UC-NRLF SB 2flb ALPHABET OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. BY JAMES RENNIE, M.A. PRICE HALF-A-CROWN. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 1 PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID ALPHABET NATURAL THEOLOGY, FOR THE USE OF BEGINNERS. EDITED BY JAMES IRENNJE, M. A., PBOFESSOU OF ZOOLOGY, KINGS"C8LLBGB, LONDON. REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D D. &C. LONDON: ORR AND SMITH, AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCC XXXIV. LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEPRI ARS. (LATE T. DAVISON.) CONTENTS. Page PLAN OF THE WORK . . . vii THE WORD THEOLOGY .... 1 DEISM AND DEISTS . . . 3 ATHEISM AND ATHEISTS .... 4 IDEA OF GOD . . . . 5 PERSON OP GOD . . . . .5 Infant Ideas of the Person of God . 6 Adult Inductions . . . . .7 BIBLICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PERSON OF GOD . 9 Pictorial Representations of God . . . 12 MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD . . 13 Egyptian Representations . .... 13 Hindoo Representations . . .' .16 Greek and Roman Representations . . 16 Theories of Mythology . . . .20 Modern Mythology . . . 24 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS . 25 iV CONTENTS. Page ATHEISTICAL INFERENCES REFUTED . 29 GOD REPRESENTED AS A SPIRIT . . .30 Meaning of the term Spirit . . 30 Doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism . . 33 RECAPITULATION . . . 36 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD . . 38 EVIDENT DESIGN THROUGHOUT NATURE . 39 Eggs of the Peacock, the Stork, the Goose, the Eagle and the Crocodile . . 40 Eggs of the Ring Dove, the Boonk, and the Duck Bill . 44 The Mother Animal does not form her Eggs knowingly 46 EGGS OF INSECTS . . . . .50 Eggs of Microscopic Animalcules . 54 SEEDS OF PLANTS . . . . .59 Seeds floating in the Air . . 63 Natural Sowing of Seeds . . . .64 Origin of Vegetable Soil . . 67 SPECULATIVE PROOFS AND DISCUSSIONS . . 69 Dr. Samuel Clarke's Arguments . . 70 Objections to Dr. Clarke's Arguments . . . 71 Professor Cousin's Arguments . 74 Objections to M. Cousin's Views . . -77 SPECULATIVE VIEWS OF ATHEISTS . 78 Atheistical System of Spinoza . . . 78 Atheistical Views of Sir William Drummond . . 80 Atheistical Views of Modern Naturalists . . 83 Atheistical Views of the Mystic Naturalists of Germany 87 THE UNITY OF GOD . . . . . 89 CONTENTS. V Page THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD . . . -92 THE INFINITY AND ETERNITY OF GOD . 93 CLASSIFICATION OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD . . 98 THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD . 99 THE OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE OF GOD . . 101 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD . . . 105 THE BENEVOLENCE OF GOD . . . .107 Of the Author of Evil . . . '. . 109 THE JUSTICE OF GOD . . . . .112 THE TRUTH OF GOD . . 115 THE WISDOM OF GOD . , 117 PLAN OF THE WORK. As there can be no doubt of the extensive diffusion of Atheism, chiefly in a concealed and insidious form, in works where it ought least to be expected, it was deemed advisable to take up the proofs of the existence of God in a way so brief and at the same time as far as possible so comprehensive and plain, that those who might not like to encounter the larger works of Paley and Crombie, or the Bridgewater Treatises, should be induced to spend a few spare hours in learning some- thing of the subject. Great care has accordingly been taken to condense into a small compass the outlines of interesting discussions which are scattered through many volumes of no little magnitude, and only those who have tried it, can know the difficulty that such a task involves. Most authors who have written on Natural Theology, confine their line of argument to one main point, and either leave others altogether out of consideration, or pass slightly over them. Dr. Clarke, for example, con- fines himself wholly to metaphysical reasoning; Dr. Crombie seems somewhat inclined to do the same, though he has briefly dipped into the argument from design in the works of creation, while Dr. Paley con- fines himself almost entirely to the argument from design, and takes but slight notice of speculative reasonings. On the contrary, it has been the aim of the author of this little volume to give to each of these modes of reasoning its due proportion, and consequently to take up in succession all parts of the subject. That Vlll PLAN OF THE WORK. this aim has not been attained with the same success in all the divisions of the volume, is owing more to the difficult nature of the arguments than any want of care in executing them alike. The plainness, which has also been aimed at with peculiar care, may not always be found to come down to the level of the reader's intelligence. This, how- ever, as must be evident, is chiefly attributable to tiie sublimity of the subject, and the imperfection of human language and of human conception. It is not to be concealed, that great diversity of opi- nion prevails upon many of the topics here discussed, even among those who are quite agreed in rejecting Atheism. It was, nevertheless, desirable in a rudi- ment al work like this, to avoid, as far as possible, the coming into collision with different religious parties. How far this has been effected i would be impossible at present to anticipate ; but one strong proof that it has been so far accomplished appears from the fact, of the greater portion of the discussions being delivered in 1820, in a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, Cork, where religious party spirit runs violently high ; and though Churchmen, Catholics, Methodists, and Unitarians, including clergymen of each of these per- suasions, were among the auditors, no objection, so far as is known, was made to the statements here repro- duced. This fact is, it is conceived, of some import- ance in guaranteeing the absence of party views, or offensive heterodoxy, in the work. London, %5tk July, 1834. ALPHABET OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. THE WORD THEOLOGY. WE are indebted to the Greeks, as in many other similar instances, for the term THEOLOGY x , meaning literally " God-study ; " which, though it seems to sound harsh and singular, would not probably have done so had it been early introduced into our language, and rendered as familiar to the ear as the word " Theology." I shall, therefore, only use it here as a familiar illus- tration of the term derived from the Greek, having no wish to interfere with established and well-known terms. The branch of study comprehended under Theology, has two grand divisions, according as it is confined to the doctrines derived from biblical sources, termed (l) In Greek eos "that which makes," that is a "maker," meaning " God ; " and ^070? " what is spoken," meaning a " dis- course," a " treatise ; " and in a secondary sense, " study " or " opinion." 2 THEOLOGY. " Revealed " or " Christian " Theology ; or, as it is con- fined to facts and reasonings derived from examining the works of creation, termed " Natural" Theology. It is the latter only of which it is proposed to treat in this Alphabet. It may be well to remark, however, that it is not always possible to separate Natural Theology from Christian Theology, in consequence of w r hat Lord Bacon terms " Idols of the Den 1 ," or peculiar modes of thinking produced by early education and by par- ticular courses of reading. From these causes many authors, when discussing the subjects of Natural Theo- logy, reason unfairly, inasmuch as they pretend to draw their materials from the works of creation; whereas they indirectly, and it may be unconsciously, derive certain notions of God from the Bible, and endeavour to make their arguments from natural sources coincide with these notions. In the same way, it is common to see a theorist build up a goodly fabric of fancies, to the support of which he gathers all sorts of facts suited to his purpose, embellishing some, and shearing others of their fair proportions when they will not square with his views. In writing this little book, I do not pretend that I can free myself from these " Idols of the Den," among which writers on Natural Theology often get entangled; but so far as I shall be aware of it myself, I shall, as I go along, point out the distinction to beginners by reference, in all necessary cases, to texts of scripture. This will be the more important, from the fact that those who call themselves Deists, and who reject Christian Theology, most commonly borrow the best parts of their (1) In Latin, Idola Specus, which will be explained in an ALPHA- BET OF LOGIC. THEOLOGY. creed from the Bible without acknowledging their debt, like those who having no money of their own live in splendour at the expense of their creditors. DEISM AND DEISTS. THE words " Deism" and " Deist" are not, like " The- ology," derived from the Greek, but from the Latin l ; and may be rendered more in the Saxon form by " God-ism " and " God-ist ; " Deism implying a belief in the existence of God and the ascribing of certain attri- butes or qualities to Him ; and Deist, an individual who believes in such existence and in such attributes. The deist, as has just been mentioned, professes to de- rive all his knowledge of God from the observation of nature, and particularly not to depend upon the Bible for any part thereof, at least, not to consider the know- ledge he thence obtains as of any higher authority than that obtained from Cicero, Confucius, or Mahomet. It is no part of my present design to enter into argu- ments for or against deism ; though I do not deem myself restricted by this declaration to avoid any incidental remark on the subject which may arise as I proceed. The similar terms Theism and Theist are often used to distinguish a belief and a believer in God, who does not