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 HOLYOAKE # TRIAL OF THEISM 
 
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 Trial of Theism 
 
 
 BY GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 
 
 1 What I find to be Truth shall be welcome to me, let it sound as it may. I will know . 
 and should this be impossible, this much at least I will know, that it is not 
 Fichte. 
 
IP K E IF J± C E . 
 * 
 
 An origin of Nature is inconceivable, the existence of Nature is evident. 
 The manifestations of Nature can be observed — the ultimate causes 
 of those manifestations are yet untraced. The students of a ' First Cause ' 
 have as yet announced no indisputable result. The Theological 
 Alchemists have been at work in the Laboratories of the Churches for 
 ages — they are engaged in their incantations and compoundings still. 
 Every seventh day the crucibles are held over the fires of a hundred 
 thousand altars ; but the Philosopher's Stone of Creation has not yet 
 been produced. 
 
 This is the statement of Atheism. It is questioned and confronted 
 in these pages with the counter statements of Theism. The reader will 
 soon comprehend this ; all we beg of him is, not to confound Atheism 
 with ' Secularism,' which is an entirely different question, requiring to 
 be treated in a separate volume. It is not necessary to Secularism 
 to say — ' God does not exist ;' nor to question the alleged proofs of such 
 existence. The sphere of Secularism is irrespective of Theism or Atheism, 
 or the Bible. Its province is the ethics of Nature. It does not declare 
 why Nature exists, or how it exists. Nature is. Secularism commences 
 with this ample, indisputable, and infinite fact of wonder, study, and 
 progress. 
 
 If anything written on the following pages give any Theist the im- 
 pression that his views, devoutly held, are treated with dogmatism or 
 contempt, the writer retracts the offending phrases. Theological opinion 
 is now so diversified, that he has long insisted on the propriety of classi- 
 fying, in controversy, the schools of thought, and identifying the par- 
 ticular type of each person — so that any remarks applied to him alone, 
 shall not be found ' at large ' reflecting upon those to whom they 
 were never intended to apply. If just cause of offence is found in 
 this book, it will be through some inadvertent neglect of this rule. 
 
 The doctrine is quite just, that crude or incomplete works ought to 
 
be withheld from publication ; and the author reluctantly prints so much 
 as is here presented. If this book be regarded, as it might with some 
 truth, as a species of despatch from the field of battle, the reader will 
 tolerate the absence of art and arrangement in it. The plan contemplated 
 — that of taking the authors on the side of Theism, who represented 
 chronological phases of thought, required more time than the writer 
 could command. From these pages, as they stand, some unfamiliar with 
 the present state of Theistical discussion, may obtain partial direction 
 in untrodden paths. Hope of leisure, in which to complete anything 
 systematic, has long delayed the appearance of this book after the 
 writer had seen that many might be served even by so slender a per- 
 formance. At length he confesses, in a literary sense (if he may so use 
 words which bear a spiritual meaning) — 
 
 ' Time was he shrank from what was right, 
 
 From fear of what was wrong : 
 He would not brave the sacred fight, 
 
 Because the foe was strong. 
 
 ' But now he casts that finer sense 
 
 And sorer shame aside; 
 Such dread of sin was indolence, 
 
 Such aim at Heaven was pride.'* 
 
 Though these pages do not pretend to fulfil metaphysical con- 
 ditions, yet it may be possible to make in them some practical 
 contribution to popular speculation. Indeed, metaphysics is not yet 
 in so clear a state as to be able to command a writer to pause, 
 until he has won its warranty. ' To abstract speculation, or close 
 logical reasoning, Addison had no pretensions. The structure of 
 his mind, not less than the character of his taste, excluded him from 
 the region of metaphysics,'! nevertheless, he left many pages of litera- 
 ture, which a second generation perused. The present writer will 
 count himself sufficiently fortunate if this generation cares to peruse 
 these. 
 
 G. J. H. 
 
 147, Fleet Street, London, E.C. 
 June, 1858. 
 
 * Dr. John Henry Newman—' Activity.' Lyra Apostolica. 
 t Hogg's Weekly Instructor. No. 46, p. 306. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THEISTICAL WITNESSES. 
 
 The 'Trial' less a form than a mode of thought 2 
 
 Conversions real and unreal '. 2 
 
 Voices weighed not counted 3 
 
 The Socratical questioner not absolved from decision ,, 3 
 
 Perverts not renegades 4 
 
 A true advocacy independent 4 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF THOMAS COOPER. 
 
 Secularist faith in Nature 5 
 
 Material conditions reliable conditions 5 
 
 Thomas Cooper, Chartist and Theist 6 
 
 Publicist integrity 6 
 
 The estimation of Publicists not to be partial 7 
 
 Requital of service 7 
 
 Disappointment leading to Theism 8 
 
 Truth for her own sake 8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PALEYAN SCHOOL. 
 
