic and social faculties, which cause the person, of himself, to refrain from conduct injurious to others. 3. The exhibition of disapprobation by those imme diately affected, which, by producing fear of the loss of social help, acts as a deterrent against the repetition of the conduct. We will now examine and contrast the efficiency of the theological sanction of the moral code. As the theological moral code consists of the expressed desires and will of a man-like God, so its sanction is found in his feelings of love or anger. Those who please the God by doing what he wishes are rewarded, and those who anger him by not doing what he wishes are pun ished. In the early days of theology the divine rewards and punishments were supposed to be administered during this life, and by natural means. Our illustra tions of these facts will be taken from the Jewish and Christian theology with which we arc more familiar. But, as we have already remarked, all theologies, though differing in details, are in essence the same. In all the conception of God is an exaggerated image of man. God is said to act and feel and think as the people at the time would have acted, felt, and thought. He was simply the invisible chief or king of the tribe or nation. He, like the visible king, was extremely jealous, and was most vigilant to detect any disloyalty or disobe dience. As we have seen, disobedience to a command was vice, and obedience virtue. The nature of the command was irrelevant; it might be apparently silly or wise, good or wicked—man had simply to obey. As the nature of the theological moral code is determined entirely by the personal wishes of the God, so does its sanction consist of the rewards or punishments which it �T3° SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. is his pleasure to dispense. In primitive times these rewards and punishments were supposed to be awarded always in this life, and often very promptly. For example, when Elisha, a prophet of the Lord, was going to Bethel, some “ little children ” made a personal and rude remark about his baldness. The prophet “cursed them in the name of the Lord.7’ “ And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them” (2 Kings ii. 23, 24). Again, a prophet, having been sent by the Lord on an errand, and commanded not to eat bread or drink water in a certain place on his way home, was met by another prophet. This prophet told the other that an angel of the Lord had told him to bring the first prophet home with him to eat bread and drink water. This was un true ; but the other, believing it, accepted the invitation. When the two sat at table “ the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that had brought him back.” This word, one might expect, would inform the deceiver that the Lord would punish On the contrary, it was to the effect that the Lord would punish, not the deceiver, but the deceived. Accordingly, when the latter was on his road home, “a lion met him by the way and slew him” (1 Kings xiii.). In a similar manner, when Jonah, trying to evade an order of the Lord to go to Nineveh, took a passage in a ship going to Tarshish, “ the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea.” This created a great panic among the crew, and, they having no doubt that the storm was sent for a moral purpose—viz., the punishment of some wrong doer—they cast lots to see who he was. The lot falling upon Jonah, they asked him what they were to do. “ And he said unto them : Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you ; for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” Jonah having been pitched over, the sea became �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 131 calm at once. However, the Lord, not wishing to kill Jonah, “had prepared a great fish to swallow” him. And after three days and three nights Jonah prayed to the Lord. “And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dryland” (Jonah i. and ii.). On one occasion fifty thousand and seventy people were smitten by the Lord because some of them had looked into a box which he had got made for his own special purposes (Sam. vi. 19). Again, he sent a famine for three successive years on a whole people, and, on David inquiring the cause of it, the Lord told him it was on account of “ Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.” Seven sons of the dead Saul were accordingly given up to the Gibeonites, who “ hanged them in the hill before the Lord.” “ And after that God was entreated for the land ” (2 Sam. xxi.). Ananias and his wife Sapphira were struck dead for stating what was false, though the old prophet was not (Acts v.). Herod “ was eaten of worms ” because, when the people said he had the voice of a God, Herod, not declining the compliment, “ gave not God the glory ” (Acts xii. 23). God is represented as a lion and as a leopard : “ As a leopard by the way will I observe them ; I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart; and there will I devour them like a lion ; the wild beast shall tear them” (Hosea xiii. 7, 8). “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ” (2 Thess. i. 7, 8). “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. xii. 29). The punishment of the wicked is to be not only the most excruciating conceivable by the imagination, but everlasting. The following are some of the details of it, as given in a little tract, written permissu superioruni for young children, by an ecclesi- �132 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. astic of most appropriate name—the Rev. J. Furniss :— “ The sinner lies chained down on a bed of red-hot, blazing fire! When a man, sick of fire, is lying on even a soft bed, it is pleasant sometimes to turn round. If the sick man lies on the same side for a long time, the skin comes of, the flesh gets raw. How will it be when the body has been lying on the same side on the scorching, broiling fire for a hundred millions of years ? Now look at that body lying on the bed of fire. All the body is salted with fire. The fire burns through every bone and every muscle. Every nerve is trembling and quivering with the sharp fire. The fire rages inside the skull, it shoots out through the eyes, it drops out through the ears, it roars in the throat as it roars up a chimney. So will mortal sin be punished ! Yet there are people in their senses who commit mortal sin !”* “ Amos iv., ‘ The days shall come when they shall lilt you up on pikes, and what remains of you in boiling pots.’ Look into this little prison. In the middle of it there is a boy, a young man. He is silent; despair is on him. He stands straight up. His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flames come out of his ears. His breathing is difficult. Sometimes he opens his mouth, and breath of blazing fire rolls out of it. But listen 1 There is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle which is boiling ? No. Then what is it ? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boil ing in his bones. Ask him, put the question to him, * And, what is more wonderful, there are people who ask us to love a God who is the author of the horrors described. Surely Bacon was right in saying : “ It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely.” �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 133 Why is he thus tormented? His answer is, that when he was alive his blood boiled to do very wicked things, and he did them, and it was for that he went to dancing houses, public-houses, and theatres.” “ Psalm xx., ‘ Thou shalt make him as an oven of fire in the time of Thy anger.’ You are going to see again the child about which you read in ‘ The Terrible Judgment ’ that it was condemned to hell. See! it is a pitiful sight. The little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out! See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire ! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the face of all in hell— despair, desperate and horrible !” These examples of the deterrent sanction of the theo logical moral code might be multiplied to any extent. But the few given are enough for our purpose. The principle on which their efficiency depends is the creat ing in the mind such a terror of an invisible man-like God that the desire to avoid his vengeance shall always be dominant over every other desire. It must be allowed that, if faith sufficiently strong could be always present in the mind, there could be no doubt as to the efficiency of this theological sanction. But the want of such faith is the great difficulty. Even in the minds of primitive men, when faith in the existence of a man-like God who personally interfered in the affairs of this world was at its strongest, the potency of the unseen was strikingly inferior to that of the seen. The number and magni tude of the miraculous interferences of the Jewish God were marvellous, but not more so than the transience and insignificance of their effects upon the conduct of the people. Famine, plague, pestilence, and war were used times innumerable, and once the whole human race except one family were drowned—all to compel the �134 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. people to comply with the wishes of their God. Yet a great part of their sacred books is taken up with his angry threats and curses, and the most pitiful and des pairing complaints of their inveterate wickedness. If the deterrent sanction was apparently a failure in preventing wickedness, so was the attempt to promote good conduct by rewards. As we have seen, the theo logical threats are of the most exaggerated description. So also are the promises. In this world those who obey and please the God are to have riches, long life, numer ous children, strength to conquer their enemies, and to annihilate them by the slaughter of men, women, and children. But all these rewards appear to have had very little effect in producing good conduct. Abraham, Jacob, and David, the three greatest favourites of their God, and to whom were given the largest favours, showed by their conduct a most depraved disposition. Apparently they had but one good quality—viz., wil lingness to obey and flatter the God. But, from the theological point of view, this is the sum and substance of morality. No one except a person of the most degraded character could act as Abraham is said to have acted to his wife, his concubine, and his son. Yet he is held up as an example of goodness. Jacob was the most contemptible deceiver. Yet not only in spite of his deceit, but by means of it, he secures a blessing from his God. His brother Esau, who seems to have been an honourable and generous man, is forsaken. David appears to have been born a natural criminal. Having formed a band of all the desperadoes in the country, he began life as a brigand chief. During life he committed the greatest crimes, and on his death-bed requested his son to murder a man whom he was in honour bound to protect. Yet this criminal was “ the man after God’s own heart.” Blessings were showered upon him. When he offended his God he was not �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 135 punished personally, but his innocent subjects were slaughtered. All the favours bestowed upon him, how ever, did not make his character a moral one. Again, the blessings bestowed on the nation appear to have been equally insufficient in promoting good conduct. The sea was divided for their safe passage, and closed again to drown their enemies. Food was showered down on them. From rocks in the dry desert were made to spring forth fountains. The sun and moon were made to stand still for a whole day to give them light to kill their enemies. During a battle the God interfered personally, and pelted their enemies with stones. The inhabitants of a land flowing with milk and honey were slaughtered without mercy or pity even for the children, and the country given to them. But by the history we are told that all these marks of favour bestowed by their God were quite as inefficient as the punishments, in promoting morality. Taking, then, the history esteemed sacred and true by theologians, the divine sanction of punishment and blessing was a failure. It had been tried, the history says, from the creation until the coming of Christ, who was supposed to be an incarnation of the God. Him they crucified. The nation then, upon whom the theo logical sanction of morals had' been tried for so long, was at last cast off as incorrigible. For now nearly two thousand years the theology which failed with the Jews as a sanction of morality has been tried with other nations.* What has been the amount of success of this latter trial ? Have the altered forms of Christianity given it more efficacy as a sanction of * It is not exactly correct to say that the Jewish and the Chris tian theologies are identical. The latter is in some respects dif ferent ; but in essential principles they are, as all theologies are, the same. �136 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. morality ? There is no doubt that the great majority are quite convinced that all the advance in civilisation which has been made in Europe since the beginning of Christianity is to be attributed to the Christian theology. To doubt this would sound to them as ridiculous as to doubt one of the mathematical axioms. That all the advance which man has made in morality during this time is a product of Christianity, and that, if faith in it was lost, the people would lapse into savagery, are held to be self-evident propositions. Before examining what amount of verification this opinion receives from facts, it will be necessary to use one of the scientific methods— viz., to define exactly the meaning of a word—the word Christianity. Of all the number who assert that Chris tianity has been, if not the only, certainly the principal cause of the advance in civilisation, very few have ever translated the word Christianity into clear and definite thought in their own minds. If they did so, it would be found that there were great diversities in the meanings attached to the word. In fact, a great part of the history of the Christian theological era is a dismal and melan choly narrative of savage and sanguinary wars caused by differences of opinion upon this subject among so-called Christian peoples. With these differences we need not trouble ourselves : our present object being to inquire into the efficiency of the theological sanction of morality, we will consider Christianity only as a theology. We therefore define Christianity as a theory of the nature of God. What amount of truth there may be in the moral maxims attributed to Christ, whether these maxims were original or copied, are irrelevant to our subject. Chris tianity, then, a sa theology, differs but in detail from the Jewish, and, indeed, all other theologies. God in his nature is supposed to be knowable, and this nature is pronounced to be man-like. The mode in which Chris tianity differs in detail from the Jewish theology is �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 137 chiefly this. Christianity supposes that the man-like God of the Jews appeared on this earth as an infant, lived as a human being for about thirty years, was killed, rose from his grave, and ascended into the sky, pro mising to come again in like manner. On this second visit he is to sit on a throne as the judge of all the earth. Before this throne the whole human race is to stand. Christ the judge is to divide it into two parts— one, on his right hand, consisting of those with whom he is pleased, and one, on his left, consisting of those with whom he is angry. The