disbelieve the inspiration of the Bible. (l) The Latin word for "God" is "Deus,'' derived either from the Greek Oeo? or from Zev; " Jupiter," which we retain in oar own word Dense. B2 THEOLOGY. ATHEISM AND ATHEISTS. As Deism or Theism implies belief in the existence of God, " Atheism " implies a disbelief in that exist- ence. The whole reasoning, consequently, of Natural Theology is directed against Atheism, and the argu- ments which have been devised for its support ; the arguments chiefly of certain philosophical sects, and of individual writers who have, from time to time, ap- peared during the last two thousand years, and are not wanting in the present age, though the doctrine never has, and happily never can become popular or much diffused, inasmuch as, upon the evidence alone of the history of all nations, it is altogether at variance with human nature. Individuals, who profess themselves to be atheists, are almost exclusively theoretical philosophers, such as pretend to rise above what they term common preju- judices and vulgar belief. Some ignorant persons, hardened in crime, occasionally pretend to disbelieve in the existence of God ; but if they ever really do so, which appears doubtful, their disbelief is merely temporary. (1) From the Greek, a, "without," and to ?, " God." IDEA OF GOD. IT appears to me, that the most simple mode of com- mencing the study of Natural Theology, is to examine and analyse the idea formed in the mind of the person and the attributes of God ; for I am convinced that much that is mystical, objectionable, and absurd, has been written on the subject in consequence of omitting this preliminary and indispensable inquiry, and of in- dulging in vague and dreaming fancies. It will probably render the proposed investigation easier for the beginners, to go back to the period of infancy, and trace the mode in which the young mind comes to form an idea of God on the same principle which I have elsewhere exemplified in tracing the origin in infancy of ideas of space and time 1 . We shall in this way be better prepared for the investigation of the proofs for the existence of God. PERSON OF GOD. IT is one of the strongholds of such atheists as Sextus Empiricus and Hobbes, that it being impossible for man to conceive any idea of God, therefore God does not exist at all ; in which inference they evidently follow the erroneous logic of taking a part for the whole ; for every one conceives some idea of God, though he may not be able satisfactorily to fill up the whole outline thereof in his mind. By the same sort of logic, Hobbes might have denied the existence of (1) See ALPHABET OF PHYSICS, pp. 6 and 96. 6 IDEA OF GOD. heat, because he could not see it ; or, of light, because he could not feel it with his fingers. I shall take this atheistical argument then on its own ground, and try to show, that we can, and do conceive an idea of God, even in early childhood or infancy. Infant Ideas of the Person of God. When I was at Cork in 1820, I was acquainted with a very religious family, in which it was the frequent practice to sing psalms and hymns with the accompani- ment of a piano-forte. A little girl, five or six years old, belonging to this family, one day, with childish simplicity, asked her mother, if God had a piano-forte in heaven. Now, I hold, that this anecdote, unimport- ant as at first sight it appears to be, furnishes a key to most or all of the ideas about God formed in early life, before the mind is accustomed to speculate or to abstract. It had been carefully impressed upon the attention of the little girl that God dwells in heaven surrounded by angels and saints who continually sing his praises ; and not being able to form notions much different from those with which she was familiar, she naturally con- cluded that there ought to be a piano-forte to accom- pany the singing. It would have been easy to have made her believe from this, that God himself performed the accompaniment ; or to attribute to Him any of the notions she had derived from the persons with whom she was acquainted. I recollect when I was a child, that as it was con- sidered improper and wicked to use the name of God in a familiar manner, my companions and I were wont to talk of the " Good Man up in the sky ;" and I am very certain, I had no other notion of the Being so PERSON OF GOD. 7 designated, than that of a venerable old man sitting on or above the clouds. This notion, I have no doubt, was farther confirmed by the appellation " Our Father " at the beginning of the Lord's prayer ; it being impossible for a child to form any other notion of a heavenly, than of an earthly, father. We shall immediately see also, that in this respect the most profound philosopher is little more advanced than the simplest infant, inasmuch as he can only form ideas of appearance from what he has him- self seen. Adult Inductions. Professor Cousin of Paris, well and justly remarks, that "a God who is absolutely incomprehensible by us, is a God who, in regard to us, does not exist; for that which is absolutely incomprehensible, can have no re- lations which connect it with our intelligence, nor can it be in anywise admitted by us. What, in truth," he adds, " would a God be to us who had not seen fit to give to us some portion of Himself, and so much of in- telligence as might enable us to elevate ourselves, feeble as we are, even unto Him, to comprehend Him, to believe in Him?" In the same spirit, Sir Isaac Newton says, "we must reason from phenomena to God;" and elsewhere he expressly says, that "all language applied to God, is taken from the affairs of men by some semblance." Bishop Brown, in his excellent work on the Procedure of the Understanding, says, " nothing is more evident, than that we have no idea of God as he is in himself ; and it is for want of such an idea, that we frame to ourselves the most excellent con- ception of him we can, by putting together, in one, the greatest perfections we observe in the creation, and IDEA OF GOD. particularly in our own reasonable nature, to stand for his perfections : not most grossly arguing and inferring that God is such a one as ourselves, only infinitely enlarged and improved in all our natural powers and faculties ; but concluding that our greatest excellencies are the best, and ablest, and most correspondent repre- sentations only of bis incomprehensible perfections, which infinitely transcend the most exalted of what are in any created beings, and are far out of the reach of all human imagination." The infant the child, as we have just seen, forms an idea of God from what it has seen on earth, from its own father, or some other man to whom it looks up with awe and respect. When the child grows up to manhood, it can only follow a similar process in form- ing an idea of God ; for even though elevated to the loftiest speculations of philosophy, it is impossible to escape from the trammelled and imperfect conceptions of human nature. I state this boldly, not as a theory, but as a fact which no sophistry can undermine, and no mystical fancies can extinguish, however these may tend to render it dim and indistinct ; and I state it the more unequivocally that it is for the most part much misconceived both by atheistical writers and their opponents. It may be well to explain this at length. According to the preceding views, we cannot, as the human mind is constituted, have any notion whatever of God or the attributes of God which does not one way or other coincide with something observable in ourselves or our fellow men. Every idea or part of an idea, every notion or part of a notion, which partakes not of something human, something earthly, is alto- gether incomprehensible by us, arid cannot be under- stood. Since this then is indisputable, there can be no use in high sounding mysterious terms to express what BIBLICAL REPRESENTATIONS. ^ 9 we must be wholly ignorant of, and cannot by any means be otherwise, for our minds can only understand what is adapted to their nature and nothing more. Every word and term then which is applied to God is indirectly taken from something belonging to man ; and every idea we have or can form of God is taken from the same source. Let the beginner pause for a moment, and consider what idea is formed when it is said, God sitteth upon the throne of heaven ; and he will, I think, be forced to confess, that the child's idea of some venerable old man sitting above the clouds, is not very greatly different. BIBLICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PERSON OF GOD. THE quotations which I shall now give will furnish an additional and irrefragable proof of the positions just stated ; and though I am well aware that the passages ought not and were never meant to be taken literally, (many are expressly said to be " visions " and " in the spirit,") yet will it be found upon trial utterly impossible to translate their confessedly figurative signification into a literal one. The more strongly and plainly indeed any ideas of God are embodied in speech, the more figurative the words must necessarily become ; for no terms even approaching to literality could be rendered intelligible, where analogy is our only guide. " And they saw," saith Moses, " the God of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness : and upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand." Exod. xxiv. 10. " I beheld," says the prophet Daniel, " the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and 10 IDEA OF GOD. the hair of his head like pure wool." This " Ancient of Days " is afterwards called " the Most High." Dan. vii. 9. 22. " And I turned," saith St. John, "to see the voice that spake with me ; and being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow." Rev. i. 12. 