 Recent instance of Hindoo renunciation of Christianity „ 9 
 
 Modern development of Theological Schools 10 
 
 Archdeacon Paley , 10 
 
 Character of Paley's proof 11 
 
 The answer founded on the same premises 11 
 
 The Paleyan argument fully exhibited 12 
 
 The theory of a Pre-purposer 12 
 
 Manner of existence the key to conclusiveness 13 
 
 What is analogy ? 14 
 
 It amounts merely to presumption — never to proof 14 
 
 Inferences of design in Nature made on artificial ground 15 
 
 The great principle announced by Mr. Grote 16 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE ARGUMENT OF DESIGN. 
 
 Gillespie's Defects of the Design Argument 17 
 
 De Pentheny O'Kelly's ' Theological Papers ' 17 
 
 Testimonies of Professor F. W. Newman, Baron Humboldt, and 
 
 Thomas Carlyle 18 
 
 Problems of life and nature incapable of absolute solution 19 
 
 Atheism seeks satisfaction for the understanding 19 
 
 Primary maxim of Illuminism 19 
 
11. CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CLEARNESS THE CRITERION OF TRUTH. 
 
 Edmund Burke and Chevalier Bunsen on the Authority of Reason ... 20 
 
 Sectarian opticians - 20 
 
 Impatience of ignorance not always conducive to knowledge 21 
 
 De Potter on the law of truth-speaking 21 
 
 Reply to the author of the ' Eclipse of Faith ' 22 
 
 To what extent do men believe in what they do not understand? 22 
 
 Actual Knowledge the measure of actual power 23 
 
 Knowledge is always a restriction upon ignorance 23 
 
 A man may deceive men who know less than himself, but never those 
 
 who know more 23 
 
 Only quacks in logic attempt to cure all errors by a single pill 23 
 
 Coups d'etat in arguments the dream of quacks in logic 24 
 
 Marriage and worship 24 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING A CONDITION OF BELIEF. 
 
 Dr. Parr's retort, and Pascal's experiment 25 
 
 What the properties of matter accomplish, and how far man assists ... 26 
 
 What is life?— the answer of the Theist 26 
 
 Laxity of belief characteristic of modern Theism 27 
 
 Without understanding, worship is a risk 27 
 
 Toleration established by sceptical criticism 27 
 
 The pre-Lutheran doctrine of ignorance being the source of reverence, 
 
 still extant 28 
 
 Dean Trench on Ignorance being the mother of adoration 28 
 
 Basil Montague's description of the intellect of Bacon 29 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ETERNAL PROBLEM OF EVIL. 
 
 Intellectual histories of converted Sceptics a deficiency in polemics ... 30 
 
 The discipline of spontaneity of expression 30 
 
 The three popular ' Causes of Infidelity ' considered 31 
 
 The conclusions of Theism more disquieting than those of Atheism... 32 
 The presumption of the Theist compared with the criticism of the 
 
 Atheist 33 
 
 If the system of prey be a necessity, is it a mercy? 33 
 
 The one philosophy with which we combat evil , 34 
 
 Both head and heart testify that evil is evil 34 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PHASES OF THEISM. 
 
 The history of the idea of Deity disproves its innateness 35 
 
 Origin of the idea in different nations 36 
 
 Muscatel, the Parisian lamp, and the cat 36 
 
 Popular Theism sublimated Fetichism 36 
 
 The mental law which accounts for the idea 37 
 
 Orthodox theories of Nature bleak and feeble 38 
 
 Wordsworth on the possible life of flowers 38 
 
CONTENTS. lii. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF THEISM. 
 
 rheistical difficulties stated by the North British Review 39 
 
 rheism the production of a Terra instead of a Fact 89 
 
 rhe essential condition of definition never complied with by Theists... 40 
 
 What a definition is according to J. S. Mill 40 
 
 Failure of mathematical analogies of Immaterialism 41 
 
 Professor Whewell on dependent and successive causes 41 
 
 Distinctions between the Deity of Theism and the Entity of Nature ... 42 
 The two aspects of Nature — unheeding those who pray, teaching those 
 
 who study 43 
 
 rheistical theories which do not satisfy the understanding 43 
 
 The Infinite Enigma — its alleged characteristics 44 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THEISTICAL NEGATIONS. 
 
 Pierre Leroux 45 
 
 Theism the denier of Nature 45 
 
 Archbishop Whately's allegation that sceptics account for nothing ... 45 
 
 Relative value of negative truth 45 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 PRIMITIVE DEITIES AND POPULAR DEFENCES. 
 