people on the left are to be sent into hell to suffer everlasting torment; those on the right are to remain with the Lord, and to enjoy for ever a new heaven and a new earth expressly created for them in place of the present universe, which is to be entirely burnt up. Such is an outline of the Christian theology. The principal difference between it and the Jewish theology, of which it is an offshoot, consists in its postponing the complete reward and punishment for good and bad conduct to an indefinite future, while the Jewish sanction was for the most part applicable in the present life. Christ himself is reported to have expressly warned his hearers on one occasion against giving objec tive events a moral significance, though many imagine even in the present day that they see in such events “ the finger of God.” When towers of Siloam fall and people are killed, the conclusion is drawn that the God has personally interfered for the punishment of evil conduct. But, still, the great characteristic of the Chris tian sanction is that it will come into full operation in some indefinite future. The question to which we have to seek an answer is, What degree of efficiency has this theology as a sanction of the moral code? On the supposition that the mind was always possessed with perfect faith in these theological dogmas, one must allow that believers would have the strongest motive to �138 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. follow conduct pleasing to the God, and to refrain from that which would anger him. The facts of history, however, and our own observation negative the conclu sion that the sanction of theology has been or is so efficient as the great majority suppose. During what are called the Middle Ages, when faith in theology was at its strongest, morality, in the scientific sense, was almost at its lowest—or, in other words, social co operation existed but in a very imperfect condition. War and violence were predominant. Conduct was such as allowed of a state of military co-operation; but it was almost prohibitory of the industrial. Acts of what theologians call piety were frequent and general— acts, that is, supposed to be personally pleasing to the God, such as praying to and praising him, suffering self-inflicted pain and annoyance of many kinds, giving money and power to men supposed to be his ministers, building gorgeous and costly temples in his honour. These and similar acts which, from the theological point of view, were good were, no' doubt, very prevalent; but, from a scientific point of view, they have no element of moral goodness. Then, under the influence of theology and justified by deduction from its dogmas, conduct was followed which theologians thought good—viz., persecu tion even unto death of those esteemed to be enemies of the God, so-called heretics.* In the past, then, facts do not verify the conclusion that theology has furnished an efficient sanction of the moral code. * The reasoning by which this conduct was justified was un answerable if the assumptions of the theologians were granted. If it was true that a heretic was the cause of inflicting eternal pain upon his neighbours as well as upon himself, the fact would justify any means necessary to prevent such a result. From the scientific point of view, however, the persecution of heretics is most immoral; and, consequently, as the influence of science increases, persecution for heresy diminishes. �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 139 Whether in the present it is so every one must judge from his own observation. The prevalence of such sayings as “ The nearer the church the further from heaven ” indicates that the theologically-minded people are found by many not to be conspicuous for good social conduct. The nations in which faith in theology remains the strongest at the present day are certainly not in the front rank of civilisation, nor do they furnish striking examples of obedience to the moral code. The southern Italians, the Spaniards, and the Irish are pre eminently theological, but are not so conspicuous for their good social qualities. High in the scale of piety, they are low in that of morality. The same holds good if we compare the Eastern with the Western nations. Obedience to the moral code is not necessarily found where faith in theology is strongest, as we might expect it to be if the efficiency of the theological sanction of morals was so great as is generally supposed. The following considerations go a long way to account for this fact:— 1. What is distant does not make so vivid an impres sion as what is near. Hearing of the death of thousands by an earthquake in a distant country does not produce so much effect upon us as the death of a pet canary in our parlour. So the influence of the prospect of a heaven or a hell to be enjoyed or suffered in a distant and indefinite future is not so great as the pains and pleasures of daily life. Theological writers have been unconsciously moved by this weakness to endeavour, by exaggeration of description, to make up for the dimness of distance. Hence we have such writing as we have quoted from the Bible and from the Rev. J. Furniss's book. Strong language and a weak cause are often found together. There are, however, two occasions when theology has great influence upon conduct—viz., the time of fanatical excitement and the time of death. �140 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. Happily for society, the outbursts of fanaticism are, in their nature, transient, and the conduct of a person whose life is practically at an end can be of little con cern to society. But the conduct of men during the time when their theological views are calmest and clearest shows us that, in the ordinary daily life of the great majority, the influence of theology is comparatively small. Theologians themselves show that they are con scious of this fact. In their worship of the God they acknowledge that they are “miserable sinners” who have followed continually the devices and desires of their own hearts, and have forgotten him. And, as this confession is constantly repeated, it shows that this failure of theological influence is chronic and incurable. Theoretically, it is felt that our relation to the invisible, man-like being who is in all his attributes infinite, is immeasurably more important than our relation to our fellow-men; but the constant realisation of our relation to the latter in actual experience more than balances the theoretical and unverifiable statements of our relation to the former. 2. All theologies contain devices and plans by which the supposed anger of the God can be turned aside and his forgiveness obtained. There is no limit up to the last moment of life to the amount of forgiveness obtain able. It is a frequent occurrence for a murderer to state on the gallows that he is perfectly certain of having been forgiven, and of being received into the favour of God forever. By the plans of salvation so provided, a lifetime of crime is obliterated and an eternity of bliss secured. It is quite evident how this is calculated to lessen the strength of the theological sanction. A whole life may be spent in the most immoral ways, and yet, by the appointed means, the angry God is instantly changed into a God of infinite love. No doubt death may come so suddenly that there will be no time to get �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 141 “ fortified by the rites of the Church but the chances are largely against this. 3. The theological view of the nature of moral law has a tendency to increase the temptation to evil conduct. As we have already seen, the essence of virtue is obedience to the command of God. It may be, therefore, that the natural results of forbidden con duct would be good and pleasant. The first case of a breach of the moral law, as stated in our own theology, is an example of this. In the nature of things there was every reason to eat the apple: the supposed com mand was the sole obstacle. It is, therefore, a very common and natural error to imagine that a life of im morality would be the more pleasant so far as this world is concerned; that the balance of good would lean heavily on the side of much that is called sin if its natural results alone were put into the scale. The sup posed anger of God is what alone turns the beam to the other side. If our life ended with the grave, the theologically good man would be of all men most miserable. This view, so entirely false if science is true, has a very prejudicial effect, especially upon the young. 4. Theology has a marked tendency to concentrate the attention upon conduct which affects, or is supposed to affect, the God alone, and which is useless to our fellow creatures—viz., praying to and praising him, denying ourselves some good in hopes that he will be pleased by our discomfort, accepting a revelation and clinging to a creed ; and, to enable us to do this, flinging away our reason and assenting to the most palpable nonsense. This surrender of reason theology considers the greatest of all virtues—so great a virtue that our eternal happi ness is said to depend upon it. Whatever else a man may lack, if he has faith, he will be saved ; the greatest sin, on the other hand, being what theologians call free �142 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. thought. Experience proves that it is on these apd such-like things that the theological mind tends to con centrate itself. Yet all this pious conduct is not only socially useless, but somej.of it most injurious. We have now given some reasons for doubting that theology acts as a moral sanction with anything like the efficiency that is generally thought. Only in a few cases has it any great influence on conduct, and even in these the conduct is, for the most part, not moral in the scientific sense—that is to say, the conduct is not social conduct; it affects no other person than the actor and the God. Where, again, social good conduct does accompany theological belief, it is impossible to say how much has been caused by the theological belief and how much by natural sympathy of character. We have reason to believe, therefore, that the general opinion of the efficiency of the theological sanction is far from correct. On the other hand, in the present day, theology has an influence which, instead of sustaining and strength ening the ascendency of the moral code, cuts at its very root. If there be one virtue more important and funda mental than any other, it is truthfulness. The greatest love and reverence for truth, and the most sensitive shrinking from the least contact With falsehood,- are cha racteristics of the most moral. On the other hapd, a disregard for truth, and a tendency to quibble, deceive',... and lie, are marks of a low moral nature. This great, if not greatest of all virtues, truthfulness, theology has- a distinct tendency to weaken. This tendency is the growth of modern times. When theology as “a theory of things ” had the ground all to itself, when faith in itsdogmas was undoubting and universal, theology and truthfulness were not inconsistent. One cannot^ read the letters of such a man as St. Paul, a theologian in a theological age, without seeing at once that he was �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 143 truthful. Whatever we may think of some of the theories, we cannot doubt the truthfulness of the man. But, in the present day, go into a mixed society, and you find the theologically-minded certainly not con spicuous for truthfulness. Tffeir look and their manner do not impress you,-with the idea that openness, honesty, and veracity are in them pronounced characteristics. The reason of this it is easy to understand. Theology, ever since science became her rival and threatened to supersede her, has fislt the necessity of defe.nding'herself. How was she to do so ? The attacks of science con sisted simply in. the discovery of truths which were verifiable by evidence./ These truths, in many instances, contradicted the theories and assertions, of theology. Either, then, the revelations, that theology had “ac cepted ” and the creeds that she had “ clung to ” must, if truth is to be preserved, be cast away, or science must 'be proved false. The latter was impossible, and the former too painful; the only other course open was the sacrifice of truthfulness. This sacrifice of truthfulness’, though very real, is for the most part unconscious on the part jp,f those imbued with the theological spirit. It is truly marvellous what, a power a wish exercises over thought. The .reading^ of books in defence of the old revelations against, the - attacks of the discoveries of ' science is.no pleasant reading. The attempts at direct defence of'errors, and, where direct defence is plainly impossi§le/-the attempts at reconcilement of the new truths with the old errors, are repulsive to an open, honfest, truth-loving mind. On the part of theology there*is,’ therefore, in modern days, when a transition is taking place from the principles [of theology to the prin ciple^ of science, a distinct tendency to weaken instead of- to. strengthen veracity—one of the most essential virtue^ in the moral code. This, in a scientific age, musthe the result of “ accepting revelations,” “ clinging �144 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. to creeds,” and “ loving finality in belief.” The whole spirit and all the methods of science have exactly the opposite tendency. Truth, and truth alone, is the object of all her love, the reward of all her labour, and the goal of all her ambition. Falsehood and error are to her the greatest of enemies, and from them she shrinks with instinctive fear. There is another weakness in the theological sanction of morals which the rise of science has created, and which she is destined to increase as time goes on—viz., the liability of the mind towards doubt and disbelief in the fundamental hypothesis of theology. The moral code—as theology puts it—rests entirely on the assump tion that God is a man-like being; and its only sanction is the expectation that this God will reward those who by good conduct please him, and punish those who dis please him by bad. It is evident that every shade of doubt that passes over the theological mind as to the truth of the theological dogmas must diminish the effi cacy of such a sanction, and that total disbelief must entirely destroy it. Those brought up in the belief that the foundation of the moral code is the existence of a man-like God, and that its only sanction is his pleasure and anger, if this belief be once lost, are left without any motive for choosing good conduct and avoiding bad. The nature of things, of course, in time corrects this error. But how many young people are miserably wrecked before they are aware of having left the safe and true course of conduct 1 Nature isj a stern and relentless teacher; those who come into collision with her laws are ground into powder. The lesson is taught that the theological idea of the possibility of breaking the laws of the universe is a terribly false one. In how many instances does this teaching—that we may act and escape the natural consequences—involve the indi vidual who accepts it in destruction ! �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 145 “The moving finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on. Nor all your piety and wit Can lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wipe out a word of it.” Knowing, then, this danger of losing faith in the dogmas of theology, we need not wonder that the minds of many are