14. Now here we have as clearly as possible the very same idea embodied in words as we have shown to be commonly formed in childhood, even to the minuteness of venerable snow-white hairs ; while in this as well as in other passages, the common organs and members are distinctly ascribed to God. " Thy right hand, O Lord ! is become glorious in power ;" saith Moses, " with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together." Exod. xv. 6. 8. " By the blast of God," saith Eliphaz, " they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed/' Job iv. 9. In the book of Numbers we find it written, " If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house : with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches ; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold." Numb. xii. 8. The hand and the arm of the Lord, I am aware, are often put as metaphors for strength and power ; but these terms are also, as in the preceding passages, em- ployed to designate that which in the book of Numbers is called " similitude," as in the following instances : " And it came to pass," saith the prophet Ezekiel, BIBLICAL REPRESENTATIONS. J 1 " as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat be- fore me, that the hand of the Lord fell there upon me, and he put forth the form of a hand and took me by a lock of mine head, and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and heaven." Ezek. viii. 1 3. In the book of Exodus we read, " And the Lord said, it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock; and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by." Exod. xxxiii. 22. " Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirl- wind and said, hast thou an arm like God ? or canst thou thunder with a voice like his ?" Job xl. 6. 9. " The Lord," saith the prophet Isaiah, " hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all nations." Isa. Hi. 10. " And behold," saith St. John, " a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne." " Arid I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and without." Rev. iv. 2. v. 1. It would be altogether superfluous to multiply similar passages, as these are abundantly sufficient to prove the point in question. I shall only add from the book of Genesis a single corroboratory proof. " And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness :" " so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." Gen. i. 26. 27; or as the apostle James has it, " after the similitude of God." James iii. 9. That these representations and similitudes of God, however, are only for the purpose of adapting them to human comprehension, is proved by the strong and re- peated injunctions in the Bible against image worship, from the issuing of the second commandment, " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Exod.xx.5, down to the denunciations in the Apocalypse for wor- shipping " the beast and his image." Rev. xiv. 9. 11. 12 IDEA OF GOD. So far then from concluding that God is literally " the express image of the person" (Heb. i. 3) of man, because he is so represented in the Bible, and because this is also conformable with the analysed ideas both of childhood and of manhood, we rather infer the imper- fection of human conceptions, which are unable to form ideas of a kind very different from what has been familiarly perceived. It is said " God is a Spirit," (John iv. 24) ; and our Saviour gives us a negative description of this term when he says, " a Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have," (Luke xxiv. 39). The subject of God's spirituality will come to be discussed afterwards ; but, in the mean time we must be content with this negative description, and with the similitudes quoted ; for the plain reason, already en- forced, that w r e could understand no other. In a word, I request the beginner to read any part of the Bible, and examine what idea it imparts of God, and he will invariably find, if he allow himself to examine it without prejudice, that every such idea will resolve itself into some previously acquired idea derived from human nature or human actions. This being the incontrovertible fact, I cannot see that any evil can result from stating it, though evil has resulted, as I have shown, from not stating it, and shifting it away by unfair and fallacious expositions. Pictorial Representations of God. The deities of mythology, as we shall presently see, were almost uniformly represented in human form ; and though Christian artists have rarely ventured upon any representation of the Almighty, when they have done so, they have been compelled to pursue a similar course. It is indeed not uncommon to find instead of a human figure, rays of light proceeding from a centre MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 13 termed a glory, sometimes with the Hebrew word for God inscribed there, as at the summit of the ladder in a picture of Jacob's dream. In other instances an eye surrounded by a glory is employed, as in one of the masonic symbols. Raphael, however, has ventured farther, and has painted the Almighty as a venerable old man, according to the idea which I have analysed in the preceding pages. MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. EXCEPT, I believe, among Jews, Protestant Chris- tians, and Mahometans, image worship has prevailed in all ages and nations of the world. The idea of God as derived from the person of man, has accordingly been the leading principle upon which such images have been formed ; though the idea has undergone in many instances very singular modifications, both in the peculiarity of figure and in the number of deities conceived ; for it seems to be of the very nature of image-worship to multiply its objects. Egyptian Representations. In all cases where a belief in a multiplicity of gods has prevailed, one is represented as a chief or sovereign over the others. In ancient Egypt, accordingly, though as in Thebes, for example, Ammon (the Jupiter of the Greeks) appears to have been reckoned the superior deity, in most parts of Egypt this honour was conferred on Osiris, who is represented in human form. Plutarch, Juvenal, and Tibullus, represent Osiris as the son of Jupiter and Niobe ; but whether this was the doctrine held by the Egyptians themselves is, I think, somewhat doubtful ; for the accounts which are given by the Greeks are so much blended with their 14 IDEA OF GOD. own philosophy as to weaken thereby any dependence on their fidelity and accuracy. The gods of the Egyptians were so numerous that it would require a volume to enumerate them. They scrupled not indeed, it is said, to worship the lowliest plants and the vilest reptiles ; and yet we have unde- niable testimony, both sacred and profane, that they were superior to all other nations in learning. The accounts given us of their religion, however, are very contradictory, perhaps from the difference in opinion of the vulgar and the priests, or in the authors on whose details we are forced to depend ; for authors constantly misunderstand what they meet with out of their own country. Though, then, we reject the testimony of Lucian and Juvenal, as to the Egyptians worshipping leeks and garlic, we cannot so easily pass over that of Philo, who expressly says they worship dogs and crocodiles. Cicero also mentions the cat and the ibis along with the dog and the crocodile. What kind of worship they paid to these is nowhere told us. Cicero says that while the Romans had frequently violated temples and images, it was never known that a cat or a crocodile had been profaned in Egypt. It occurs to me that this idolatry with which the Egyptians have been so loudly and so often charged, may have been nothing more than what is at the pre- sent day shown by the Hindoos to crocodiles, cows, and other animals ; or perhaps it may even be brought home to ourselves, and the red-breast, the swallow, and the house-cricket, might by a Chinese or a Mexican traveller be mentioned among the gods worshipped in Britain, because it is here very commonly deemed un- lucky to molest these animals. Such a mistake as this has, I believe, more than once falsified the accounts MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 15 we have received of foreign nations. Missionaries and religious travellers, in particular, are, from the very habits of their mind, peculiarly liable to make such mistakes ; and we ought to receive the accounts which they give us of distant nations with great caution, and with much allowance for their previous habits of think- ing and observation. Mr. Hume, in his Natural His- tory of Religion, when adverting to the worship of cats in Egypt, says that if none of the kittens were de- stroyed, a pair of cats would, in fifty years, have over- stocked the kingdom ; and infers that only the full- grown cats must have been adored, and that the little sucking gods must have been drowned. The worship said to have been paid to garlic, and other plants may, perhaps, be referrible to the practice of hieroglyphic writing ; which art being sacred, the vulgar might hence pay reverence to the things thus symbolised such as leeks, the serpent, and others. From an inscription on a temple of Neitha, it has been said that the knowledge of one God prevailed among the priests, though concealed from the vulgar ; but if so, why was this inscription placed on the front of a temple ? This inscription is translated by Proclus : " I am whatever is, or has been, or will be, and no mortal has withdrawn my veil my offspring is the sun." But how can we be sure that the translation given by Proclus is correct? and if it be correct, how are we to account for the Egyptians paying idolatrous worship to deceased heroes ? Should we credit Mr. Hume, who says, if once men believe one Supreme Being, they can never verge again into the worship of many gods, termed polytheism*. But Mr. Hume must surely have for- gotten his knowledge of history in making such an * From the Greek Tlo*.v$i '' many," and tos> " Gods." 16 IDEA OF GOD. assertion ; for every page of the Bible shows how prone the Jews were to fall into polytheism ; and even the wise Solomon, who could not be ignorant of the unity of God, paid divine honours to Moloch, the evil demon of the Ammonites, as Milton says: " The wisest heart Of Solomon, he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple of God." PARADISE LOST. In later times, we find the Mahometans transferring to their prophet the reverence they had been taught by him to pay to God. This mode of proceeding, indeed, is natural to man, for we uniformly see that more court is paid to the attendants and favourites of princes and great men than to themselves. Hindoo Representations. A similar opinion with that which prevailed in ancient Egypt, of a superior God and a multitude of inferior divinities, obtains at this day in India an opinion, however, not recent, but of great antiquity, as we learn from the erudite, and no less ingenious papers of Sir William Jones. The Hindoos call their chief god Bramah ; but he, or rather it (for Bramah is in the neuter gender), has, like the Jupiter of the ancients, a great number of appellations. Bramah, like the Egyp- tian Osiris, is represented in a human form, but with the peculiar characteristics of the Hindoo deities. Greek and Roman Representations. The mythological deities of the Greeks and Romans are so universally known, that I need do little more than call the attention of the beginner to the human form of their chief divinity, Zeus, or Jupiter, as agree- ing with the analysis above given of the idea of God. MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 17 Homer and Hesiod, the oldest classical writers, concur with the rest of the authors of Greece and Rome in placing one God at the head of all the rest. Hesiod seems to think that all the gods (according to him 30,000 in number) were coeval with the earth and heavens, Jove having been the only self-active god of all, and from Jove all the others sprung. But though Jove was the chief god, the inferior deities were not subject to his controul, for they were all separated into caballing parties ; and when Jove called them to order, it was thought to be an assumption of prerogative which did not belong to him, and an instance of tyranny. One set of modern authors maintain that this chief deity, Jove, or whatever he is called, was the true supreme God : another party maintain that it is not so. At first view it might be thought absurd, and not a little paradoxical, to say that the polytheist of antiquity held the unity of the deity, yet is easy to maintain it very plausibly, if we permit the prover to take such passages as support him, and leave out all which are against him. Dr. Sykes, in his Connection of Natural and Revealed Religion, goes farther, and strenuously maintains that the ancients were no more polytheists than we are, who believe in a host of angels, good and bad. A French author, M. Septchene, says the Greeks represented Jove as truly as God is repre- sented in the Bible ; but it is much easier to make such an assertion than to prove it. The strongest proofs are from Orpheus and Horace. Orpheus says that " God is an unoriginated Being ;" but the same Orpheus, or whoever wrote the Orphic verses, takes occasion to say the very same thing of the sun, and also of Bacchus ; and Origen tells us that this same Orpheus wrote more impious fables of the gods than c 18 IDEA OF A GOD. Homer himself. Horace says that " Jove alone reigns with an equal sway over gods and men," which one would think to be proof t enough that Horace held the unity of God, were it not that in the very next line he adds, that this same Jove was put in great terror by the Titans ; and in other parts of the same ode he recognises the divinity of Juno, Apollo, Vulcan, Minerva, Diana, and the rest of the gods which the Romans are known to have acknowledged. Celsus, in his attack on Christianity, explains dis- tinctly the Greek and Roman notions of the unity of God : he says, " the silly shepherds of Judea were so foolish as to believe in the existence of only one God." The explanation attempted to be given of this by the moderns is expressed in few words by Pope : Father of all, in every age, In every clime ador'd, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord. Universal Prayer. This evidently puts all true and false religions, and all superstitions, on the same level: it is one of the most sweeping amalgamations of all kinds of opinion which was ever made ; and goes to assert the identity of the true God with all and every of the classical fabulous divinities ; though we have just seen that a learned Roman rejects the explanation with contempt, and I cannot see how any Christian could possibly acquiesce in it. If the ancients did not believe in the unity of God, as we have seen they did not, they could not well believe in one sole Creator and Governor of all things, though this also has been asserted. But how, I would ask, could Jupiter create the world, when he himself was the son of Rhea and Saturn ; nay, the youngest of MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 19 their children ; for, according to Hesiod, Vesta, Ceres, Juno, Pluto, and Neptune, were all older than Jupiter? and, if I mistake not, Saturn himself was fabled to have been brought into existence after the creation. How, then, could he govern all things when he could be thrown into consternation by the invasion of heaven under the Titans, who are said to be sons of that earth supposed to have been created by him ? Horace indeed says, " That nothing greater than Jove has been produced, and nothing lives which is like to him or second ;" but we learn from the very ode, of which this is a couplet, that Horace was all the while speaking of Jove as the" youngest son of Saturn. It is not a little amusing, indeed, to examine the quotations given by modern authors, to prove the classical notions of God to be as good as ours ; for this is the drift of all their arguments, They quote Ovid, for example, who says, that " Father Jove, the ruler of the Gods, armed with the lightning, strikes the earth with terror : " all of which sounds poetical and well ; but the quoters keep out of view the very next line of Ovid, which says of this* ruler of the gods, and wielder of the lightning, that he put on the form of a bull, in order to achieve some paltry love intrigue. It would be unpardonable to omit that the chief god of the ancients is uniformly represented as being sub- ject to the superior power of Destiny or the Fates, as it is expressed in the plural. To be more particular, the Fates are the daughters of Destiny. This is the doctrine taught by Homer, who introduces Jupiter in the Iliad, lamenting that he cannot save his beloved Sarpedon from the sword of Menestheus, as he himself was overruled by fate. The same doctrine is taught by every poet and historian of antiquity. The most inconsistent part of it is that Jove is represented to c 2 20 IDEA OF GOD. have himself written these decrees of destiny, which he is thus forced to obey. " The Preserver and Governor of all," says Seneca, in his work on Providence, " wrote the decrees of fate, and follows them." Theories of Mythology. Though the preceding brief notices appear to prove, that the representations at least of the chief god of the ancients, as well as of the modern Hindoos, were derived from the human form, it may not be out of place here to notice certain theories, which do not seem, at first sight, to accord with this notion. The most singular of these theories is that contained in Mr. Bryant's Ancient Mythology, and in the work on Pagan Idolatry, by his disciple, Mr. Faber. Etymo- logy, or the tracing of words to their original source *, is the principle upon which this odd system is built, though it is to me unaccountable how men so erudite and able could have been so far misled by a wild fancy, as a few instances will illustrate. When Mr. Bryant hits upon an idea, he sticks to it most lovingly, till he has rendered it, to every body but himself, altogether absurd and ridiculous. In speaking, for example, of towers or temples, or an ark or a dove, every thing becomes to his fancy successively a tower, a temple, an ark, or a dove. The three Graces, for instance, he thinks were towers, and the Cyclops were also towers. Jonas the prophet, again, John the Bap- tist, John the apostle, and Simon, were nothing but doves. It is upon this system that Sir William Drum- mond has proceeded in his celebrated book, the (Edipus Judaicus, which goes to conclude that the patriarchs, (l) See a striking proof of the fallacy of Etymology, ALPHABET of MEDicALBoxANy, page 1, note. MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 21 mentioned in the Bible, never existed at all, but were only the twelve signs of the zodiac. This singular production was most admirably answered in a work, which, on the same principle, proves that the twelve Caesars never existed, but were the twelve zodiacal signs. Mr. Bryant's object was to trace idolatry to its source ; and this he found, by etymologic proof, to be the ark of Noah, Hence, says he, the origin of the fable of Venus rising from the flood ; for Venus could have been nothing more than the ark. The worship of the bird Ibis, in Egypt, also must have arisen from the ark, as the ibis is a water-fowl, and floated as did the ark. This is not all. In the language of Goshen, the ark was called hip, whence this bird, by a slight alteration, derived its name of hipis, hibis, or ibis. From this term hip, the Greeks derived theirs for a horse 1 9 and also fabled horses to come from the sea. Nay, we ourselves retain nearly the original word in our term ship : and in the Ethiopic, hybo is the term for dew, because the hip or ark floated in water. Hence also the adoration paid