 Grote on the Olympian gods 46 
 
 The God Ganges and Mother Nerbudda , . 46 
 
 The 77th an inspiration to death 46 
 
 Theism covertly maintains that Deity came by chance 47 
 
 Hindoo worship of a river 47 
 
 Street dialogue with a Theist 47 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COSMISM THE AFFIRMATIVE COMPLEMENT OF ATHEISM. 
 
 Brief explanations of Cosmism 48 
 
 Definition of Pythagoras 48 
 
 Distinction between the position of the Theist and Atheist 48 
 
 The Cosmist the student of realities 49 
 
 Nature defined by Paley and Coleridge 49 
 
 Cosmical properties of Nature 49 
 
 Moses, Lamarck, and Miller on creation 50 
 
 The Cosmical and Theistical views compared 50 
 
 Herbert Spencer on the development theory of nature 51 
 
 There is no natural theology 51 
 
 Nature, matter, materiality, calculability, and law 51 
 
 John Stuart Mill's definitions of Matter and Mind 52 
 
 What is a being? — Mill's definition 52 
 
 I Matter and mind both unknown in their essences 52 
 
 ! The Priest construes the rejection of his errors as the rejection of 
 
 truth and justice 53 
 
iv. CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 The testimony to the character of Atheists borne by Theodore Parker 54 
 The coward and the murderess equally condemned by Atheism as by 
 
 Theism 55 
 
 In what does the Atheist believe? 54 
 
 Christianity was once the ' latest form of Infidelity ' 54 
 
 Atheism a manly refuge from a certain effeminacy of Theism 56 
 
 Theism paternal government, and tends to keep men children ... 56 
 
 The utter impotence of Theism for political protection 57 
 
 Ebenezer Elliott's prayer for the people 57 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN. 
 
 Mr. Newman's views on the independence of Morality 58 
 
 The deficiencies and misdirection of popular literature 59 
 
 Characteristics of Mr. Newman's theological writings 60 
 
 The qualities of the religious nature enumerated 61 
 
 Passion, Prudence, Duty, Freethought, and Reverence, the problem of 
 
 their reconciliation 61 
 
 The eight points of philosophical religion 62 
 
 The conscience competent to decide religious questions 63 
 
 The moral uses of religion described 64 
 
 Mr. Newman's axiom of human thought 65 
 
 His answer to Byron's question 65 
 
 The transmutation of attributes into entities one of the habits of Theists 66 
 
 New statement of the argument of Design 67 
 
 A God uncaused no explanation of a world uncaused 68 
 
 Francis Place's definition of Faith 69 
 
 Naturalism not without morals 70 
 
 We must not buy the patience of the poor by propagating delusion ... 71 
 
 The duty of approval as well as censure 72 
 
 The creed of Atheism 72 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 JOHN FOSTER. 
 
 Agitation of society on the introduction of gas 73 
 
 The inciters of the French Revolution were Theists, not Atheists 74 
 
 The patent fallacy of the Fosterian argument 75 
 
 Infinite knowledge necessary to absolute Atheism 75 
 
 Foster's argument refuted by inversion 76 
 
 The converse propositions of Theism and Atheism 76 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THOMAS PEARSON. 
 
 The lottery theory of prize essays exposed 77 
 
 Theism the logic of inference merely 77 
 
 A new plan of prize essays proposed 78 
 
 Evangelical ministers enter into a controversy after a century of pro- 
 tests against it 79 
 
CONTENTS. V. 
 
 Mr. Jordan of Eustone's quotation from the Beasoner ...... 79 
 
 The circle of Freethought writers disclosed by Mr. Pearson 80 
 
 Coleridge's prayer of love 80 
 
 The disappearance of 'vulgar and ignorant Infidelity ' admitted 81 
 
 Classification of Atheistical and Sceptical objections to Christianity ... 82 
 
 Theists ignorant of the eminent objectors to their views 83 
 
 Argumentative and speculative minds, it is admitted, are attracted by 
 
 scepticism 84 
 
 The wonderful trumpeting of Dr. Campbell 85. 
 
 "Why controversial dialogue so commonly fails 86 
 
 The clerical definition of ' Infidelity ' 87 
 
 The reply of Atheism to Mr. Pearson 87 
 
 Examples of the offensiveness of Theistical imputations 88 
 
 Legibility of the signature of Heaven admitted to be essential to belief 89 
 
 Theism judged by its temper as well as its tenets 90 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HENRY ROGERS. 
 
 The answer given formally demanded by Professor Rogers 91 
 
 Reply to his argument of Reason and Faith 91 
 
 The Greyson Letters as cited by the Saturday Review 92 
 
 Four lines only of Positivism in a volume of Theism 93 
 
 Professor Rogers transcends Paine in licence of speech 93 
 
 Professor Newman's reply to the ' Eclipse of Faith ' 94 
 
 Professor Rogers and Thomas Pooley 94 
 
 Morality as a fixed certainty held by Atheists and Theists 95 
 
 Professor Newman's remarks on Mr. Harrington and Mr. Holyoake... 95 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SANDARS J. CHEW. 
 