kept in continual dread lest those under their care should come into contact with the light of science. But every day it becomes more difficult to avoid the danger. Some, whose minds tend to take a pessimistic view, are persuaded that the rapid increase in the discoveries of science makes it probable that in the near future we shall be overtaken by a great moral catastrophe. The great mass of the people will sud denly become conscious of the fact that theology has no foundation but in the imagination; and that the effect of this will be that the moral code, thus left without any sanction, will with the dogmas of theology become a thing of the past. The necessary consequence, of course, must be that society will be dissolved. Every man’s hand will be against his fellow. Although it can not be denied that in individual cases there is real danger in making the moral code to rest entirely upon a theological basis, yet science supplies some adequate reasons for not accepting the anticipations of the pes simists. z All the operations of evolution are very slow. The moral code is the growth of ages, and is the result of the growth of man into the social state. For man to revert back into the unsocial, selfish, unsympathetic, and solitary nature suddenly would be as impossible as it was for him to pass suddenly from the latter to the social and sympathetic. But so long as man rerftains a social and sympathetic being he must live in such a manner as makes society possible ; and the moral code is nothing but the rules of conduct necessary for this end. Even if we granted that the loss of faith in theo- �146 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. logy would be necessarily followed by the discrediting of the moral code, the doctrine of evolution would forbid us to anticipate that the theological mind could be suddenly changed, any more than that the colour of the skin of a Nubian could be suddenly changed into that of a European. The changes of tone and inclina tion of mind are sudden only in appearance, not in reality. The appearance of suddenness is caused by our ignorance of the preceding links of cause and effect. The change from theology to science, like all evolu tionary changes, must be slow. So slowly indeed is the change taking place that to observe it we must make comparison of periods separated by some interval of time. While, then, the fears of the pessimists are not supported by facts, it is certainly true that in the present age there is real danger in teaching the theological doc trine, that the only sanction of the moral code is faith in the existence of a man-like God. This being an unverifiable hypothesis, and science destroying the tradi tional props which support it, we are justified in asserting that the efficiency of the theological sanction of the moral code, small as it at present is, is constantly be coming less and less. We may now summarise the contrast between the scientific and the theological sanction to the moral code. The scientific sanction rests on the nature of things. In man has been evolved in some degree a sympathetic nature, by which the pain and injury of others become self-pain and self-injury. This sympathetic nature is the subjective sanction. Secondly, living in society, a con dition of life which to a sympathetic nature becomes a necessity, he is continually surrounded by the influence of his fellows. Whenever his conduct is painful or in jurious to these, he finds it resented. Whenever it is beneficial he finds it encouraged. This constant, ever present influence of the many upon the individual consti- �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 147 tutes the objective sanction. The theological subjective sanction consists in the assumed influence of an assumed man-like God upon the thoughts and feelings of man— an influence by which man is guided in his conduct. The objective sanction consists partly in the anger and vengeance of the assumed man-like God against those who disobey his commands, and partly in favours and rewards to those who by obedience please him. This sanction not being applicable during life, its efficacy depends entirely upon faith as to the indefinite future. The scientific sanction is verifiable by experience; the theological is not. The scientific is strengthened by every increase of knowledge ; the theological is thereby weakened. Hence the efficacy of the one is destined to increase ; of the other, to diminish. In the present age the theological part of Christianity is being gradually less and less insisted upon, while its moral part, which can be supported by science, is being more and more depended upon as its essential and permanent element. Theologians, as their minds become influenced by the scientific spirit, consciously or unconsciously, rest the defence of their system upon the moral side, and allow the theological, with all its “ difficulties,” “ quietly to float away.” They address the conscience with greater confidence than the intelligence. It cannot be denied that this revolution of thought is accompanied with pain, especially to those in whose minds sentiment is strong. All who have passed through the change can testify to this pain, by experience. The fear of the greater moral pain of shutting their eyes to the truth, and so doing violence to conscience, alone enabled’them to endure the laceration of feeling expe rienced in parting with an “ accepted revelation ” and letting go the grasp of a creed that had been “clung to” as we cling to the gift received in our childhood from a mother. How little some theologians think of this when �148 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. they hurl their anathemas against those whose faith in theology has passed away, withered and burnt by the rays of the sun of knowledge ! To these anathemas we would only reply, in the spirit of the beautiful prayer attributed to Christ: “We forgive you, for you know not what you do.” But, if the pain of change is neces sarily great, the reward of truthfulness is greater. To be free from all the artificial difficulties and mysteries which are generated by theology, to be no longer com pelled to try to force, not only our intelligence, but our conscience, to “ accept ” the existence of a God such as is imagined in the ancient revelations, is an unspeakable relief. This “ peace of mind which passeth all under standing” is a recompense full and overflowing into the hearts of those who have had the courage and conscience to struggle from darkness into light. We have now arrived at the end of our task. To the best of our skill and knowledge we have given a sketch of what we conceive to be the main principles which dominate modern thought on science, theology, and ethics. But before concluding it will perhaps be well to add a few words on a question that is not unlikely to arise in the mind of a reader. Granting the future triumph of science and the future decay of theology, does this involve the necessity of man being compelled to live a life unwarmed by sentiment—a life without other motive for conduct than escape from the evil, and enjoy ment of the pleasure, possible in the facts that at each moment surround him ? Can he no longer have, amid the changing and fleeting experiences of the day, any star above him, fixed and constant, that may serve as a guide to some certain goal towards which he can feel it to be his highest duty ever to direct his steps ? The first reply to this inquiry must be that, whether the results of truth be apparently pleasant or apparently �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 149 painful, it must always be our duty as well as our best interest to accept them loyally and without hesitation. Again, though theology must disappear before the light of science, it does not necessarily follow that religion likewise must so disappear. We are warned by an ancient proverb of the danger of putting “ new wine into old bottles we have already found it necessary to mark the difference in meaning of the word law as it is employed in science and in common use. In the latter, it always carries with it the idea of personality; in science, never. So it is with the word religion. As generally used, it means—the worship of, and devotion to, God as a person. In this sense science can have nothing to do with religion. As we have seen, science has proved that a knowledge of the nature of God is beyond the capability of the human mind. She has shown that we are confined to a mere spot on the shore, as it were, of the great ocean of existence, and that theories of what exists “ in the fountain of the great deep ” serve but to render turbid the waters at the spot, and along that shore to which we are confined. But accepting as a definition of the word religion—“ The obligation or sense of duty which rests on the minds of men arising from the felt relation in which they stand to some superior Power,” it becomes possible for science to have a religion. Science has taught us that of a begin ning in the universe, so far as the mental eye of man can penetrate, there appears no sign. To our vision there has been, is, and ever will be, a ceaseless chang ing of facts and a perpetual re-arranging of their relations. The first grand triumph of science was to perceive that amid this infinite movement exists eternal, invariable order. Thus, though the forms of force in its manifestations through mind and matter, self and not-self, be infinite in variety and number, all our pre sent knowledge leads to the conviction that there exists �J5° SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. but one Power, the nature of which is to us inconceiv able. In our own day, again, science has made another great contribution to our knowledge of the universe— perhaps the greatest she has ever made—in the dis covery of evolution. She has discovered that in the ocean of existence not only does every ripple upon its surface move with invariable order, but that there are tides and currents that rise and fall and have a deter mined set. These currents are so slow that their pro gress is observable only when long periods of time are brought into view ; but the directions are marked, and have in some degree been traced. Leaving aside the contemplation of the evolution of the material worlds of our solar system from a fiery vapour to their present state, let us fix our attention upon the current of evolu tion with which we are more immediately concerned— viz., the evolution of the human race. Each individual, beginning as a speck of shapeless matter and growing on to complete manhood, but rehearses in miniature the evolutionary history of his race. Every step in this progress was, looked at by itself, a mere ripple on the ocean of existence; the effect of the one preceding, the cause of |he next to follow; but, at the same time, the current of w’hich it formed a part moved on. Neither the beginning nor the end of this current can we know; but we can discover enough to see its set or direction. We have been passing from the simple to the complex in material organisation, and in all the manifestations of mind. If the history of this development could be fully written, it would be seen to have consisted of a “continuous adjustment of the internal relations of each individual to the external relations.” On the success of this adjustment have always depended life and happiness. In other words, the wTell-being in the highest sense of every individual depends, and always has depended, upon his keeping within the current of �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. I51 evolution in which he exists, and to which he is related. Here, then, it appears, we have all the materials for a true or scientific religion. As Bishop Butler says, “ It is manifest that nothing can be of consequence to man kind, or any creature, but happiness.” Hence there can be no greater obligation or higher duty than that of producing human happiness. By the light of scientific knowledge we can perceive that this object is the one towards which sets the current of human evolution. From the beginning of the human race the capacity for, and possibility of, attaining happiness has been evolving by the working of that inconceivable Power to which science leads us to attribute all the facts of the universe. Where can we find a higher object—a more sacred duty —to set before us than the constant aim to keep in step with this evolutionary march of our race ? “ From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again and better still In infinite progression.” The uniformity of order, indeed, in the working of the universe we cannot in the slightest degree destroy. We may by moving across or against the “ Infinite pro gression ” hurt others, and be trodden under foot our selves. In doing this, however, w'e shall brBak no law, anger no man-like God ; we shall simply destroyed. “ Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 4!e also reap.” If we sow evil, we reap pain; if good, we reap pleasure. If, then, this scientific religion were adopted, it would surely be capable of satisfying the sentimental or emotional part of our nature, enabling us to feel, as it would, that we are, in the highest and truest sense, working with God. On the practical side, again, this religion might be described as life-work of which the single end is to promote the well-being and the happi ness of man. Such religion science, and science alone, �152 SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS. can enable us to practise. Every fresh revelation she makes to us of natural law gives us new fitness, puts into our hands new means for attaining the desired end. The enlarging of the intellect, again, constantly resulting from exercise, is always enabling us to use the better the increasing means. On the moral side we have seen that science teaches us that we are passing from the selfish and solitary state to the sympathetic and social. To bring our moral nature, therefore, into harmony with the course indicated by the stream and tendency of things, we must feel it to be our duty to weaken the faculties whose functions, however useful they were to man in the solitary stage of existence, are adverse to social life; and, on the other hand, to strengthen those faculties which tend to promote social intercourse—in other words, to facilitate and increase co-operation. To accomplish this end, as we know from science, we have but to act on the natural law, that every organ and faculty is strengthened by exercise and weakened by disuse. Our duty, then, is to exercise the faculties that are social and sympathetic, and to leave unexercised those that are not. Every good or moral act is followed by good, not only to others, but also to self, because it tends to increase the strength of those faculties by which it is performed. On the other hand, not only is every evil or immoral act followed by its objective bad results, but it leaves its traces in the character of the actor—strengthening faculties which should be left to dwindle away in disuse. Instead of prayer, the utterance of petitionary words to a man-like God, as a means of attaining our ends, will be substituted labour in the light of science. No temples will be set apart for propitiating and pleasing an imaginary deity; the mind itseli will be a temple where conscience will be continually propitiated by the fulfilment of duty. Instead of the discoveries of science being received with �THE SANCTION OF THE MORAL CODE. 153 continual dread and dislike, everyone of them will be welcomed as glad tidings of great joy. One more advance, it will be known, has been made in the great work of diminishing the pain and increasing the pleasure of human life. The foot of man, it will be felt, has been planted one step higher in the course of his evolution. At the close of life, again, no mirage of an imaginary heaven will be needed to generate hope ; nor will any hideous phantoms of an angry God and an eternal hell be present to terrify the mind. The im penetrable darkness of the unknowable will be looked upon with calmness, and approached without thought of fear. Printed by Watts Sa1 Co., if, Johnson's Court, London, E.C. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Thoughts on science, theology, and ethics Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wilson, John [M.A., of Trinity College, Dublin.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 153 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published, London: Truebner & Co., 1885. Signature in ink on contents page (p.[3]): 'Richard Killick, 45 Florence Road, New Cross, Nov. 2nd. 1895'. Date of publication from WorldCat. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1895?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N696 Subject The topic of the resource Science Theology Ethics Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (Thoughts on science, theology, and ethics), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Ethics NSS Science Theology https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c2640e84895cbb2a6cd2b7b8f457ffc8.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=RdwX6DLswjJgls%7EAceRB%7ESBal%7ETuWn5vQdxCFiNPviGJrJ5pdEhcNAnE6hO6wyNQIM08mnx1INcxt1hzTesel8rc7UHpAKC662XrcD5deWKkZgPVB2fPYaJIwHywbg5omp379zeUp2Bg9DKVEXHPegpDDY8psDlH66mfXDTjDN1QscHTEBBPr4GVGonVg0ke90sGrOACmTmowiMjhjnrOPwnWwWAq6ztu0CntYD5CfASCIin-AT1Pl378kFlvvb2qQ0VMJiIN5LmmKba5UrzRn8oJC8ZnvpoofIfGgRciUeS6Xjj%7E2fE-Q4zsdZjUi090Fm43achMqsAwlvSa1qNog__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5fb87945d6e3eb162bfe22d8ea3ad47d PDF Text Text 697 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY vóilscroj TkirmaS^ • I I EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT A LETTER a O C) TO THOMAS SCOTT. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS II THE TERRACE, SCOTT, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. 1873. Price Sixpence. �On religion, in particular, the time appears to me to have come, when it is the duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false, but hurtful, to make their dissent known : at least, if they are among those whose station or reputation gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an avowal would put an end, at once and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice, that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, is connected with any bad qualities either of mindt or heart. The world would be astonished if it knew how great a pro portion of its brightest ornaments—of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue—are complete sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less from personal considerations, than from a conscientious, though now, in my opinion a most mistaken apprehension, lest by speaking out what would tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they suppose) exist ing restraints, they should do harm instead of good. Autobiography by John Stuart Mill. �EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT. ■> DEAR FRIEND,— ULD that the topic were more genial or humane, to say nothing of divine, for, assuredly, the odour of such a sulphurous thesis is the reverse of that of “sanctity.” Yet I will decline no subject on which you think that what I may have to say can possibly serve the cause we both have at heart,—for I am persuaded that the cause pleaded by yourself and your distinguished coadjutors is mainly the same as that to which my poor thoughts and aspirations have been long directed. Many of us, I have no doubt, see several of the questions at issue from various points of view and through different media, with glasses not adjusted to the same focus; but we are all of the Human-Catholic Church, seeking to realise a religion reasonable no less than aspira tional, satisfying, that is, the sentimental or emotional requirements of the spirit, no less than the logical and intellectual demands of the understanding. Ignoring neither, our endeavour is to conciliate and unite the two, in common allegiance and devotion to rhe one Power from which they both spring. Our Faith is faith in “ Principles,” and that I believe is true Christian Faith, as contradistinguished from shallow assent and consent to opinions and conjec tures of a quasi-historical or traditional sort, often assuming the name of a sacred grace to which it is in no degree entitled. “Faith ” is an inward confiding temper of the soul Godward, and has nothing reli- �4 Everlasting Punishment. giously in common with acceptance or rejection of lo, here ! or lo, there! assertions of circumstantial import, which have to be judged solely by laws of evidence or antecedent probability—whether too cre dulously received or too incredulously denied, affect ing only the intelligence, and by no means the spiritual depth or breadth of our being. Surely those who put their trust, through calm and storm, in the abiding principles of Faith, Hope, and Love are true mem bers of the one indivisible and universal Church of which Christ is the Spiritual High Priest. He came to proclaim peace and goodwill among men—a gospel only to be realised by unity of principle, but never attainable by any attempt at an impossible and un desirable uniformity of opinion. If community of Churchmanship is to depend upon multitudes of free and true men agreeing to numerous propositions, physical and metaphysical, alike incapable of proof, but each of which has adherents whose pertinacity is usually in the inverse ratio of their knowledge, then may we postpone such Christian fellowship to the Greek Kalends or the Apocalyptic Millennium. Thus much of preface as to a probable divergence of views which, when truthfully and charitably enter tained, I take to be more conducive to edification and mutual esteem than any conformity of a stereotyped sort. Why should not all be content to travel in the same direction by different paths and at different speeds ? Dean Swift used to say it mattered little whether we journeyed Heavenward in a carriage-andfour or a donkey-cart, provided we did but get there ; and the Emperor Constantine told a favourite bishop of peculiarly pedantic orthodoxy, that he must climb to Heaven on his own proper ladder, for nobody else would mount it with him. But now to our theme,—time was when I could have written on the dismal dogma with more interest and earnestness than it at present inspires me with. �Everlasting Punishment. $ Not that I hold it, in its gross and literal accepta tion, a whit less subversive of all religious and reason able principles than I did years ago, when taking its matter more au serieux and occasionally feeling its dyspeptic incubus weighing upon my own faith and trust in the goodness and mercy of God, the “Mercy that is over all His Works,” and the “ Mercy that endureth for ever ! ” Is it a real “ Article of Belief” that we have to deal with ? Does it exist in men’s minds and make them miserable and make them mad, as it assuredly must, supremely miserable and despe rately mad, if it exist at all as an earnest conviction in their spirit or understanding ? My full persua sion is that no man of sound mind in sound body is nowadays ever seriously disquieted by the grisly phan tom begotten of theologic hatred and conceived of theologic fear, the fear that indeed “ has torment,” the fear which Paith casts out as gibbering frantic blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, by imputing hate to the Supreme Spirit whose Being is Love, and endless vengeance to the God whose nature and property is ever to forgive. It is here, if anywhere, when turning backto this mediaeval abortion of the odiumtlieologicum, that one is reminded of Plutarch and Bacon in their identical relative estimates of “ Superstition ” and “ Atheism.” Who does not remember the manly and honest simplicity with which the noble old Boeotian tells us he would rather people said there was no Plutarch, than that Plutarch was fickle, passionate, and vindictive ! How many folios of so-called Chris tian theology would kick the beam when weighed in divine scales against that little treatise of a dozen pages (vrepi Aeio-iSatpor/as) by a benighted heathen ! And then our Chancellor !—“ Better to have no opin ion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is con tumely ! ” Surely those two essays might be read in Churches as lessons approved by apostles who �6 Everlasting Punishment. denounce the beggarly elements of fanaticism, and proclaim faith without charity as nothing worth !—• approved by evangelists and prophets who preach acceptable religion as “doingjustice,loving mercy,and walking humbly with our God.” Well may our great British regenerator of human thought talk of super stition being to religion as a monkey is to a Man, for never could any travesty by genus “Simia” exceed the parody that superstition has put upon religion, when trumpeting endless vindictive punishment for punishment’s sake in the name of the Deity who has proclaimed Himself as chastening whom He loveth, and loving whom He chasteneth ! You will remind me, perhaps, that this is emphatic language, and that I began by disclaiming any deep feeling on the subject; and I am quite sensible of the apparent inconsistency. The fact is, that one is prone to oscillate on such a topic between extreme indig nation and very thorough contempt. A healthy mind will, no doubt, easily and at once shake itself free from morbid and lurid imaginations, that would deform and deface God’s beautiful universe by per petuating misery and deifying evil as coequal and coterminate with good. And while under the bracing influence of such health and healthy surroundings, one is apt to be ashamed of fighting as one that beateth the air, with no adversary but the unwhole some illusion of feverish weakness or designing wickedness. The “hell-fire” of superstition is to Religion and Reason but an ignis fatuus, flickering among the dead bones and mouldering1 remains of ages darker than our own ; and wise neighbours call no. engines, and fill no buckets to put it out. From this point of view we can look at such “ fire ” calmly and talk about it composedly. But when again one remembers that mental health and strength are bv no means the inheritance of us all, and that for hypo"chondria, dyspepsia, and hysteria, the spectral finger �Everlasting Punishment. n that points to hell in another world, usually points down the road to madness in this—why, then, indig nation once more is likely to get the upper hand of indifference. But even a less hideous and more frequent consummation than absolute insanity in trudes itself inevitably on attention, and is, to a religious and reverential estimate, totally incom patible with philosophic apathy. The doctrine, even when not earnestly believed in, but only languidly tolerated, as tending towards checking and alarming gross and ignorant vice by false but portentously horrible representations of distant penalties incurred —this doctrine, I maintain, is still fraught with irre ligious and immoral mischief — as, indeed, in a universe under the ultimate sovereignty of Supreme Truth, uZZ false teaching must be irreligiously and immorally mischievous. Let us go into the heated and feverish atmosphere that surrounds “ popular preachers,” proclaiming, in the name of an Almighty, Allwise, and Allgood Godhead, the final and per petual plunging into the fiery lake of the devil and his angels, with all the myriads of human sinners, heretics, infidels, and others, that cannot present an orthodox passport at heaven’s gate. Let us look round upon the excited and excitable crowd that feels a sensational thrill, almost allied to horrid pleasure, in the stupendous, infernal drama depicted for their edifi cation, and then let us inquire for a moment into the nature of such edification. It assuredly is seldom of that highest sort which prompted Moses and Paul to reject their individual salvation unless that of their brethren could be simultaneously secured : “ Blot me also out of thy book !” and “ I could wish myself also accursed for my Brethren’s sake !” It is hardly a breach of charity to conclude that this is not quite the feeling that actuates the anxious benches of 11 Tabernacles ” and “ Ebenezers,” as they listen to fulminations of “ hell-fire” reserved for all but the �8 Everlasting Punishment. elect few, to join whose exceptional ii glory” they are naturally inclined to make a rush, under an impulse and watchword not absolutely identical with that of “ loving their neighbour as themselves.” Yet, with out rising to the level of a Moses or a Paul, how often do we find simple sailors and soldiers, who, in the service of an earthly master, will scorn to hurry first into the boats that can save but a fraction of their company! How cheerfully will the noble fellows hold back till at least the women and children are made room for! But, it may be said, their threaten ing danger is only of natural death; while the religionists are in frantic terror of supernatural tor ments, &c., &c. Strange, at any rate, that a religious doctrine, preached in the name of Christ, should tend towards so low a pitch of selfishness as to be satisfied to be supremely happy with the knowledge of the supreme contemporary misery of theirfellow-creatures! How does such doctrine look, when tried by the divine test of “ knowing them by their fruits ? ” Or is this an exceptional case, in which the heavenly vine produces such very earthly thorns ? Turning from the human ethics consequent on the dogma that lends such point and zest to the oratory of popular pulpits, let us see how it stands with the system of celestial government in accordance -with, such theory. Those gentlemen who proclaim it would no doubt be much surprised to hear that their gospel of ultimate and infinite suffering is altogether incom patible with their worship of one God, Almighty an cl Allgood,—and that they are bound in logic and con sistency to announce themselves henceforth as recog nising two eternal principles, one of Good and the other of Evil, like Persians of old, or later disciples of the Heresiarch Manes. They are very possibly of opinion that, having done such poetical justice upon all fallen sinners, whether angelic or human, as cast ing them into the perpetual lake of burning brimstone, �Everlasting Punishment. 