to the moon, under the name of Diana, the word moon being derived from the term men, which is Babylonish for ark, and the crescent has the form of the bottom of the ark. Hence also the worship which was paid in Egypt to the bull; by the Israelites to their golden calf in the wilderness, and, at this day, in Hindostan, to the cow ; because the horns of these animals are crescent-shaped, like the bottom of the ark. This also is the origin of the Mahometan symbol, the crescent. Because the ark floated in the waters, the god Dagon of the Philis- tines is imaged as a man, with the tail of a fish ; hence IDEA OF GOD. also our own superstitions respecting mermaids. To this source also Mr. Bryant traces the worship paid to .the rivers Nile, Ganges, and Indus, as well as all the river gods of Greece a:,d Rome, who were no other than the deluge, or Noah himself and his family. Noah also could be nothing more than Neptune, who governed the sea. The Chaldaic term arecca, for the ark, is the origin of our own word ark ; and from it Mr. Bryant derives most easily the words Argo, Argos, Arcadia, Arckon, and Henricus or Henry. Noah was by the Chaldeans called Theuth, whence the Greeks derived their Zeus or Jupiter, as also their Theos and Dios ; and the Italians and French have their words Dio and Dieu, as well as the Celtic Dis, the terms for God, from the same source ; and the old .Germans derived hence their God Tuisto, from which our word Tuesday originated. From the word Noah the Greeks took Naus, their term for the ship which is the origin of the fable of Danaus, or the ship ; as of the Latin navis, the French navire, the Spanish navio, and the Italian navigio. The successors of Mr. Bryant have carried his system to a much greater length than himself, and expended a great deal of time, in raking through all the trash and rubbish of antiquity, for the purpose of making out such odd conclusions as those of which I have now given a specimen. A piece of greater absurdity than the whole system is scarcely, I believe, paralleled out of Germany ; and yet Bryant, on every other subject, was rational enough. Mr.Faber, one of Bryant's disciples, seems strongly in- clined to consider not only our celebrated outlaw, Robin Hood, but, more wonderfully still, the present Isle of Bute, to be identical with the imaginary northern God, Odin or Woden, as well as with the oriental Godama, MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 23 the evident origin, as he thinks, of our own term God. Hamlet's cloud, " almost in shape of a camel, backed like a weasel, or very like a whale," is, I think, a good emblem of such fancies. There have been several other explanations of my- thology proposed at different times by the ingenious ; but most of them are equally fanciful with this one of Bryant. For example, the Abbe Foucher, in his Researches, has discovered that the Supreme God frequently in ancient times descended upon earth and appeared in the likeness of the famous heroes of antiquity, and from these descents, or, as the Hindoos term them, Avatars, of the divinity, he thinks all the fables of mythology originated. M. Le Clerc, again, in his notes on Hesiod, thinks that the proper account of the matter is, that the gods of mythology^ were all merchants and traders, and all their fabled exploits nothing but mercantile adventures disguised by poetry and fiction. This, however, is sober sense compared with the theory of the Abbe Bergier, who, rejecting Hardouin's opinion that Hercules was Moses, undertakes to de- monstrate that this same Hercules was nothing more than a large causeway to prevent rivers from overflow- ing their banks, which rivers have been fabled to be serpents, boars, and lions, which he destroyed. In the same spirit, M. Bergier imagines Jupiter to be rain, which impregnated Semele, a fountain, which brought forth Bacchus, a marsh ; and Prometheus he fancies to have been not a man but a batch of potter's clay ; the eagle that preyed on his liver, the fire of a pottery kiln ; and Mount Caucasus the hearth, or rather the kiln itself. The Abbe Pluche, so well known for his Spectacle de la Nature, refers all mythology to the worship, in 24 IDEA OF GOD, the first instance, of the heavenly bodies ; and so far I think he is right ; for the sun, the visible giver of life, must naturally be the first object of a savage's adora- tion ; and history gives this as a fact of frequent occur- rence. Yet I would not go so far as the Abbe in re- ferring all mythology to sun and planet worship. The author of the article in the French Encyclopaedia frankly says, that no analysis can be given not full of contradictions and inconsistencies ; and perhaps this is the true state of the matter. Modern Mythology. According to the ancient mythology, every country, every kingdom, every province, had a god or goddess to preside over their affairs ; nay, every river and every forest had some divinity which either presided there, or made there an occasional residence. Now this fable the ancients as firmly believed as we believe that there is no proof of it whatever. But though nobody now believes this in the enlightened nations of Europe, yet there are still allusions made to it by our poets and orators, and representations made of it by our painters and statuaries. Nobody now believes in the existence of an imaginary goddess called Britannia, whose business it is to watch over the interests and the prosperity of Britain ; nor in the existence of another imaginary divinity called Hibernia, whose peculiar attention is directed to Ireland, and who amuses her- self, when not oppressed with employment, in playing on a golden harp. All this is a pretty enough fancy an elegant, a beautiful fable, which natural theology disclaims and reason revolts from ; yet in defiance of both, painters will paint their Britannias and their Hibernias, and poets and orators will talk of them as real and embodied divinities, and statuaries will make MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 25 allegorical groups of them, and the artists of the mint will emblazon them on coins arid medallions, thereby perpetuating heathenism after it has everywhere else disappeared. It is here worthy of remark, that the ancient poets and the ancient painters all believed in the existence of their gods and goddesses, in their muses and nymphs of the fields, woods, and rivers ; the Athenians in their Minerva, and the Ephesians in their Diana; and, being in earnest in their belief, they could easily per- suade others into the same, from a common and well- known principle of human nature l . Not so the modern imitator ; he neither believes himself in what he pre- tends to represent as a goddess, nor does he seem to care whether any body believe it or not. Nobody will believe or even listen with patience to a hypocrite when he scarcely takes the trouble to disguise his hypocrisy. Hence it is that nobody gives credit to the existence or the divinity of the modern poet's muse ; for he himself does not give credit to it, nor ever de- mands it of us, but puts on an awkward and sheepish air in his warmest addresses to this imaginary and un- interesting thing, or rather no-thing, which he calls a muse. In the classical ages, on the contrary, the poet's invocation to his muse had an interest and a charm, because he was warmly in earnest, and spread around him the contagion of his enthusiasm. REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. ON examining the representations given of the Deity by the philosophical sects of the ancients, we shall find them to be little different, when carefully traced, from (l) This will be explained in theALPH ABET OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 26 IDEA OF GOD. those of Mythology, though they be put forth in a somewhat different manner and under different terms. Before mentioning any particular opinions of the philosophers, it is of importance to premise that none of them pretended to have invented their systems ; for they were not, like modern philosophers, retired and speculative men, but extensive travellers, and industri- ous collectors of traditionary tenets, as all of them repeatedly acknowledge ; and the traveller who brought the newest and best stock of traditions from Egypt and the East, was looked upon as the chief Philosopher. Plato was a travelling merchant in Egypt and Judaea, in the latter of which he expressly says he learned that the origin of man was from the earth ; and he also says that his knowledge of the Gods was all from these tra- ditions. This it is necessary to bear in mind, that we may not think the glimmerings of truth, occasionally to be found in the writings of these philosophers, were discovered by their unassisted reason, which, when they trusted to infrequently led them into puerilities that could scarcely be credited, had we not their own words in proof. I would also premise that in the writings of the phi- losophers, the singular nouns Theos and Deus, w T hich we unthinkingly translate " God," would be more properly translated " Godhead," as for the most part the terms mean all the Gods in a body taken collectively. At Rome Deus meant a " Godhead" of 280,000 divinities, according to what Praxileus declared in the senate ; in Greece, Theos, according to Hesiod, meant 30,000 Gods in one body. Cicero says, for example, " This indeed comes to pass in God out of whom they are understood to be happy and eternal l ", making a marked (1) Hoc idem fieri in Deo ex quo esse beati et aeterni, intellU MYTHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 27 transition from the singular to the plural. Again he makes Botta say " You think that God" (or rather the Godhead) " does not exist in one substance or remain the same in number." Numerous similar examples could easily be collected, and form a sufficient answer to those who