 Silence in controversy does not give consent 96 
 
 Several very common misconceptions exposed 97 
 
 Certainty is not offered by modern Theists 97 
 
 The folly of construing agreement on some points as coincidence on all 98 
 
 Reasons for Atheism in the non-reason of Theism 98 
 
 Theistical censures founded on partial quotations from their adversaries 99 
 
 The Editor of the Leader on controversial admissions 99 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ROBERT ANCHOR THOMPSON AND JOHN TULLOCH. 
 
 The tone of modern journalism negative and iconoclastic 100 
 
 The judgment of the Westminster Review on the Bridgewater Treatises 101 
 
 Important passage from the Scotsman 101 
 
 The Scotsman on Dr. Beattie's 'dead cats' 102 
 
 The Athenceum's refutation of the Thompson and Tulloch Prize Essays 103 
 
 Mr. Thompson 'shirks,' Dr. Tulloch ' begs ' the question 104 
 
 Is the separate existence of mind necessarily evident? 105 
 
 Dr. Tulloch's new Syllogism of Design 105 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 1IENRT TOWNLEY 
 
 History of the Townley debate 106 
 
 Finesse of Mr. Townley 106 
 
 Op* the right of reporting and separately publishing debates 107 
 
 The province of the reporter 108 
 
 What a report should be 108 
 
 Mr. Townley missed the point of his own proposition 109 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Bennett's fiction of 'arguments against God ' 110 
 
 Letter to the Rev. H. Townley 110 
 
 St. Paul improved by the Rev. Dr. Campbell Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SOPHIA DOBSON COLLET. 
 
 Belief without reason 112 
 
 The Apostles argued not, but preached 112 
 
 The Lord's Prayer as supplemented by Leigh Hunt 113 
 
 The relation of man to the God of the popular Theology is a penal 
 
 relation 113 
 
 Atheism does not imply universal Scepticism 114 
 
 Atheism and Ne-theism as defined by Mr. Holdreth 114 
 
 Possible or desirable views of Deity quite distinct from ascertained 
 
 realities 115 
 
 Mazzini's conception of God as the Deity of duty 115 
 
 Personification is to be distinguished from Pantheism 116 
 
 Bio-Cosmism does not necessarily imply Pantheism 117 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE TWO PROVIDENCES. 
 
 The principles of science independent of theological creeds 118 
 
 Oxford, the regicide, arrested by Providence 119 
 
 Canon Smith on the interference of Providence with the philanthropist 
 
 andtherobber 119 
 
 The Providence of science admitted by the London Quarterly Review 120 
 
 Sidney Smith on the dangerous doctrine of a Special Providence 121 
 
 Rev. Newman Hall on the Congregationalisms view of prayer 121 
 
 Shakspere's remarkable denial of the doctrine of Special Providence... 122 
 
 Remarkable answer of Queen Margaret 122 
 
 Homer's description of the lame-footed daughters of prayer 123 
 
 Self-trust the lesson of daily life 124 
 
 Appeal of Miranda to Prospero 124 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM. 
 
 The philosopher seeks truth, the statesman utility, the Christian safety 125 
 
 Sincerity defined — not to be confounded with infallibility 126 
 
 Good feeling should be founded on loftier ground than charity 126 
 
 Persecution inevitable among all who do not recognise the sincerity of 
 
 dissent 127 
 
CONTENTS. Vlli 
 
 Sincerity of disbelief proved by martyrs, philosophers, and preachers 127 
 
 The Church confuted by the stake and the stocks 128 
 
 Catholicism promoted by Quakerism 128 
 
 Every preacher assumes that conviction is not wilfulness 129 
 
 Logical assassination one of the crimes of advocates 130 
 
 Test of sincerity in murderers and thieves 130 
 
 Sincerity the pass-word at the gate of the Future 131 
 
 Why the Christian Theist excels in imputation 132 
 
 Exact communication of thought the real difficulty of all rhetoric 132 
 
 Summary of the propositions here maintained 133 
 
 Conscience an educated and active sense of right and wrong 133 
 
 The educational influence of liberalism 134 
 
 Lord Brougham's famous Rectorship speech of 1825 134 
 
 Quinet's view of the self-sufficiency of humanity 135 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 TilEISTICAL MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Differences of opinion are seldom verbal 136 
 
 Law of the establishment of opinion 136 
 
 Skill of clerical chemists 137 
 
 Mr. Horace Mann confounds Secularism with Sensualism 137 
 
 Truth the revolutionary element 138 
 
 Truth not one, but millionfold 139 
 
 Christ and his apostles disbelievers in honest scepticism 139 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL PARTY NAMES. 
 