9 nothing further can be required towards the vindica tion of sole and supreme Good throughout the universe. But surely this position cannot stand scrutiny. How can supreme good reign triumphant in a universe degraded and dishonoured by the infinite evil of end less unrepenting and unamending angelic and human misery ? Were the agonies announced as of a limited or purgatorial kind, the case would of course be differ ent, but it certainly does excite fair astonishment that the advocates of eternal vindictive, non-curative, and non-purifying punishments should not see that they are thereby maintaining a coequal sovereignty of evil with good, always, everywhere, and for ever. The seeming ignorance of, or indifference to, this inevitable sequitur, no doubt arises from such persons using the metaphysical words “infinite,” “eternal,” &c.,’in quite a limited and physical acceptation. But it is time, in the present stage of mental cultivation and era of exact science, that they should recast their nomenclature. They must learn to see and acknow ledge that no evil can be greater than that of the endless sinful existence of spiritual beings, created in the image of God—multitudinous beings of such high origin, for ever unrepenting and unamending, of neces sity cursing both the Creator that created them and tlie Creation that their endless sinful suffering darkens, deforms, and disgraces, to no purpose but that of inflicting pain and perpetuating cruelty ! I ought now, perhaps, in reference to my signature as a commissioned officer of our Established Church, to say a word or two as to the Biblical and Litur gical bearings of the dogma that I venture to condemn as not only anti-Christian but absolutely inhuman, and implying “contumely” to the God of Goodness. I have no difficulty or scruple whatever in asserting that, to the best of my judgment, the Bible not only ignores, but would absolutely anathematise, such doc trine as that which endeavours to brand Creation �Io Everlasting Punishment. with indelible failure and deformity, while dethron ing the one God and Lord of all, in favour of a dualistic scheme of Ormuzd and Ahriman, projecting through the universe the distorted semblance of a “house divided against itself.” It ought not to be required that we should descend to the examination of mere Hebrew and Greek vocables to establish a truth, the miscarriage of which would be fatal to all claims of divine inspiration in the providential books that have been so venerated for decades of centuries by Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian. Enough, surely, that we can appeal to the “ Spirit ” of these Scriptures that always quickens, without haggling over . the “ letter ” that occasionally “kills.” Not that in this case, as I apprehend, there can be any difficulty in securing the witness of the “ letter ” as well as that of the “ Spirit” to the honour and glory of God. Yet who needs it who is already familiar with the Scriptural attributes ascribed to Deity, as ever culminating in goodness, and in mercy enduring for ever, and enfolding all his works in the “ everlast ing arms ” that are spread beneath them ? Why should we be tasked to gild refined gold and paint the lily white, by trying to strengthen, through itera tion and variety of texts, such pandects of supreme truth and holiness as are expressed in passages of Old and New Testament, which every real lover of their lore will bind as signs upon his hands and frontlets between his eyes ? Let us appeal at once to the fountain-head of our Biblical allegiance, to the Teacher who has taught us to approach our God as our Father which is in heaven, ever ready to forgive us our trespasses as even we to forgive them that trespass against us! Think we, perchance, that any human malignity could ever reach the pitch of relentless and endless unforgiveness to its offspring, in whose behalf even a Roman dra matist would write Propeccato magnopaululum supplicii �Everlasting Punishment. 11 satis est Patri. “ If ye, then,” says the Christ, “ being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give to them that ask Him.” Dare men, while worshipping such a God through such a Mediator, still venture to assert that He for bread gives us a stone, for fish a serpent, for an egg a scorpion ! But away with figures of serpents and scorpions — mere maudlin metaphors to veil the ineffable monstrum liorrendum informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum—“ monstrous, hideous, blind, horrible, and huge,” which would impute “ hell fire ” as the divine rejoinder to our poor human prayers to the “Lord of all power and might, declaring His Almighty rule most chiefly in mercy and in pity.” Has the “contumely” of superstition, our Baconian “Monkeyism of Manhood,” ever gone further or descended lower in travesty and caricature of a Godhead created in its own image ? Really Samson’s riddle was easy reading compared with the theologic enigma that, instead of weakness out of strength, brings hatred out of love, and relent less vengeance out of infinite mercy and compassion! Many fantastic tricks have we sons of Adam played before High Heaven to make the angels weep; but here is surely a trick of Angry-Apism that would petrify angelic tears in blank amazement, to say nothing of classic philosophy, whether of the school that laughs or the school that weeps at the aberrations of our eccentric nature. We read of James and John asking their Lord’s sanction for a mere momentary flash of earthly fire to consume his enemies, and how sternly does that Lord rebuke the spirit that suggested the wish, as emphatically no spirit of his ! Yet there are those among us, neither few nor always of the dullest, who would confidently, - in the name of the same Master, invoke flames of preternatural fire, to agonise perpetually, without consuming, the disputants who vex the pragmatic �12 Everlasting Punishment. zeal that found such, small countenance from him in whose cause it bestirred itself. When one remem bers, moreover, that Christ most unmistakably endorses the really divine law of commensurate and inevitable penalties of an instructive and chastening sort, as awaiting all transgressions of the moral or physical code of light and life, one feels that it is but taking pains to little purpose to argue against fore gone conclusions. Would any advocate of “ infinite ” penalties await ing the very “ finite ” difference, moral or spiritual, between Messrs A and B, do us the favour to give their note and commentary on the text of “ many stripes ” due to the one, and “ few stripes ” due to the other ? I would not willingly adopt a light tone in reference to so dismal a theory, but it is a law of our nature, that the “ sublime ” of unreason should stand in close contiguity to its corresponding extreme. Pardon me, then, for looking round on the counte nances of the first dozen fellow travellers from Charing Cross to St Paul’s, to conjecture, on available data, their future destiny as eternal heavenly angels or cooeval infernal dsemons ! 0 for the Egyptian sphynx or Athenian owl, to cast the horoscope of Mr Br—gs ! Who does not at once recoil from conclusions too grossly preposterous to abide for a moment, when confronted with the barest sufficiency of sense and soberness that distinguishes us from idiots ! The dogma, as already said, is a psychological phenome non that sets aside all religion and all reason; and one cannot easily bring religious or reasonable argument to bear upon that which can only exist by strict denial of every elementary postulate of one or the other. If it really had any root in the hearts or heads of people outside an asylum, we should be in imminent danger of a collapse in any human society of which they were members. It would remove all our moral landmarks and confound all our moral �Everlasting Punishment. 13 weights and measures, to a degree utterly incom patible with any healthy and honest intercourse with our kind; for what faith or hope could we have in fair dealing on earth, while stupendous false scales were hung up to our view in Heaven, in the name of that Lord to whom Religion and Reason have hitherto made them an abomination ! When the divine Head of Christendom dramatises the great “ Judgment according to Works,” surely He distinguishes the ethics of the gospel plainly enough from the false reckoning that would allot an infinite interval to the infi/nitessimal unknown X that repre sents the surplus of A’s doings over those of his brother B. Put the “ finite ” into one dish of the balance and the “ infinite ” into the other, and we have an inconceivably small fraction of a grain weighed against a sum-total of tons, compared with which a rule of arithmetic digits reaching from London to Edinburgh would be as nothing ! One has to talk in this way with the forlorn hope of fixing the attention of the volubility that trifles so com placently with words that stand for ideas unrealisable by the human brain. Is it not, after all, this utter unintelligibility of the questions mooted that can alone account for the phenomenon of intense irri tability proverbial as odium theologicum, appro priating exclusively to itself the tprm “ polemics ” as satirically characterising the temper of disputing devotees, whose common principle and badge of recognition was to be their “ Love of one another.” Why do devotees of exact sciences indulge in no such venomous polemics ? How hard it seems to our human pretention to acknowledge that we cannot see through the thick veil that it has pleased Providence to let fall between things earthly and things unearthly. How little we like to appropriate the lesson, “ What is that to thee, follow thou me.” “ Do justice,” that is, “ and love mercy,” leaving reverentially to God �14 Everlasting Punishment. the things that are God’s, and as yet God’s only. What should we say to monkeys bent on mathematics, with infinite nuts pending on the issue, and tearing one another to pieces over definitions and axioms of Euclid. Rage unspeakable and irrepressible between two sects, to one of which a triangle is assuredly three right angles, and to the other as positively four ! (Itisum teneatis ! ” Fabula ta/men de nobis nct/rrcbtur— the case is pretty much our own. _ Enough, however, for the moment as to broad views connected with the changeless principles of religion and reason. Let us now turn for an instant to that sort of argument that seeks, in the written “ letter” of our sacred books, for ways and means of invalidating its divine “spirit.” Do we not read repeatedly of “ hell ” and “ everlasting fire ” in the Old Testament and the New ? and dare we doubt or reject such words on such pages ? To the latter question the reply of Christ and his apostles is to try all such words, representing what ideas they may, and to hold fast to those alone of them that are good— trying, that is, the inky words on paper by the living words traced by the “ finger of God upon the tablets of our heart ” or conscience. No mistake about the revelations written there, and those that are wilting to know them shall know of the doctrines whether they be of God (Ear ns Qe\rj ■ynvuerai). True faith in such revelations, “ saving us by the answer of a good conscience,” would bravely and loyally renounce both Old Testament and New, though they had fallen, ready printed and bound, from heaven to earth, rather than for a moment sin against the Holy Ghost by imputing to it on their authority that which we know by its inspiration to be of the nature of evil. But here, happily, our faith is exposed to no such trial, for neither does the Old Testament nor the New say a word, to the best of iny knowledge, which, fairly interpreted, can reduce us to choose between �Everlasting Punishment. i5 “ Bibliolatry ” on the one hand, and that “ liberty ” of conscience on the other which always exists where the spirit of the Lord is. The least learned English reader can easily convince himself that the “ hell ” of the Old Testament is simply the word meaning a “ hollow place,” and habitually used as equivalent to 11 grave ” or “ tomb.” Why our translators sometimes render it as “ grave ” and sometimes as “ hell ” is by no means clear. We should be surprised, for example, to read of the patriarch’s “grey hairs being brought down with sorrow unto hell,” or of Jacob “ going down into hell unto his son mourning yet it is precisely the same word which, in the Psalms, is given as, “ Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell,” where it evidently means “ grave,” no less than in the other passages. When Jonah is represented as “crying out of the belly of hell,” meaning the belly of the fish, every one knows that he refers to his living “tomb.” But there is an unjustifiable laxity in substituting the one word for the other where popular misapprehension is so likely to follow. So much for the “hell” of the Old Testament, thus reduced from its mythological and monstrous accepta tion to one with which we are all familiarly acquainted. Next let us see how far the metaphysical idea of endless duration of time, or Eternity, is represented by the in i in of the Hebrew F It may be rightfully maintained that in the early epochs of Jewish litera ture, the idea of such transcendent duration had not yet dawned upon human intelligence, and, therefore that the words m and nift could never have repre sented a thought not yet extant in its bewildering vagueness. For many centuries the calculations of mankind were pretty much limited to the sum total of the digits at the extremities of hands and feet, and we all know that the prophets take refuge in sacred and indefinite numbers, seven, forty, seventy, &c., where �16 Everlasting Punishment. precision might be embarrassing or needless. Certain it is that no confidence can be placed in our modern renderings of high numbers in the Pentateuch, and equally sure that we have no right to attach our notion of “ everlasting,” &c., to words which we find applied to the hills of Judea and the possession of the pro mised land, to the lives of kings, and so on. When Juda so beautifully pleads with Israel for leave to take Benjamin with him, and winds up with “ If I bring him not back, let me bear the blame for ever,” who is embarrassed with the cmvrbn that we translate as “ for ever,” quietly accepting it, as every one does, for “ all the days of my life.” Turning to the pages of the New Testament on the same quest, what word do we find for this theological representation of end less fire, agonising irreclaimable sinners for duration of time mathematically endless ? Simply the Syriac term “Gehenna,” a corruption of “Valley of Hinnom,” where, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the offal of the city and bones of malefactors were consumed ; that is, “ Gehenna ” is a metaphorical expression for the disgrace, desolation, and destruction awaiting excommunicated sin and sinners, cast into outer lurid darkness, where weeping and gnashing of teeth are in full harmony with their surroundings. When we read of Christ, that he pronounces cause less anger worthy of judgment (magisterial), and foul-mouthed abuse (para) liable to a higher court, but “thou fool” (juwpe), that is, deliberate contempt and scorn of arrogance, versus humility, liable to “ heli-fire,”—can any disciple of Justice tempered by Mercy suppose this “ Gehenna of Fire ” to mean what popular superstition is taught to attach to the term, instead of forming the natural climax, as it probably does, to intramural penalties, culminating in being cast out to the dreary and unclean valley of burning bones F If Christ rebuked with such withering sar casm the zeal of James and John, desiring fire to �Everlasting Punishment. 17 ' consume the adversaries of his preaching, what cohesion or congruity can we find in a lesson that would inculcate eierwaZ fire for the folly of inflated self-conceit depreciating its neighbours ? It is true, however, that this “ Hinnom-Valley ” is not the only equivalent for our expression “ Hell fire ” in the New Testament. There is another term, the classical “ Hades,” meaning the invisible abode of departed spirits, but no more resembling our theologic Hell than a Greek statue is like a scare-crow. When the “gates of Hell” (ivvXai a&ov) are said to be power less against the Church, this has no reference what ever to the “ Gehenna ” outside Jerusalem, but is the expressive Syriac-Greek metaphor for powers of dark ignorance, as opposed to the light, and life, and love of truth, which constitute the real “ orthodoxy ” of the Human Catholic Church. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus there is certainly mention of fire tormenting the rich man in Hades, but it must be a very prosaic spirit indeed that attaches the notion of material fire to the language of Allegory depicting remorse burning into memory the reproachful regret of gifts and opportunities wasted or abused. All this may sound as minute and elementary cri ticism to those acquainted with the ancient languages of our two Testaments, but it cannot be quite super fluous as long as the doctrine we are considering even nominally defaces and defames the Gracious Gospel of Faith, Hope, and Love; of which the last is alone eternal, as being in itself the soul of the Godhead. Let us look again for the Greek word which we make to bear the weight of such portentous meaning (or rather no meaning), and we find a comparatively harmless aittvios and els tov aiiiva, signifying only duration of a limited sort, equivalent to “ ages ” or “ centuries ” with us. When the fig-tree is to bear no more fruit “ for ever,” what has that to do with endless time, when the life of the tree itself is but for B �18 Everlasting Punishment. a few years ? No doubt these words are used for indefinite or infinite duration, when the intention is to convey the highest possible idea of such duration, as of the word, or wisdom, or goodness of God ; but they are equally used for temporary existence, and that carries with it all the weight of argument we require. When Jonah says, “The earth with her laws was about him for ever,” he uses the Hebrew obv, just as the New Testament uses e<s rov ativra for the duration of the “ house of Jacob as the prophets speak of “ everlasting mountains,” &c. The only important point is to save the credit of Scriptures otherwise responsible for a doctrine fatal to their claims to “ infallibility.” Enough that their language will bear a good meaning, to make it incumbent on us not to assign to it a bad one. If the requirements of language had insisted on an acceptation of “ everlasting,” &c., incompatible with any limitation, we might have sought refuge perhaps in the ingenious bit of sophistry which maintains that all punishment is of necessity eternal; inasmuch as it is an everlasting deduction from the sum total of enjoyment. A magistrate, for example, fines us five shillings, and we are for ever poorer by said five shil lings, than we should have been without such penalty ; so also with imprisonment and bodily suffering, so much for ever substracted from our normal stock of liberty and absence from pain. But we are not driven to such casuistry, though of a sort justifiable enough in self-defence against the unjustifiable despotism of dominant stupidity. It might also be a question to moot, were it wanted, whether we can entertain any logical idea of an “eternity” limited at one end; whether, that is, any thing can be conceived as endless which has a beginning. My own impression is that it cannot, though I may be inadvertently running into “ heresy ” by saying so. �Everlasting Punishment. i9 Between ourselves, as you are not going to turn Grand Inquisitor, I could confess to something like an Article of Belief, in the eternity of every thing that IS, allowing for “ circulation,” with permutations, combinations, and the like. Was there ever a time when “matter” did not exist, or “time” either? “ When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, ’twas no matter what he said,” &c., &c. Excuse my trifling, to relieve for a moment the very heavy dis quisition you have lured me into. If I am right in saying that the literal Hell dogma is not in the Bible, it would of course follow from our Vlth Article, that it is in no degree incumbent upon any one signing the XXXIX, maugre even the “ Athanasian ” Creed, which our Parliament in its wisdom still thinks fit to ratify and maintain. Apropos to which Anglican symbol, I cannot say that I, in my individual insignificance, have ever found it the pre-eminent stumbling block that it seems to many. In the first place, if I read it at all, it is in obedience to Parliamentary Law in our Parliamentary Church—and I consider myself free not to read it, provided I am ready to submit to the Parliamentary penalty for neglecting the rubric. Secondly, if I individually demur to its logical meaning, I can avail myself of the fact io which my attention was once called by an excellent and distinguished Spiritual Peer, viz., that the symbol is appointed to be either ‘ said or sung.'' Now, as “singing” was never yet intended to be subjected to laws of strict reasoning, it would be like seeking difficulties to apply rules of dry logic to triumphant outbursts of “ orthodox ” rhythm, hymning victorious pagans of JSomoousion vic tory over discomfited partisans of JSomoiousion schism in the hot areha of Byzantian polemics ! The argument as to the meaning of words applies, moreover, as well to the “ Creed,” whether prose or poetry, as to the Bible, and the “ everlasting fire ” seems threatened �20 Everlasting Punishment. rather to “ doing evil ” than to involuntarily believing correctly or incorrectly, which is at any rate some comfort to common sense. There can be no harm, however, in an obscure Presbyter echoing the wish of a bygone Primate touching “ Quicunque yult,” to the effect that “ we were well rid of it.” The remark may not be worth much, but it is a remark many of us have, perhaps, made in reference to “ Athanasian Creeds ” and similar phenomena, that the “ people,” so called, find little or no diffi culty, and make little or no objection, to them. In village congregations the “ Quicunque vult,” with its magnificent rhythm, much more effective than “ Reason,” is heard with great edification, and with very little of the scrupulosity about “ damnatory clauses ” that is apt to disturb more delicate and refined constitutions. The fact seems to be that dense and pachydermatous natures only experience agreeable sensations under a currycomb that would flay the skin of more susceptible subjects. The most popular pulpits are known to be those which fulmi nate the fiercest and loudest,—well illustrating Lord Bacon’s apothegm, that the “ People is the master of superstition, in which wise men follow fools, with arguments fitted to facts in reversed order.” Arch bishops and Bishops, and Presbyters, would be ready to be rid of a personified Devil and his doings on much easier terms than rustics would approve, and I well remember the story as told by the wisest and truest of living prophets and humourists, how the little lassie came weeping back from a discourse where “ the gentleman said there was na’ deil.” If there is one Scriptural book more peculiarly pic turesque in imagery of fiery-lake scenery than another it is the Apocalypse, and that, as every one knows who knows country cottages, is beyond comparison the favourite village reading. Simple and uncritical, an agricultural population will revel in the gorgeous �Everlasting Punishment. 21 imagery and stupendous machinery of visions of Patmos, impervious to doubts and difficulties which could make such a divine as South exclaim, more pointedly than decorously, that they “ either found a man cracked or left him so.” The strongest imagin ary appeals have little effect upon natures rendered rugged and unimpressionable by constant contact with hard and rough realities, but exemplify your figura tive “ everlasting punishment” by showing such per sons an old-fashioned “ cat-o’-nine-tail ” infliction, and then ask them what they would think of a doctrine teaching that such suffering was to be inflicted for ever by heavenly power upon human sinners : not for their amendment, but only for their punishment; not for the sake of saving discipline, but only for per petuating sin and unrepenting maledictions. Those who, knowing better, would countenance such horrid phantasmagoria, under the impression of frightening people from crime, are as wrong practically as they are morally and religiously. Practically such threats have no effect at all beyond lending vigour to the popular blasphemy that borrows their infernal vocabulary. If, indeed, such terrors could avail prac tically, we ought consistently to bring back the rack and the wheel to supplement the prison and the gibbet. We should be justified, for the general good, in pour ing melted lead and boiling oil, as in good old times they did upon the body and limbs of a Ravaillac or a Damiens, approaching by human ingenuity, for an hour or so, to the agonies reserved by Theologic “ Divinity” for the majority of mankind “ for ever” and a day! But in this, as in every attempt to change divine laws and improve them by human device, we inevita bly go wrong. It will never answer to do evil that good may come, and the course of truth can never be forwarded by untruth. The Laws of Life are God’s laws, and provide inevitable corresponding penalties �22 Everlasting Punishment. for all infraction of such laws, however they he dis tinguished as physical or moral. The “Pama claudo pede ” doctrine, teaching that the penalty is as insep arable from the offence of commission or omission as the shadow from its substance, is the only true and effective penal code ; and till national education teaches that, it is no religious education, least of all a Christian, i.e., of Judgment according to works or fruits. Every jurisconsult knows that the fear of punishment is in the ratio of its certainty and propin quity, and by no means in that of its enormity and uncertainty. No man in his senses thinks himself bad enough for the “ Hell-fire ” with which he occa sionally may hear himself menaced in a very indefinite way as to time, place, and circumstance. The worst criminal, moreover, shrinks religiously from the per sonification of Deity painted as infinite strength wreaking insatiable vengeance upon infinite weakness. It would be an apotheosis or consecration of iniquity, like that of Lucifer’s “ Evil be thou my Good ! ” Teach, only teach, in God’s name, that as surely as fire, if we defy it, will burn us, and water drown us, so surely will the defiance of any other law bring inevitable and terrible penalty in its train, and that is education for time and for eternity. Teach that poison is poison, whether it poisons the body or the soul, with the only difference that the moral poison of untruth or injustice poisons our human, the other only our animal constitution. Away with the unworthy dream of God’s inflicting mere vindictive punishments, as tormenting without instructing or improving. Teach that His laws for body and soul are only in so far inexorable as they are unchangeable, and that no folly can equal that which flatters itself with hope of escape from the inevitable. What should we say of one who pitched himself from a precipice with the hope of escaping or defying the “ law of gravitation ?” JSx uno omnia discamus. What bird is that that buries its head in the sand to escape observation ? �Everlasting 'Punishment. 23 I had no notion of writing so much upon a subject for which a dozen words might seem exhausting, and must hasten to a full stop. I began by saying that the “ Monstrum Horrendum,” we have been talking about, was begotten of Theologic hatred out of Theologic terror, but happily, by divine Providence was, as it could only be, an “ abortion ” from the first. I have not been attempting so much to argue against belief in the hideous phantom, as against the more or less prevalent disposition to “make believe” as believing it. I do not suppose that any sane indi vidual believes it, or can believe it, and remain sane; but here, as elsewhere, the canker-worm of “ Sham ” is eating, by Parliamentary sanction, into our National entrails, and till Nationally, both in Church and State, we speak truth, and think truth, we are but a weak People, though we case our ships in iron a yard thick, and hurl ton-weight shot across our Channel. If we believe in God we must trust in truth and shame the Devil, or ignore him, as either may tend to greater edification. We have no time to inquire as to the precise where and when of the first apparition of the grim imagina tion conjured up by human malice and fear to con found all faith and hope,. as well as all sense and soberness. Its latitude and longitude we, of course, know to be Byzantine, and the date of its full development in the wilderness of Scholastic-Theology to have been that of the Nicene Synod about year 325 of our sera. Of that Council, so pregnant of results theologic rather than evangelic, but little in the way of circumstantial detail has been handed down. We read that what most impressed the nearly contemporary heathen historian Ammianus, was the wonderful ferocity of party spirit that marked the controversies of Hornoousions and Eomoiowsions— Athanasians, that is, and Arians—tearing one another to pieces for dialectic and philologic niceties that had �24 Everlasting Punishment. centuries before harmlessly puzzled the sublime brain of a Plato in the cool groves of the Athenian Academy,now, alas! destined to rouse inextinguishable wrath and hatred in the hot arena of Byzantine faction. Such faction, we must remember, was now no longer mere speculative theorising on the Platonic, Johannic, or Alexandrian Aoyos, but involving prac tical _ results, carrying with them no less than the distribution and possession of all the new and vast Ecclesiastical patronage of the Roman Empire. We may in some measure then, at least, comprehend the breadth and. depth of the passions invoked among crowds of ignorant burly monks, on either side, assembled to back their leaders in debate on questions which they understood, as peasants may be supposed to have . understood Plato, but on the decision of which hinged, as they might readily be persuaded, their chances of preferment in this world and the next. When such a head as that of Athanasius reeled, by his own confession, over thoughts and theorems the longer studied the less mastered, we may imagine the effect they would work on the dull brains of hundreds of coarse and ignorant partisans summoned to the vote in numbers that the Historian describes as fatal to the post-horses of the Imperial ser vice. The Council of Nice is said to have been attended by some 2,000 orthodox and heterodox zealots, whose zeal was apparently not less furious and not less sanguinary than that which afterwards, on more worldly pretexts, deluged the new Roman capital with frantic slaughter. Old Rome had seen the blood of gladiators and wild beasts shed in torrents for the pleasure of a brutal populace, but the walls of the Coliseum had never witnessed our human nature so demoniacally maddened as in the City of Constantine, in behalf of a Cause whose badge and test is that we “Love one another.”Nullce tarn infestoe hominibus bestice guam sunt sibi ferales plengue Christianorum, is the �Everlasting Punishment. 