think, when they meet with the same word in ancient writers as in the Bible, that it must have the same meaning. Seneca, for : example, almost uses the same words as St. Paul, w r hen he says " God is near to thee and with thee and within thee 1 ," but every body knows that Seneca was a Stoic, and believed God to be nothing more than the soul of the world, which even Spinoza and the rest of the atheist* come near to assert. " There is only one cause," says Bayle, " the first universal eternal, which exists by necessity, arid which ought to be called God 2 ;" but this we soon find is nothing in his opinion but matter the earth or the universe. Thales, the chief of the Ionic sect of Philosophers, thought that the universe was animated by a universal principle, and that the stars were actually alive from the same cause. Pythagoras also, Aristotle, and many others, believed in this planetary animation. Aristotle, indeed, expressly enjoins the worship of the stars, which he calls living animals. Plato, also, on the same prin- ciple, repeatedly prescribes the worship of the planets. The Stoics went farther, and asserted that the stars and planets are nourished by the exhalations of our seas and rivers, and that the planetary motions are caused by their searching about for food. This is not so sur- prising as that Tycho Brahe, Lord Herbert, and other (1) Prope est ad te Deus, tecum est, intus est. (2) II y a une cause premiere universelle eternelle, qui existe necessairement, et qui doit tre appellee pieu, 28 IDEA OF GOD. moderns, should give into this absurdity. The reason- ing of the Stoics in proof of it was this, the heat of the sun and stars is the same as animal heat, therefore the sun and stars must be animals. They go on to say, that as they inhabit a pure air, they must have fine understandings ; they cannot be moved by nature, for in that case they would either fall by their weight or rise by their lightness therefore their motions are caused and regulated by their own divinity or principle of animation. Galen, the physician, goes so far as to run a comparison between the intellect of the stars and that of philosophers, and gives the preference to that of the stars, because they are not composed of blood, bones, and bile. This notion, indeed, was so prevalent, that the philosophers who opposed it were always deemed impious. " We believe," says Balbus, in Cicero, " that God is a living being, and there is nothing in the whole compass of nature more excellent." From this we w r ould sup- pose that he was on the fair way to prove the existence of one God, but he immediately adds, that this all- excellent God is the universe, which he also asserts to be a living being. We ought then always to examine farther than a particular passage in our quotations : by stopping short in this way M. Crousaz, in his otherwise excellent account of Pyrrhonism, has fallen into many mistakes. I could easily enlarge this view of the ancient opi- nions to any length, but from this specimen, which is not selected, but taken at random, it may be judged how uncertain, how doubtful, and imperfect, all their opinions and reasonings were upon the subject, though they all agree in the main features of the human per- sonality of the Deity. 29 ATHEISTICAL INFERENCES REFUTED. ATHEISTICAL writers, such as Dr. Francis, in his Defence of Paine against Bishop Watson, from the in- controvertible facts just stated, namely, that we can form no ideas of God except such as we derive from human nature, infer either that the notion of God is all a dream, or, at best, that God must be similar to a human being in form as well as in attributes. By precisely the same sort of inference, the memory of man may be proved to be a storehouse, and the judgment of man to be one of his Majesty's justices, and there will be no end to absurdity ; for a beautiful woman may thus be stript of her humanity, and be proved to be either all a dream, or at best nothing more than a rose or a lily, or perchance a star ; and all Homer's heroes nothing more than so many lions and tigers and strong bulls, according to the figure of speech employed to characterise them. On such subjects as these, however, atheistical writers take care not to be absurd, and it is only in obscure and difficult matters, such as the one under discussion, that they think they may revel at will in all the luxury of folly, and indulge in creating all the chimeras of teamed and sceptical dreaming. This I conceive is the true state of the blasphemous inference, which asserts, from the fact that we can only think humanly of God, that God is either non-existent, or is altogether human in his person and his attributes. The facts, on the contrary, as I have stated them, do not at all affect the perfections of God; they only show most forcibly the limits of the understanding of man, which cannot travel beyond the boundaries of its own confined sphere. 30 GOD REPRESENTED AS A SPIRIT. WE are told by the Evangelist that " God is a spirit " John iv. 24. ; and if we ask what is a spirit, the highest authority informs us that " a spirit hath not flesh and bones" Luke xxix. 39. By thus avoiding any positive qualities, and merely referring to what spirit is not, we are at once put in possession of all that can be known upon the subject ; for, as we shall presently see, the profoundest philosophers have not advanced a jot beyond this. Meaning of the term Spirit. According to the ancient philosophers, and to the greater number of modern writers, all things are com- posed either of what is termed Matter or what is termed Spirit. I have elsewhere l proved this Matter to be an imaginary nonentity, that has no more existence than greatness or greenness, apart from any thing great or green. It will not be difficult to prove what is thus termed Spirit to have no more existence than the nothing termed matter ; premising, however, that I pointedly disclaim all connexion with the fanciful opinions of Pyrrho, of Bishop Berkeley, or of Hume, who tried to disprove the existence of the material universe. The proofs of the existence of Spirit are, if possible, still more feeble and visionary than those for the exist- ence of Matter. Spirit is said to have no parts, and of course to be incapable of being divided. It is said to have no length, no breadth, and no thickness, and to have no existence in place ; it is not, therefore, like (l) ALPHABET OF PHYSICS, pageil, &c. GOD REPRESENTED AS A SPIRIT. 31 Matter, impenetrable. Spirit, then, can have no colour, no form, no smell, no taste ; and it cannot be either hard or soft. That is, it has no this, and no that : and it is a mere negation or denial of every quality of Matter. The only positive property allowed to Spirit is that of thought or thinking. Now, at the very outset, I may ask the profound philosopher, who squares his brow, and looks wise and solemn when he makes these announcements, where or how he obtained all this deep and useful knowledge of the nature of Spirit ? He deigns me no answer ; but calls me a sceptic, a materialist, and a heretic, for refusing to bow to his oracular authority. I am there- fore left to put up either with his catalogue of nothings, or remain in my former ignorance ; though, after all, I believe my ignorance to be much on a par with his pretended knowledge. From these barefaced assump- tions have probably sprung all the errors and ab- surdities of materialism. It may be said the assumptions are probable ; but I can most easily show that their contraries are still more probable. It is said, for example, that Spirit exists not in place. Where then, I ask, does it exist ? I cannot conceive of any thing existing, and at the same time existing nowhere ; if the theorist says he can con- ceive this, I plainly tell him I cannot reason with him, as I can only reason from my own conceptions, and these would lead me unequivocally to affirm, that if Spirit do exist at all, it must exist in place. I go farther, and maintain, that if Spirit exist in some place, it must fill up a certain portion of that p] ace _ sma ll or great is not the point ; but it must fill up the place where it exists. I think there is no resisting this conclusion. But if it fill up the smallest conceivable place, it must have length, breadth, and 32 IDEA OF GOD. thickness ; for the ten-thousandth part of a grain of sand has dimensions, and if we divide this into one million parts more, each part will have length, breadth, and thickness, and rill that portion of space in which it exists; and so must what is called Spirit. From the same pre- mises, I infer that Spirit may be divided ; for if it has length, that length may be reduced to less, that is, it has parts and is divisible. Let us now examine whether thought and thinking, the assumed essence of Spirit, give it any better right to a station in the universe. I say that this is an as- sumption, in so far as thinking 'cannot be proved to belong to any being except man, and even the theorists will not admit man to be spirit any more than they will admit man to be matter. God is said to be a spirit ; and angels are said to be spirits. But where is the proof that God, as a spirit, thinks, or that angels, as spirits, have thought. All human thinking consists in perceiving, remembering, judging, and feeling ; but we dare affirm no such thing of God, nor of angels ; neither dare we affirm the contrary. Yet here do our theorists most daringly assume, that because they think themselves, and because this think- ing is assumed to be the essence of Spirit, therefore, God, as a spirit, also thinks. This is certainly going out of their depth into the empty and pathless void. Independent of God, man, and angels, there may be, for aught that can be shown to the contrary, millions of spirits in the universe which think no more than a stone thinks ; but the theory is absolute and peremp- tory that thinking is the essence of spirit. I have elsewhere proved this sort of essence to be a mere phantom * ; and if the arguments be ex- (1) ALPHABET OF SCIENTIFIC CHEMISTRY, p. 88. GOD REPRESENTED AS A SPIRIT. 