 The early Christian blasphemers 140 
 
 The term Infidel, the Barber's chair of theology 140 
 
 Protestants declared Infidel by Dr. Newman 140 
 
 Clerical classification of Atheists and Infidels 141 
 
 Unbeliever and Sceptic defined 141 
 
 Honourable scrupulousness of Professor de Morgan 142 
 
 Definition of Anti-Theism 142 
 
 Definitions of Theism and Atheism by Theodore Parker 143 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ATHEISM THE PARENT OF SELF-HELP. 
 
 Eranklin the Infidel, the preserver of Boulogne Cathedral 144 
 
 Victories of materialism and spiritualism compared 145. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 ATHEISM VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OF IRREVERENCE. 
 
 Lord Brougham maintains that the Atheist is incapable of blasphemy 146 
 
 Blasphemy the offence of a believer in Deity scoffing at Deity 147 
 
 The collar of the church 148 
 
 The Gcd of the current theologies a modified Moloch 149 
 
 Isaac Taylor on the new characteristics of Atheism 150 
 
 irreverence of representative religious teachers 150 
 
Vlll. CONTENTS. 
 
 If modern preachers are saved, no one need be apprehensive 151 
 
 Father Newman on the death of Blanco White 151 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 WHY 8HOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE? 
 
 Those who mnst answer for themselves, have the right to think for 
 
 themselves 152 
 
 The four tenets of the popular theology 153 
 
 The offence of sin reaches not to Deity — proof by Jonathan Edwards 154 
 
 Christ's death the great testimony against eternal retribution 155 
 
 Remarkable sentiment of Coriolanus 155 
 
 Atheism suspensive worship 156 
 
 Distinction between the Pantheist and the Atheist 157 
 
 Actuality of life apart from theology 158 
 
 Principles of natural life delineated 159 
 
 Epitaph of a student of nature 160 
 
 The Golden Rule considered as a maxim of the last judgment 161 
 
 It is only the slave soul that imagines a tyrant God 162 
 
 Bryant on the death of the freeman and the slave 162 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 UNITARIAN THEISM. 
 
 Unitarian misconception of Secularism 163 
 
 Unitarianism recalcitrant 163 
 
 What Debate may effect 163 
 
 The function of Materialism scientific security 164 
 
 Materialism is causation 164 
 
 Origin of theology 165 
 
 The demand of Materialism 165 
 
 Freethinking not confined to the working classes 165 
 
 The Wandering Jew of polemical literature 165 
 
 Civilisation has disproved and superseded the trustfulness of Christ ... 166 
 
 Precept of Christ supplemented by St. Paul 166 
 
 Character of Jesus Christ 167 
 
 'Christ a Chartist' 167 
 
 Ethics of the Bible as uninspired as its science 168 
 
 Mr. Spurgeon on the Al sin 168 
 
 The battle of life is for justice — not for consolation 169 
 
 Question of Louis Blanc 169 
 
 If we seek satisfaction rather than truth, the old religions are before 
 
 the new 170 
 
 Prayer of the Catholic Maiden 170 
 
 The charge that Freethoughtis deficient in the element of reverence... 171 
 
 Harriet Martineau on the current views of Deity 171 
 
 Decker's saying that ' Christ was the first true gentleman that ever 
 
 breathed' 172 
 
 The character of a Secular Society 173 
 
 The Secular sphere, subjects, and mode of action 174 
 
 The leading principles of Secularism recounted 175 
 
 A fragment of the logic of life 176 
 
THE TBIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THEISTICAL WITNESSES. 
 
 If thought passes slowly and solemnly from the marvels and 
 mysteries of Xature, and endeavours to realise the conception of an 
 Infinite Personality over all, an awe. tremulous in speech, is the per- 
 manent feeling which results : criticism seems an impertinence, and 
 confident assertion impious. Even it 1 unconvinced of the existence of 
 Deity, a meditative spectator, with any capacity for reverence, will 
 form an idea of the reserve and respect with which the conception 
 should be treated, and he will be disposed to defend it against 
 the lamiliarities, grossness, and presumption professed believers so 
 commonly display. This is the key to the criticism of this book. It 
 is not the Supreme subject of belief itself, but the inadequate belief 
 of believers about it, which is criticised. Very few adverse readers 
 will understand this, or remember it if they do. Very few Theists 
 appear to have discerned that the principal sceptical criticism extant 
 has proceeded from a jealous}* of opinions which are totally misleading 
 if God does not exist, and derogatory to Him if He does. This, I do 
 not expect, will be believed, but the proof of it is ample. 
 