2$ ' commentary of a contemporary annalist. Gregory Nazianzus, Arcljoishop of Constantinople, withdrew from its fury to the Cappadocian desert, declaring that the “ Kingdom of Heaven ” had been turned into Hell and Chaos. Such hell and chaos was the cradle of the “ Credo ” that would still enthrone hell and chaos on the site of the Church of Christ, against which it stands recorded that the gates of hell shall not prevail. Surely the cradle was worthy of the nursling. Is it fair to charge the anathemas of the anonymous Athanasian Creed to the credit of the Nicene which contains no anathemas in its present form ? Once deduct the “ clauses ” from the Athanasian symbol, and even the most ardent votaries of popular “fire and brimstone ” might be puzzled to find Bibli cal or canonical footing for their favourite doctrine. When Wesley held on strictly to “Witchcraft,” because Witchcraft is Biblical, he was at least logi cally true to his “ Bibliolatry,” though it unavoidably led to a good man and able scholar linking himself to an obsolete absurdity. Yet was the moral and reli gious mischief of his superstition infinitesimal com pared with that which results from ascribing perpetual and infinite evil to the one omnipotent source of supreme good. What disturbances in the divine scheme of the universe consequent on the stupid torturing of helpless and harmless old women, could compare with that emanating from endless and useless vindictive torment inflicted on the majority of our race at the fiat of a power whom we are taught to praise for mercy over all His works, or at worst, with “ wrath enduring but as the twinkling of an eye ?” The partisans of this “contumely ” cannot plead the Biblical sanction that Wesley fairly urged for his puerility. Oriental imagery picturing the worm never dead, and the fire never quenched, neither would nor could suggest the theologic “ Hell ” to any sane under- �26 Everlasting Punishment. standing, while studying words of Christian life and truth, culminating in the charity tlmt thinketh no evil. Not in our Hebrew or Greek scriptures, whose spirit is always ultimately that of doing justice and loving mercy, but in hot fermentations of hate and fear, seething in that Nicene Basilica, is to be found the birth of the most portentous phantasm that ever darkened mythology, whether of Jew or Gentile, Greek or Barbarian. Yet if, as seems certain, this dogma of divine vengeance (infinite power torment ing infinite weakness) be by no means Biblical, how comes it in any sort to be “ Anglican,” or why should such a question in these later days be forced intru sively on sensible and sober consideration ? This deponent ventures the inquiry but not the answer, unless by respectful glance, “ quousque tandem," towards Lords and Commons at Westminster. Suum cuique; iw'iA them it rests that such “ things be so ordered and settled by their endeavours upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice. . . .” We can all complete the quotation. Depend upon it, as 11 witchcraft ” has so lately found its way to limbo, it cannot be long before the grimmer superstition follows in its wake, leaving no trace but that of contrite amazement at the “ con tumely ” that Christendom so long connived at. I venture to maintain that the Bible has never sanc tioned it, but it were only a halting allegiance to truth to shirk the avowal that, had the Bible sanc tioned it, in every book from Genesis to Apocalypse, it would not be less the duty of every religious and reasonable man to reject it with all his strength of spirit and understanding as “ contumely ” to the honour and glory of God. We must choose in such case between tablets of pen and ink and those of our own heart traced indelibly by the divine hand. It is �Everlasting Punishment. 27 the refusal to do this that still constitutes our diffi culty and our “.idolatry.” It is this idolising a book, as a palladium fallen down from Jupiter, that still shows us trammelled in the bonds of Feticliism. It matters not how good the book, itsworship is not the use but the degrading abuse of its goodness, and never was stronger example of corruptio optimi pessima. It is this “ Bibliolatry ” that is the bane and paralysis of Protestantism, riveting on our necks a dead yoke of “stereotype” more slavish and grievous than that living yoke of a Roman hierarchy which the great mental move of the 16th century lifted for a while from our wrung withers. We must get rid of this incubus, or our Protestantism will protest to little purpose against the logic-disciplined legions of Rome on the one hand, or the anarchic rabble of Babel on the other. If “ Protestantism ” be less than a protest against all authoritative unreason, it is but a lame thing travelling neither on two legs nor four. If we would hold our own we must read our Providential book on its own terms, trying its con clusions, whether of “letter ” or “spirit,” before the tribunal of our own conscience and intelligence—a defective tribunal, no doubt, but the only one we can appeal to, and by God’s grace sufficient for the nonce. We must typify Biblical wisdom by that of the serpent sloughing skin after skin and scale after scale to reappear again and again in renewed or regenerate splendour. As it has sloughed . away “witchcraft,” “Mosaic cosmogony,” and the like, so assuredly will it slough away a local “ hell, a per sonal “ devil,” and sundry other dead scales that dim. and deform its vital and integral beauty. Our slavish allegiance to the “ letter ” of a literature, however sacred and providential, is as powerful a weapon in the armoury of Antichrist as that of the “ scholasti cism ” that dates its reign from the Council of Nice, and to which, among other boons, we are �28 Everlasting Punishment. indebted for the minatory hell-fire still extant by sanction of Church and State. , There is, no doubt, a respectable halo of antiquity about such Byzantine polemics that lends them a prestige not intrinsically their own; but if we must lean upon “ Councils ” of ancient date, why not go back 300 years further to another Council, where an Ambassador of a Gospel other than Athanasian reasoned also before Royalty, not indeed on meta physical OUSION or OISION,but upon lowlier topics of “ righteousness and temperance,” and judgment to come (Acts xxiv. 25). This argument is addressed to Felix. That at which King Agrippa was present is subsequent (ch. 26), and before Festus, almost per suading King Agrippa to be a Christian ! Would it be very rash to conjecture the Athanasian clamour of wrath and unreason, almost persuading the shrewd Imperial Constantine, again to be a Pagan ! But let me conclude a much longer lucubration than intended or needed, by “summing up ” to the effect that the popular dogma of “Everlasting Hell-fire” is a chaotic imagination totally subversive of all reli gious and moral principle. So far is the doctrine from being endorsed by Biblical authority, that it is absolutely and diametrically opposed to the Pandects of divine justice and mercy gradually unfolded in its pages, till finding their climax in our Evangelic “ Sonship ” to a Father which is in heaven. What is not “Biblical” cannot (by Article VI.) be part or parcel of Church-of-England doctrine, as legalised by Parliament. Neither, independently of such Article, is there anything in its liturgical or canonical teach ing that, fairly interpreted, would countenance such perversion of the gracious message of goodwill to man as published by Christ. The ascription to “ paternal deity ” of gratuitous and endless punishment inflicted on His offspring is, moreover, while removing all our landmarks of morality, most dangerously calculated to �Everlasting Punishment. 29 distract our attention from the true, benevolent, and instructive code that inevitably visits with inexorable but reclaiming chastisement every violation of divine law, whether material or mental. And so, my dear Scott, having fulfilled an old promise, perhaps more fully than you expected or desired, by vindicating a plain truth with a lengthy development of “ truisms,” Believe me, With Faith in the Love that casts out Fear, Yours truly, Foreign Chaplain. POSTSCRIPT. Since the above was written, the following admi rable “ Appeal to the Orthodox ” has appeared in The Manchester Friend of Oct. 15, 1873. The writer is so much in harmony with my friend the “ Foreign Chaplain,” that I cannot resist the temptation of giving to his article all the publicity in my power. Thomas Scott.. “ APPEAL TO THE ORTHODOX.” If there be a place of torment to which sinners are consigned at the day of judgment, the existence of such a place is by infinite degrees the most important fact in the Universe. Compared with so vivid a reality, the material world is an unsubstantial dream, and Heaven itself a colourless abstraction. The one surpassing object, which is alone worthy of our anxious care, is the means of escape from so horrible a destiny. And as God is a just and righteous Being, who would not entrap His creatures blindfold �30 Everlasting Punishment. into so piteous a doom, He would not leave one of those creatures in a state of doubt as to its reality. If there fee a Hell, therefore, and if there be, as we reverently trust, a righteous Ruler of the universe, the existence of that hell must be a patent and conspicuous fact, attested by a species and a mass of evidence which no sane intellect could think of ques tioning. And if no such evidence be producible, we are bound by common sense, as well as fealty to our Creator, to reject the fable of its existence as an outrage on His righteous character. Now, we do not complain that there are difficulties connected with the doctrine of an everlasting hell, nor yet that its evidences fall short of what we deem desirable; our contention is that there is no sub stantial warrant of any kind for its existence. During the thousands of years throughout which, according to the popular notion, men have been falling by myriads into this place of torment, and that under the ever-watchful eye of our Heavenly Parent, there is not an authentic instance of any person who has come back to forewarn his friends of the fate which he is now realising, and which is supposed to await every unconverted sinner. If there were any truth in this ghastly superstition, and if it were the will of God that we should believe in it, He has only to throw open the prison-doors for one brief interval, and millions of our forefathers, like Dives in the parable, would rush back to earth to give us warning of our danger. Or, if it were matter of vital moment that we should believe in it, He has only to expand our spiritual vision, and the mysteries of the unseen world would be as plain to us as the material universe now is to our bodily perceptions. There can be no lack of means to Omnipotence ; if this doctrine were not a figment of man’s invention, He would reveal it to us in ways which would leave no room to suspect its verity. �Everlasting Punishment. 31 But if we have no Divine warrant for the truth of this dogma, we have metaphysical sophistry which is tendered us in lieu of it. In the first place it is asserted that sin against an Infinite God must partake of the infinite nature of the Being whose law it violates ; that it is an infinite sin, in short, and must receive an infinite punishment. That this is nothing but a play upon words is evident from two considera tions. If a sin committed against an Infinite Being be infinite, a sin committed ly a finite being is finite; and, therefore, sin is at the same time infinite and finite, venial and unpardonable. And, again, if an offence against an Infinite Being deserve an infinite punishment, obedience to an Infinite Being will deserve an infinite reward; and, therefore, every sinner who complies with any of the Divine enact ments is at once entitled both to everlasting torment and to everlasting blessedness. All such reasoning is the merest verbal sophistication; such terms as “ infinite ” have no practical significance when applied to human actions. They only amount to the very obvious truism that the consequences of our deeds, whether good or evil, are incalculable : in an abstract sense they may be said to endure for ever; but for the most part their effect is incalculably small, and counts for nothing in the mighty play of con flicting forces. There is another argument which is intended to supply the place of evidence upon this subject. We are told that our conscience teaches us that sin merits everlasting chastisement, and that our conscience is the voice of God in this matter. This argument is doubly delusive ; its assumed data are untrue, and its conclusion does not follow from the premises. Our conscience is the voice of God in this sense only : it is the highest authority that He has given us for our individual guidance : in no case can it be assumed as the absolute expression of His will. And, as a �32 Everlasting Punishment. matter of fact, the teaching of our conscience varies with each individual, and varies very much in accord ance with the training which we have received. It is not true that the conscience of mankind has pro nounced in favour of eternal punishment. There may be a few men of disordered minds, like the un happy Cowper, who really believe that they deserve an infinite measure of Divine wrath, and there are millions of Christians who verbally assent to the doctrine on the authority of others ; but this belief is not shared by the most enlightened section of man kind. Where the voice of conscience is not over powered by some external authority, its teaching is very different. When we knowingly sacrifice our bodies through intemperance, it may suggest to us that we deserve to lose our health, if not our life, in consequence ; when we wilfully wrong our neighbour, it will probably warn us that we deserve not only to forfeit the goodwill of our fellow-men, but likewise to suffer all such punishment as the loss of that good will may carry in its train ; and so long as we refuse to bow our heads in submission to our chastisement, we shall probably experience a sense of alienation from the Author of that chastisement; but of penalties protracted through the cycles of eternity it gives us no intimation. So little does the average conscience speak about the heinousness of sin, that the majority of mankind would seem to hold that there is scarcely any offence for which some trifling penance will not make atonement; and many excellent Christians are of opinion that an instantaneous act of faith in the sacrifice of Christ will blot out a life-time of iniquity. ‘‘ Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved,” is the accepted formula. In truth, however, this sort of reasoning would satisfy no one who was not already convinced upon other grounds. It is the supposed authority of Jesus which has persuaded Christendom of the reality of an �Everlasting Punishment. 