33 amined, (I hope they are at least intelligible), the spirit of the theories will appear equally unreal. For it is to be remarked, that thinking is riot said to be spirit, but the essence of spirit. It is the old story of the shell and the nut. Thinking is the shell, and spirit is the kernel ; but nobody has ever seen or felt this kernel, and can say nothing about it but that they are sure it is in the nut, if it were once broken. I demur to this ; for the nut may be empty, and I have as good a right to maintain this, as the theorists have to main- tain the contrary: that is, I have no right at all to affirm any thing of this kernel or phantom called spirit, till I have good evidence to support my affirmations. But while we reject the theoretical thing called spirit, we can affirm, on the highest authority of testimony, that " God is a spirit," and that the soul of man is a spirit ; and that these two orders of spirits have attri- butes peculiar to themselves, in the same way as, upon the evidence of our senses and of reflection, we can affirm that iron is hard and water fluid, while we reject the existence of the phantom called matter. Doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism. The idea which we have of the GREAT BEING who rules heaven and earth, is, so far as we are able to judge, exceedingly imperfect, inadequate, and obscure. The idea which we have of our own souls is, I con- ceive, as much so; and surely it is not wonderful, since we can so ill describe our own souls since we find the subject so wrapt in obscurity, that we should be still less able to penetrate the- veil which shrouds the God of heaven and earth from the eye of man, and even it is said from the ken of angels. In speaking of the human soul, we are obliged to use metaphors and figures drawn from material objects. 34 IDEA OF GOD. We talk of remembering, that is, " again-membering " or re-joining members ; we talk of recollecting, that is, " again-gathering-together ; " we talk of judging, which is evidently taken from the procedure in a court of justice; we talk of feeling, which, as every scholar knows, is a word derived from the Saxon term for " skin," still retained in English in the word /^//-monger, and in the northern phrase "between the fell and the flesh." The word soul itself, in all languages, where it can be traced to its origin, signifies either "breath," or " wind," or " air." This is the meaning of the Greek word for spirit 1 ; this is the meaning of the Latin word for mind 2 ; it is the meaning of every word ap- plied to mind or spirit in the first instance ; though, by change in language and continued use, the metaphori- cal import is lost or partially forgotten. I shall here take the materialist of Home Tooke's school on his own ground. I allow most distinctly the fact, that all the language applied to God as well as to the soul is material ; but it is uniformly applied metaphorically and by figure, and never directly. This we have already seen in numerous instances of personal representations of God in human form, both biblical and classical ; and I may here add one or two similar instances taken from the mental affections of man. It is said, for example, that " God is angry with the wicked," (Psalm vii. 11); that "it grieved him at his heart," (Gen. vi. 6) ; that "the Lord loveth the right- eous," (Psalm clvi. 8)^ and that "the wrath of God (1) Uvev/jLx, from n*/e " I blow " or "breathe." (2) Anima, from the Greek avisos "the wind." GOT) REPRESENTED AS A SPIRIT. 35 [is] upon the children of disobedience," (Eph. v. 6). I also find it written, " thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel Oh do not this abominable thing that I' hate ye provoke me to wrath wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth," (Jer. xliv. 2. 8. 6) ; and numerous similar passages all clearly metaphori- cal, taken from the passions of men. These, however, are as far from proving God to be influenced by anger, grief, love, wrath, hatred, fury, and other human passions ; as the passages formerly quoted 1 are from proving that He is fashioned like a man, with a human body and human members. In the same figurative way, St. Paul speaks of a "spiritual body," (1 Cor. xv. 44 2 ,) which, taken liter- ally, is inconceivable; but, as a metaphor, is easily un- derstood. It is well known how greatly Milton failed in trying to 'reconcile our notions of spirit with our notions of body. In speaking of the attack on Satan by Michael, he says, his sword - deep entering shar'd All his right side : The griding sword, with discontinuous wound, Pass'd through him ; but the ethereal substance clos'd, Not long divisible j and from the gash A stream of nectarous humour issuing flow'd Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed. PARADISE LOST, vi. 335. The truth is, that we must use this material language in speaking of God and of the soul, for we can under- stand no other ; and the materialist loses more than he gains by referring to the materiality of these terms in (1) See page 9, above. (2) The original is /m i D'2 36 IDEA OF GOD. proof of his doctrine. It is this very materiality of language, indeed, which proves most strongly that God and the soul of man are something very different from what he calls matter. In his way of reasoning, I could prove that dew-drops are pearls ; that the eyes of a beautiful woman are celestial stars, and her neck a piece of ivory or marble ; that summer fields laugh and rejoice ; that willows weep for grief; and that the hills "clap their hands" for joy, because such language is metaphorically used. The same sort of argument which is brought to prove that the soul is a sort of material gas, or vapour, or whatever it may be called, will prove that a weeping willow has eyes and sheds tears. To say that we cannot form a conception of God, or of the soul, which is not material, that is, which cannot be seen or felt, is not to prove that the soul must be material, but to prove that our conception is limited to what is material. t RECAPITULATION. THE examination and analysis which has been given of the idea of God, in childhood, in manhood, among philosophers, poets, painters, statuaries, as well as the representations in the Bible and of the mythologists of all ages and nations all lead to the following uni- form conclusions. 1 . That every thing connected with the idea of God is borrowed directly or indirectly from human nature, or from some familiar object on earth. 2. That though atheists thence infer either the non- existence of God, or his possessing exclusively a human form and human attributes, their inference is inadmis- sible and illogical. 3. That every human conception formed of God RECAPITULATION. 37 being figurative, and impossible to be otherwise, in the same way as every conception formed of the soul of man is figurative, all our ideas of God are consequently inadequate, imperfect, and obscure ; but it would not follow, because we may see the sun through the hori- zontal misty air shorn of his beams, that therefore neither sunbeams nor the sun itself have any existence. Yet, 4. That these figurative and metaphorical ideas formed of God are no proof whatever of the existence of God : which rests upon other evidence, to be pre- sently adduced; they only prove the similarity of human conceptions, by consequence either of education or of tradition. Having thus gone, with considerable fullness of detail, into the analysis of the idea of God, the way will be, as I hope, rendered more clear for proving the exist- ence of God, which atheism denies, and which many philosophers, not professedly atheists, do not at all recognise in their theories and systems. 38 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. ALTHOUGH it is not very probable that any atheist was ever brought to give up or change his opinions by force of argument, yet may arguments against atheism be rendered of much use in confirming the wavering, and still more in leading the minds of younger readers into "a right train of thinking upon so momentous a subject. The proofs in question are usually reckoned to be of two kinds. In reasoning, according to the first mode *, a cause is assumed as a basis, and the effect is inferred therefrom: as if we should assume that the human soul is destitute of parts and indivisible, infer- ring from this, that it cannot be destroyed and must consequently be immortal. In reasoning again, accord- ing to the second mode 2 , the inferences are all made from effects to causes, as if we should infer the inde- structibility of the soul from the fact of our uniform strong desire thereof" our longing after immortality," taken in conjunction with the circumstance that means are amply provided for the gratification of all our other desires, which indeed is the only argument, apart from revelation, worthy of the least notice in proof of the soul's immortality. As I consider the first mode of reasoning little better than a display of metaphysical ingenuity, I shall notice it last, and begin with the second mode, in which, from (l) In Latin, termed a priori. (2) In Latin, termed a posteriori. EVIDENT DESIGN THROUGHOUT NATURE. 