 'If God has spoken, why is not the Universe convinced?' If He 
 has not spoken, does the Theist think that by putting Nature on the 
 rack of theology, he will be able to extort the secret God has hidden? 
 Will he trick Omnipotence by the evolutions of design, or pluck forth 
 the hidden mystery with the pincers of a syllogism ? It is legitimate 
 to review these attempts. There is an impertinence that pines after 
 God, as well as a self-sufficiency which contemns Him. Some men 
 seek God that they may honour Him — more that they may quote llim 
 as an authority on their side, to grace their wrong, or supplement 
 their weakness. ^- 
 
 The reader will find in these pages some exposition of views 
 ascribed to us, free from the distortions with which quoting oppo- 
 nents and imaginative rumour have so often endowed them — perhaps 
 more carefully expressed than the haste of periodical writing permits. 
 Written however as they are in the scant intervals of many duties, 
 incompleteness and faults will be found ; yet as proper leisure is impos- 
 sible, it seems useful, under all disadvantages, to offer a few chapters 
 on topics where wide misunderstanding is an impediment to the 
 acceptance of more Secular work to which attention is due. 
 
 These words truly describe the object of this book. In its execu- 
 tion, the writer will think himself very happy should he win but a 
 portion of that praise which Sir James Mackintosh gives to Luther ; 
 the praise of having ' little of the temerity of those intellectual adven- 
 turers who, often at the expense of truth, and almost always at the 
 
THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The ' Trial ' less a form than a mode of thought. Conversions real and unreal. 
 
 cost of immediate usefulness, affect singularity in all things, and are 
 more solicitous to appear original, than to make certain additions to 
 the stock of knowledge and well being.'* 
 
 The most dispassionate form in which opinion can be tested, is 
 the judicial. In listening to the depositions of Theists, the 
 hearer hearkens to evidence, which, if conclusive, amounts to 
 a revelation of the secret of nature. The safest spirit in which 
 inquiry can be conducted is, perhaps, that of anxiety to learn the 
 truth, and a determination not to be imposed upon by its 
 counterfeit. A resolution to own what appears, not to find what 
 we wish, is indispensable, if we would neither mislead nor be misled. 
 On questions deeply moving the feelings, as Theism does, an 
 inquirer is much more likely to err from the bias of prepossession, 
 than from defect of judgment. On this ground the phrase ' Trial of 
 Theism ' has been adopted in the title of these pages, to keep both 
 before writer and reader the mental disposition in which the subject 
 may be usefully pursued. 
 
 We do not often hear of conversions from Scepticism to 
 Christianism. The cases given by the Religious Tract Society and 
 by preachers are mostly spurious, imaginary, or ambiguous. An 
 atheistical tinker, whom nobody ever heard of before, is suddenly 
 converted by a minister, whom nobody has heard of since. Now and 
 then, some worn out debauchee, ending a disgraceful life, has ascribed 
 to ' Freethought ' all that profligacy which was due to his unbridled 
 passions ; profligacy which man}', who would resent as an insult 
 the imputation of ' Freethinking,' have frightfully exhibited. 
 Sir John Dean Paul, William Palmer, Hugh Innes Cameron, and 
 others, are examples. Men who have spent their lives immorally, are 
 often held up by the clergy as ' reclaimed,' because in their crowning 
 act they have tried to transfer the weight of their infamy to the critics 
 of the Church. Many reputed conversions are unreal. Again, that 
 social persecution, that insulting denial of civil equality and public 
 respect, which Sir James Stephens has honourably denounced, and 
 which meet all who reject the errors of Christianism, force many 
 into hypocrisy. So long as a public opinion exists, in which 
 hypocrisy is more readily pardoned than heresy, it will act as a 
 premium to dissimulation, and place every convert to the popular faith 
 under suspicion of having been influenced by interest rather than by 
 truth. A real convert undergoes a second martyrdom to conscience. 
 He has long expiatory years to pass in zeal which will be 
 suspected, and in sacrifices which will be disallowed, before he can 
 take an equal place amid men who never knew the dignity of doubt 
 nor the courage of dissent, and who therefore know not how to 
 forgive a fault they never had the grace to commit. The truth also 
 is, that the mind of one, once trained in Freethought, grows taller 
 than that of the superstitious, and its stature is always obvious. 
 
 * History of England, vol. ii., p. 141, Lard. Cah. Cyclop. 
 
THEISTICAL WITNESSES. 3 
 
 Voices weighed not counted. The Socratical questioner not absolved from decision. 
 
 The foot of the Chinese girl, accidentally released from the cram pin"- 
 shoe of custom, betrays ever after the expansion of nature, and is 
 detected among ten thousand whenever she steps amid the cramped - 
 footed faithful. 
 