33 everlasting Hell. Now, while I have no wish to detract from the sublime character of Jesus, in some respects unique in human history, I am constrained to observe that on such a subject his authority has no validity for us. There is no proof that he possessed omniscience. Assuming the truth of the record, there is, on the contrary, ample evidence that his knowledge was limited in extent. If we may so far credit the Evangelists, he was a believer in all the current legends of his time. The stories of the Noachian Deluge, and the miraculous destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the grotesque legend of Jonah and the whale, were received without mis giving as to their historic truth. He was impressed with an intense conviction of the approaching ruin of the world. “ This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” His belief in diabolical possession was simple and unquestioning. . One of the Evangelists expressly intimates that he increased in wisdom; ” that is to say, his knowledge was sub ject to the universal law of growth in accordance with experience; and another represents him as acknowledging his ignorance of the exact period at which the world should be destroyed. In none of the Gospels will the attentive reader discover the least indication that upon any subject, scientific, literary, or historical, he possessed greater knowledge than his contemporaries. Indeed it is plain to any critical insight that he was much less well informed than the Apostle Paul, for example. There is no use in shrinking from this admission; it is the truth, and we cannot alter it. God is not honoured by the sup pression of such facts. But even in theological matters his language shows that he had no definite knowledge beyond that shared by his fellow-countrymen. “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven is a vague declaration, to which almost any meaning might be assigned. �34 Everlasting Punishment, “More than twelve legions of angels” is another loose expression, which will not admit of rigid defini tion. “ Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” is figurative language, and cannot be construed literally. “ These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,” evinces no perception of the important truth that the great majority of mankind are neither “ righteous ” nor “ wicked,” but more or less imper fect strugglers after righteousness. Nearly all his reported utterances upon this subject are hasty generalisations which are incompatible with exact knowledge, and have no validity for conscientious thinkers in this nineteenth century. Nor is it at all demonstrable that he was the author of any of these utterances. Many of them, in all probability, have been rightly ascribed to him; but this is the most that can be affirmed respecting them. It is tolerably certain that he left no written exposi tion of his doctrine, and that none of our canonical Gospels was committed to manuscript for years after his crucifixion ; not until a mass of legendary matter had time to grow up around his real biography. None of these brief and inadequate sketches can be traced directly to his disciples ; indeed there is not one which is authenticated by any writer who had personal knowledge of its author. In the second century, and by such men as Papias and Ireneeus, they were ascribed to our four reputed Evangelists; but this is all that can be positively affirmed. I need hardly remark that if hell were the greatest of realities, affecting the everlasting welfare of a large proportion of mankind, a just and righteous Father would not leave us to extract our knowledge of it from the opinions of Papias and Irenaeus, nor yet from the legendary narratives of our four Evangelists. When they are construed with a due regard for the limitations of human knowledge, these reported �Everlasting Punishment. 35 sayings of Jesus are invaluable proclamations of the truth that sin is an enormous evil, and has momentous consequences; a truth which all experience verifies; but how far those consequences may extend into the unseen world, God has not revealed, nor are we at liberty to dogmatise. From our general experience of His government, however, we may righteously believe that in whatever sense our punishment pursues us beyond the grave, that punishment will be remedial in its object, and will result in our final restoration to purity and peace. Rationalist. ��INDEX TO THOMAS SCOTT’S PUBLICATIONS. ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED. The following Pamphlets and Papers may be had on addressing a letter enclosing the price in postage stamps to Mr Thomas Scott, 11 The Terrace, Farquhar Road, Upper Norwood, Rondon, S.EPrice. Post-free. s. ABBOT, FRANCIS E., Editor of ‘Index,’ Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A. d. of Christianity. With Letters from Miss Frances P. Cobbe and Professor F. W. Newman, giving their Reasons for not calling themselves Christians 0 3 Truths for the Times -03 The Impeachment ANONYMOUS. A.I. Conversations. Recorded by a Woman, for Women. Parts I., II., and III. 6d. each Part - 1 6 A Few Self-Contradictions of the Bible - 1 0 Modern Orthodoxy and Modern Liberalism - 0 6 Modern Protestantism. By the Author of “The Philosophy of Necessity” -06 On Public Worship - 0 3 Questions to which the Orthodox are Earnestly Requested to Give Answers ------01 Sacred History as a Branch of Elementary Education. Part I.—Its Influence on the Intellect. Part II.—Its Influence on the Development of the Conscience. 6d. each Part - 1 0 The Church and its Reform. A Reprint - 1 0 The Church : the Pillar and Ground of the Truth - 0 6 The Opinions of Professor David F. Strauss - 0 6 Tiie Twelve Apostles -06 Via Catholica; or, Passages from the Autobiography of a Country Parson. Part I. -13 Woman’s Letter -03 BARRISTER, A. Notes on Bishop Magee’s Pleadings BASTARD, THOMAS H0RL00K. Scepticism and Social Justice - for Christ - - - - 0 6 - - -0,3 �ii Index to Ihomas Scoti s Publications. Price. Post-free. BENEFICED CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. The Chronological Weakness of Prophetic Interpretation -11 The Evangelist and the Divine -10 The Gospel of the Kingdom - 0 6 BENTHAM, JEREMY. The Church of England Catechism Examined. A Reprint - 1 0 BERNSTEIN, A. Origin of the Legends Critically Examined - Abraham, of - - - Isaac, and Jacob - - - -10 BROOK, W. 0. CARR. Reason versus Authority - - 0 3 BROWN, GAMALIEL. An Appeal to the Preachers Sunday Lyrics The New Doxology - of all the - Creeds - - - - - 0 3 -03 - 0 3 CARROLL, Rev. W. G., Rector of St Bride’s, Dublin. The Collapse of the by the Orthodox - Faith; or, the Deity of Christ as now taught - - - - -06 CLARK, W. G., M.A., Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. A Review of a Pamphlet, entitled, “ The Present Dangers of the Church of England ”. -06 CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. An Examination of Canon Liddon’s Bampton Lectures Letter and Spirit Rational Piety and Prayers for Fine Weather The Analogy of Nature and Religion—Good and Evil The Question of Method, as affecting Religious Thought - - 0 6 -06 - 0 3 - 0 6 - 0 3 COBBE, Miss F. P. Letter on Christian Name. (See Abbot) CONWAY, MONCURE D. The Spiritual Serfdom of The Voysey Case - the Laity. With Portrait - - - - - 0 6 -06 COUNTRY PARSON, A. The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Creeds,—Their Sense and their Non-Sense. Parts L, II., and III. 6d. each Part - - - 1 6 COUNTRY VICAR, A. Criticism the Restoration of Christianity, being a Review of a - Paper by Dr Lang The Bible for Man, not - - Man for the Bible - - CRANBROOK, The late Rev. JAMES. On the Formation of Religious Opinions On the Hindrances to Progress' in Theology The Tendencies of Modern Religious Thought F. H. I. Spiritual Pantheism FOREIGN CHAPLAIN. The Efficacy of Prayer. - - - A Letter to Thomas Scott - - -06 - 0 6 - - 0 3 - 0 3 - 0 3 - -06 - - 0 3 �Index to Thomas Scott's Publications. iii Price.Post-free, s. d. FORMER ELDER IN A SCOTCH CHURCH. On Religion - - - - -06 GELDART, Rev. E. M. The Living God - 0 3 GRAHAM, A. D., and F. H. -------- 0 3 On Faith HANSON, Sir R. D., Chief-Justice of South Australia. Science and Theology ------ 0 4 HARE, The Right Rev. FRANCIS, D. D., formerly Lord Bishop of Chichester. The Difficulties and Discouragements which Attend the Study of the Scriptures - - - - - _ _ 0 6 HINDS, SAMUEL, D.D., late Bishop of Norwich. Annotations on the Lord’s Prayer. (See Scott’s Practical Remarks) Another Reply to the Question, “What have we got to Rely on, IF WE CANNOT Rely on the Bible ? ” (See Professor Newman’s Reply) A Reply to the Question, “ Apart from Supernatural Revela tion, what is the Prospect of Man’s Living after Death ’ ” A Reply to the Question,. “ Shall I Seek Ordination in the Church of England? ” Free Discussion of Religious Topics. Part I., is. Part II Is 6d The Nature and Origin of Evil. A Letter to a Friend - ’ 0 6 0 6 0 6 2 6 0 6 HOPPS, Rev. J. PAGE. Thirty-Nine Questions on the Thirty-Nine Articles Portrait ------ With 0 3 JEVONS, WILLIAM. The Book of Common Prayer Examined in the Light of the Present Age. Parts I. and II. 6d. each Part - 1 0 The Claims of Christianity to the Character of a Divine Revelation Considered . 0 6 The Prayer Book adapted to the Age _ 0 3 KALISCH, M., Ph.D. of the Past and the Future. Reprinted from Part I. of his Commentary on Leviticus. With Portrait _ . 1 0 Theology KIRKMAN, The Rev. THOMAS P., Rector of Croft, Warrington. Church Cursing and Atheism _ ® 1 On Church Pedigrees. Parts I. and II. With Portrait. 6d. each Part 1 On the Infidelity of Orthodoxy. In Three Parts. 6d. each Part - 1 LAKE, J. W. The Mythos of the Ark 0 0 6 0 6 LA TOUCHE, J. D., Vicar of Stokesay, Salop. The Judgment of the Committee of Council in Mr Voysey _ . _ the LAYMAN, A, and M.A. of Trinity College, Dublin. Case of _ 0 3 Law and the Creeds ------ 0 6 Thoughts on Religion and the Bible 0 6 M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. Pleas for Free Inquiry. Parts I. and II. 6d. each Part 1 0 �IV Index to Homas Scott1 s Publieations. Price. Post-free. MACFIE, MATT. d’ Religion Viewed as Devout Obedience to the Laws of the Universe . -06 MAITLAND, EDWARD. Jewish Literature and Modern Education ; or, the Use and Abuse of the Bible in the Schoolroom. How to Complete the Reformation. With Portrait The Utilisation of the Church Establishment - - 1 6 - 0 6 - 0 6 - - 0 6 M.P., Letter by. The Dean of Canterbury on Science and Revelation NEALE, EDWARD VANSITTART. Does Morality depend on Longevity ? - 0 6 Genesis Critically Analysed, and continuously arranged; with Intro ductory Remarks - - - - - - The Mythical Element in Christianity The New Bible Commentary and the Ten Commandments -10 - 1 0 - 0 3 NEWMAN, Professor F. W. Against Hero-Making in Religion -06 James and Paul -06 Letter on Name Christian. (See Abbot) On the Causes of Atheism. With Portrait - 0 6 On the Relations of Theism to Pantheism; and On the Galla Religion -06 Reply to a Letter from an Evangelical Lay Preacher - 0 3 The Bigot and the Sceptic - 0 6 The Controversy about Prayer - 0 3 The Divergence of Calvinism from Pauline Doctrines - 0 3 The Religious Weakness of Protestantism - 0 7 The True Temptation of Jesus. With Portrait - 0 6 Thoughts on the Existence of Evil - 0 3 OLD GRADUATE. Remarks on Paley’s Evidences - 0 6 - - - - - - - - 0 6 - - - 0 6 - - - 0 6 OXLEE, the Rev. JOHN. A Confutation of the Diabolarchy PADRE OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. The Unity of the Faith among all Nations PARENT AND TEACHER, A. Is Death the end of all things for PHYSICIAN, A. Man ? A Dialogue by way of Catechism,—Religious, Moral, and Philosophical. Parts I. and II. 6d. each Part The Pentateuch, in Contrast with the Science and Moral Sense of our Age. Part I.—Genesis - - PRESBYTER ANGLICANUS. - - 1 0 - 1 6 Eternal Punishment. An Examination of the Doctrines held by the Clergy of the Church of England - - - - The Doctrine of Immortality in its Bearing on Education ROBERTSON, JOHN, Ooupar-Angus. Intellectual Liberty The Finding of the Book - ROW, A. JYRAM. Christianity and Education in - - India. St George’s Hall, London, Nov. 12, 1871 - - - - 0 6 0 6 -06 - 2 0 A Lecture delivered at - 0 6 �V Price. Post-free, s. d. Index to Thomas Scott's Publications. SGOTT, THOMAS. 0 9 AS IS UP A. JAiJSYY __ Commentators and Hierophants ; or, The Honesty of Christian 1 0 Commentators. In Two Parts. 6d. each Part 0 6 Miracles and Prophecies 0 6 Original Sin * 0 6 Practical Remarks on “ The Lord s Prayer The Dean of Ripon on the Physical Resurrection of Jesus, in its Bearing on the Truth of Christianity "51 The English Life of Jesus. A New Edition - 4 i The Tactics and Defeat of the Christian Evidence Society -00 STATHAM, F. REGINALD. Rational Theology. A Lecture - - - - - 0 3 STRANGE, T. LUMISDEN, late Judge of the High Court of Madras. A Critical Catechism. Criticised by a Doctor Defended by T. L. Strange Clerical Integrity . Communion with God The Bennett Judgment The Bible; Is it “The Word of God?” The Speaker’s Commentary Reviewed - of - - Divinity, and ’ - - SYMONDS, J. ADDINGTON. The Renaissance q 0 3 Modern Europe of a " A « - 0 3 "12 - 0 0 -26 TAYLOR, P. A., M.P. Realities - VOYSEY, The Rev. CHARLES. A Lecture A Lecture on Rationalism on the Bible An Episode in the History On Moral Evil W. E. B. An Examination of of Religious Liberty. 0 6 0 6 With Portrait 0 6 Some Recent Writings about Immortality - 0 6 WHEELWRIGHT, the Rev. GEORGE. Three Letters on the Voysey Judgment Evidence Society’s Lectures - WILD, GEO. J., LL.D. Sacerdotalism - - - and the - • Christian - - 0 6 - -06 WORTHINGTON, The Rev. W. R. On the Efficacy of Opinion in Matters of Religion - 0 6 Two Essays : On the Interpretation of the Language of The Old Testament, and Believing without Understanding - 0 6 ZERFFI, G. G., Ph.D., Natural Phenomena and their Influence on Different Religious Systems 0 3 �Since printing the preceding List the following Pamphlets have been published. Price. Post-free. & d. BENEFIOED CLERGYMAN, WIFE OF A. the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth. Parts I. and II. Price Six pence each Part ----1 On MACKAY, CHARLES, LL.D. The Souls of the 0 - Children NEWMAN, Professor F. W. „TTHistorical Depravation of Christianity 0 3 PHYSICIAN, A. The Pentateuch, in Contrast with the Science and Moral Sense of our Age. Part II.—Exodus STRANGE, r^' TUMISDEN, late Judge of the High Court of Madras. The Christian Evidence Society An Address to all Earnest Christians The Exercise of Prayer - 0 3 0 3 SUFFIELD, the Rev. ROBERT RODOLPH. The Resurrection -----Is Jesus God? -----Five Letters on a Roman Catholic Conversion - W. E. B. The Province of CANTAB, A. 0 3 2 0 3 0 3 Prayer - 0 6 Jesus versus Christianity 0 6 DUPUIS, from the French of. Christianity a Form of the BRAY, CHARLES. Illusion and Delusion - Our First Century Via Catholica. Part II. great Solar Myth . ANON. MACLEOD, JOHN. 1 0 - . 0 9 0 0 6 1 3 - Religion : its Place in Human Culture - 0 6 The Story 0 3 STONE, WILLIAM. of ti-ie Garden of Eden KIRKMAN, Rev. T. P. Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View FROM “ THE INDEX,” published at Boston, U.S.A. Talk Kindly, MUIR, J., D.C.L. but Avoid Argument Three Notices of “The Speaker’s Commentary,” Translated from the Dutch of Dr A. Kuenen MACFIE, MATT. 0 6 0 3 0 6 The Religious Faculty : Its Relation to the other Faculties, and its Perils ------ FOREIGN CHAPLAIN. Everlasting Punishment. A Letter to Thos. Scott - C. W. REYNELL, PRINTER, LITTLE PliLTENEY-STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON, W. 0 6 0 ��SCOTT’S ‘ ENGLISH LIFE OF JESUS.’ In One Volume, 8vo, bound in cloth, post free, 4s. id., SECOND EDITION OF THE ENGLISH LIFE OF JESUS. RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, THOMAS SCOTT, 11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes. 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. <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" /> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Everlasting punishment : a letter to Thomas Scott Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wilson, John [b.1811] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 35, [6] p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Published anonymously. Author identified by earlier cataloguer as Thomas Wilson, b.1811, and in publisher's list as Foreign Chaplain. Signed at end of text (p.35): Rationalist. Index to (list of) Thomas Scott's publications at end (6 p.). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1873 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N697 Subject The topic of the resource Christianity Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> This work (Everlasting punishment : a letter to Thomas Scott), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Future Punishment Hell NSS