39 the fact of design being everywhere apparent in the world, it is inferred that there must be a designer ; for, to use the instance of M. Reimar, so finely amplified by Paley, we might as well infer a watch to have been produced without a maker, by mere accident, as infer the w r orld and the things therein to have been the work of chance. In the study of anatomy, every man proceeds on the maxim that all the parts of the animal body are useful ; and when a part, such as the spleen l , occurs whose use is not apparent, he is not satisfied till he can assign some office thereto which may at least appear plausible. " I remember," says Boyle, " when I asked our famous Harvey what were the things that induced him to think of a circulation of the blood ; he answered me, that when he took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the body were so placed that they gave a free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the con- trary way ; he was invited to imagine that so provident a cause as Nature had not placed so many valves without design ; and no design seemed more probable than that, since the blood could not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries, and return through the veins, whose valves did not oppose its course that way." EVIDENT DESIGN THROUGHOUT NATURE. FOR numerous illustrations of the argument from design, I may refer to all the works on Natural History which are uncontaminated with the recent atheistical (!) See ALPHABET OF ZOOLOGY, p. 171. 40 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. principles of Lamarck, unfortunately but too widely diffused. In the works on Insects and on Birds, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, as well as in this series of Scientific Alphabets, I have always kept this more or less in view. The beginner, however, may like to see more particularly in what manner the design evident throughout nature is applied to prove the ex- istence of God and his attributes, and I shall therefore introduce here such instances as may appear striking and instructive. In this respect, nothing seems to be better adapted to the scope of this little volume than the structure and hatching of various species of eggs ; and with this I shall therefore begin. Eggs of the Peacock, the Stork, the Goose, the Eagle, and the Crocodile. It has been well remarked by Dr. Drummond, that if an egg were put into the hands of a person who had never seen nor heard of such a thing, he might be per- mitted to form thousands of conjectures, but could scarcely by any possibility imagine the glairy colour- less white surrounding the orange-yellow yolk to be capable of producing a game-cock, a Guinea fowl, a goose, or a turkey ; and much less, I should say, could such a person conjecture five eggs all nearly alike in size, form, and colour, and of similar structure internally, to be capable of producing five such different animals as a peacock, a stork, a goose, an eagle, and a crocodile. Yet this is the fact, as the figures annexed will tend to prove. EVIDENT DESIGN THROUGHOUT NATURE. a b 41 Figures of Eggs two-thirds less than the natural size, a, egg of the pea-hen j b, egg of the white stork ; c, egg of the goose j d, egg of the white -tailed eagle ; e, egg of the crocodile. The contents of these five eggs are exactly similar, with the exception of a slight difference in that of the crocodile, but slight indeed compared with the differ- ence of the animals produced therefrom. In looking at the first egg (), " could imagination," to use the words of Dr. Drummond, " ever conjure up, even in the brightest moments of inspired genius, the idea of a pea- cock springing out of the shell ; yet the peacock, in all its glory of dazzling colours, is the product of a little glairy fluid contained in a capsule of chalk, and in nowise different, so far as we can perceive, from what produces a barn-door fowl. Has not the hand of Divi- 42 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. nity here written, almost without a metaphor, in letters of gold, the wonders of its creative power? Look at a single feather of the peacock ; consider that its shin- ing metallic barbs, its superlatively beautiful eye, and all the wonders it exhibits of iridescent, rich, and changeable hues, according to the angle in w r hich it lies to the light ; that its form, its solidity, its flexibility, its strength, its lightness, and all its wonders (for in the eye of intelligence every part of it is a wonder), had their origin in a little mucilage ; and then consider whether, in looking on such an object, we should be content with thinking no more about it than simply that it is a peacock's feather. Yet this is too much the practice. Above us, and below ; on the right side, and on the left ; in every element, in every situation, the works of Almighty Power are present, and all abound- ing in instruction of the highest kind ; and that they make not the impressions they should do upon us is chiefly owing to the extraordinary anomaly, that natu- ral history forms no necessary part of the education of young or old. But if a single feather be so wonderful a production, what are we to think of the entire bird ? " And what are we to think, I may add, of the won- derful difference between two birds, a peacock and a pea-hen, produced from eggs so like that the eye can- not distinguish them? Yet the peacock is furnished with a magnificent and gorgeous tail, while the pea-hen is arrayed in plain and unobtrusive colours. The second egg (), which is not quite so much bulged out at the larger end, and is rather paler in colour, produces the common stork, a bird very different indeed in form and in colour from the peacock. It is all white except the wings, which are black, and while the peacock's tail when expanded would entirely cover the stork, the latter has a very short tail, but its legs are EVIDENT DESIGN THROUGHOUT NATURE. 43 twice as long as those of the peacock. The stork also feeds on frogs and garbage, while the peacock lives chiefly on grain, and in a wild state on pepper. The third egg ( recurrent nerve ; z, EGGS OF INSECTS. both the general structure of the body, and particu- larly the comparative magnitude of the egg-organ. ventral nerves ; 1, l,the egg-organ on each side, consisting of three bodies ; 2, male reproductive organs ; 2, outer membrane ; 3, inner membrane ; 7 to 16, cross branches of the heart, or dorsal vessel. 58 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. The egg-organ, however, will be seen more dis- tinctly in the following figure, where it is, along with the wheel-organ, detached from the rest of the body. Egg-organ and wheel organs in the same wheel animalcule ; a, the wheel organs ; b, the egg-organ, containing six eggs, each with a minute body included, supposed to be the embryo young. ! The imagination endeavours in vain to follow, inde- pendent of the microscope, the exceedingly minute structure of the stomach and intestines, not to mention muscles and nerves, in a creature whose length does not exceed the ^ of an inch ; yet in this and many others Mr. Ehrenberg has discovered jaws and teeth quite distinct, a stomach and intestines, and a dorsal vessel or heart, as is exhibited in several of the pre- ceding figures. That the function of the intestines is the same in these minute creatures as in larger animals, is shown in the figure below, where the indigo with which M. Ehrenberg had tinged the water whereon it lived, is seen thrown out from the vent. SEEDS OF PLANTS. 59 I shall add the following, for the purpose of showing the singular structure of the jaws. The Vorticella senta of Miiller, to show the situation of the jaws, a, a, one of which is also given detached at A. 1 The following is one of the eggs of the same species detached, to show the germ in the centre. SEEDS OF PLANTS. NEARLY the same arguments may be drawn from the seeds of plants as from the eggs of animals ; and a beautiful illustration of this is given by our Saviour, in the Gospel, from the seed of the mustard-tree 2 , not our common mustard plant 3 , " which is the least of all seeds ; but when it is grown, is the greatest among (l) For further details see ALPHABET OF MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS. (2) In Latin, Phytollaca decandra, (3) In Latin, Sinapis nigra. 60 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. herbs and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." (Matt. xiii. 31 32.) Looking at an acorn, which is much about the size of a long-pod bean or the tip of one's finger, it would appear almost as miraculous to a native of the Orkney islands l or of Spitzbergen, who had never seen a tree, to announce the size of a magnificent oak pro- duced therefrom, as the record of the sun standing still at the command of Joshua. The acorn has a shell like the eggs above examined, and like them also it consists of the embryo of the young tree surrounded with nutriment for it to feed upon, similar to the white and yolk of the egg which is the food of the chick. But who could divine or foretell, previous to ex- perience, that the mealy and apparently uniform whitish kernel of the acorn would produce branches, wood, and leaves, so very different as these are in texture and in composition, leaving form and colour out of our consideration. The seed of the cabbage palm 2 , though not more than half the size of the acorn, produces a tree even more lofty, but slender withal, and without the wide spread- ing branches of the oak. Fig. 1. The ripe seed with its outer coat taken off. Fig. 2. The same cut across to show the albumen. (1) A native of Orkney who had never seen a tree at home, when he first observed some on the coast of Fife, asked Mr. P. Neill what sort of grass it was. NeiWs Voyage to Orkney. (2) In Latin, Euterpe oleracea. SEEDS OF PLANTS. 61 It could certainly never be anticipated from this little seed, which is little larger than a golden pea, that it would produce so tall and elegant a tree. The fol- lowing figure exhibits the plant in its second leaf, with the seed still attached to the crown of the root : 62 PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. Even this, however, gives no indication of the lofty height to which the full-grown tree ultimately rises, of sixty or a hundred feet, as may be seen in the figure. SEEDS OF PLANTS.