 When a fact is deposed to, the point usually first looked to is the 
 credibility of the witness. With respect to the witnesses on behalf of 
 Theism, it is to be assumed that they are always credible, but not 
 always capable ; that they testify truly, as far they know, but that 
 they do not always know what they do testify. The power of seeing 
 accurately and reporting strictly and truly is not common, and Theists 
 are less likely than Ne-theists to possess it ; because they are taught 
 to examine one side only. Men who hold doubt to be guilt will never 
 dare to inquire boldy, and men who never inquire boldly, will often 
 be imposed upon by appearances. Dr. Watts, and since his day many 
 eminent divines, have admitted and deplored that multitudes of 
 believers have no better reason for their opinions than that their 
 parents held them, and, in this respect, the majority of preachers are 
 not much before the people. 
 
 It was said by Voltaire, if God did not exist, we should have to invent 
 him.* It may as truly be said, that if Scepticism did not exist, we 
 ought to invent it as a means of quickening proof, and stimulating 
 independent thought. Paley's University experience taught him that 
 his students never felt the force of a solution until he had pressed 
 them with difficulties which no other explanation would remove. If 
 Theism be true, sceptical questioning will develop its proofs. 
 Believers need not frown on legitimate doubt. If Scepticism were 
 not a fact, it might be a policy. Professor Newman has somewhere 
 remarked that ' Socrates had a peculiarity (a very disagreeable one) 
 of always asking questions, and never answering : for when, after he 
 had brought objections to another, he was asked what he thought 
 himself, he always pleaded ignorance.' There are too many persons 
 who imitate Socrates in this objectionable respect. It is better to incur 
 any amount of obloquy for frankly avowing what one thinks, than 
 the contempt all men feel for those who, from fear or finesse, keep 
 back an honest and relevant expression of their own thoughts. 
 
 The witnesses most likely to be capable are those who have once 
 been sceptics, who have, therefore, known both sides. When 
 one who has been honest leaves the side of Freethought, he 
 should be credited at least by his former colleagues with that 
 veracity to which his character has entitled him. It is a fact 
 worth noticing, that a man who has done good service to the people 
 in a particular way, and for any reason ceases to work, or changes his 
 mode of working, often gets worse treated than those who never did, 
 and never mean to do anything. This is surely wrong. Many 
 persons are induced, by witnessing this treatment, to avoid altogether 
 
 * This has been variously ascribed to Voltaire, to Robespierre, and Talleyrand. I have 
 never traced it. It is most likely to have been a saying of Voltaire ; it bears the mark of 
 his sharp and impertinent penetration. 
 
THE TKIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Perverts not renegades. A true advocacy independent. 
 
 identification with progressionists. Regret, if you please, that a known 
 publicist retires, but honour him frankly and liberally for what he 
 has done. Let him always feel that he is remembered with regard for 
 past. services, and he will be pleased to reflect on his alhance with his 
 former party, and to be ready at least to give it his good word if he 
 can no longer render it personal help. Whereas if a man be assailed 
 with harsh reproaches, because he withdraws from active labour for 
 his principles ; if he be treated with more disrespect, and censured, and 
 pointed at with an acrimony from which he would have been exempt . 
 had he never joined the cause or avowed himself on its behalf, he will, 
 regret that he ever did so, and warn all his friends against committing 
 themselves in the same way. No man of sense and self-respect will 
 join any orthodox church, well knowing that if his views should, 
 change, he will be cried down as an apostate, a hypocrite, or a back- 
 slider. True Freethinkers offer better inducements to adherents.: 
 They will honour those who stand by Freethought principles, and . 
 reason with those who relinquish them — but they will never persecute, | 
 even by epithets, those who change, nor reproach those who retire. 
 They will have too much gratitude to forget those who have served I 
 them, too much pride to supplicate adhesion, too much dignity to 
 resent defection, and too much justice to brand honest change of 
 opinion.* 
 
 If a knave stand on the side of truth, every partisan is relieved 
 when he is gone. An undecided ally is company, but no one can 
 rely upon him ; but an earnest coadjutor all should honour and serve. 
 If he retires, regret him and respect him. Assume that he intends to 
 give his name and influence to the new party he has seen fit to join, 
 and treat him as an honest and earnest man, too wise for caprice, too 
 serious to dissemble, and too brave to act the part of a hanger-on. If 
 a cause be just, it is a man's duty not to hang on, but to help on its 
 renown. Accordingly, a manly party is quite ready to publish the 
 choice a former colleague has made. Respecting his own cause, a true 
 man will still stand by it. He can stand by it if need be alone, and 
 he is far too proud in his duty to supplicate any man to stand with 
 him. His conviction is in no way disturbed by another's defection. 
 The frankest honour is due to every earnest colleague, but a high 
 cause should know how to command, never implore support. It 
 is in this spirit that we shall endeavour to estimate the conduct of 
 those who have ceased to belong to us. And first among these, we 
 will allude to the recent secession of Mr. Thomas Cooper, the author 
 of the * Purgatory of Suicides.' 
 
 Reasonei; No. 521. 
 
THE CONVERSION OF T1IOMAS COOPER. 5 
 
 Secularist faith in Nature. Material conditions reliable conditions. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF THOMAS COOPER. 
 
 Lf your enemy does you an injury, it is not worth while being 
 mgry about it. First, because anger is a waste of time : Second, 
 Decause it gives your enemy opportunity to which he is not entitled, 
 which is bad taste and bad strategy. But Thomas Cooper is not an 
 memy of the truth, and therefore we need not be angry with him in 
 iny sense. 
 
 Three years ago Mr. Thomas Cooper avowed himself on the side of 
 Secularism, in a manner that implied that he understood it. Secu- 
 arism being that which takes the affirmative ground of nature, and 
 Dases duty on considerations purely human, without denying the 
 *ight of those who think differently to base duty on what they term 
 higher considerations.' Mr. Cooper (on the occasion alluded to) 
 jrofessed ' to accord ' with myself ' very nearly on what is called 
 neology.'* In the course of lectures which he has since delivered, it 
 s clear that his views have undergone considerable change. He now 
 leclares himself not only a Theist, but as one who thinks himself 
 mder obligations of conscience to preach the truth and consolations 
 )f Theism, as the sole ground of duty. A man who thinks so is no 
 onger a Secularist. Secularism, if not the discover} 7 , is the assertion 
 >f another ground of duty and consolation, besides that of Theology. 
 The Theist believes that man can only be guided and sustained by 
 Spiritualism. The Secularist holds that he may be guided and 
 ustained by Xaturalism. He believes in ' human duties commencing 
 rem Man,' and believes them to be sufficient for life, for progress, and 
 or conscience — sufficient for this world if there be no other — and a 
 afe preparation for another if there be one. 
 
 Man has to learn that material conditions are the only conditions of 
 •rogress of which he can be sure, and to conquer this certainty is his 
 ecurity for himself and his duty to others. Deliverance, and not 
 Consolation, is the true mercy. Creeds have all the force of guidance 
 or millions, but Xaturalism also has its place for others, with whom 
 t satisfies the demands of nature, of reason, and conscience. Such is 
 
 * At the Freemason's Tavern in May, 1853, addressing Mr. Thornton Hunt, the chairman, 
 who had distinguished between his friendship for the present writer and agreement with 
 is theological opinion), Mr. Cooper said — ' I ought, indeed, to be the very last man to 
 bject to the term " Secular," for you must own I am extremely Secular as a teacher — 
 lore so than any of your teachers, if you will allow me to say so. I seldom trouble you 
 ith my notions on theology ; but choose history, or some " Secular " theme, some every- 
 ay story, some belonging -to-this world subject for the staple of my plain talk. I will be 
 "insistent then, and join the Seculars. And while on this subject I may say that I am in a 
 iffe^-ent case to yourself, sir (Mr. Thornton Hunt). You expressed your divergence from 
 le views of my friend Mr. Holyoake on religious matters. I must make a contrary 
 vowal. My friend Mr. Holyoake and myself accord very nearly on what is called theology. 
 make this avowal openly, for I do not know why I should conceal it; and I am sure, sir, 
 
 you felt the same co?ivictions you would make the avowal as openly and unreservedlv 
 . I do.' 
 
THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Thomas Cooper, Chartist and Theist. Publicist integrity. 
 
 Secularism, and if any man, once accepting it, tells us he no longer 
 abides by it, we listen readily to his reasons. If we cannot accept 
 them, he shall find that we reject them without bigotry, and regard 
 him without intolerance. When Mr. Thomas Cooper says his views 
 are really changed, he is to be believed as one incapable of deliberate^ 
 insincerity. He is impulsive — he is irritable* — he is sometimes 
 unjust, but he is alwaj^s earnest. Who among us has given greater: 
 proof of dauntless honesty than he ? In the ' evil days,' when the 
 Government hunted insurrectionary poverty and despair to penal 
 lands, Thomas Cooper was true to his order. In the Stafford Court 
 he stood ten days at bay, and defended himself as a working-man 
 never did before or since. He behaved with as much courage as 
 Hone, and held out six days longer. Two years of imprisonment did 
 not subdue him, and the moment he was at liberty he wi*ote on the 
 title-page of his memorable Poem, ' The Purgatory of Suicides, by 
 Thomas Cooper, the Chartist ;' and the words went forth, the seal of I 
 his manliness, into the cottage of the poor, and as his gage of defiance 
 into the halls of the rich.f 
 
 Not only is Thomas Cooper to be believed, but whatever his 
 opinions may be now, he is to be respected. The working-class have 
 to be proud of Thomas Cooper. He has done more than any other 
 contemporary working-man to win respect for his order. The 
 shoemaker of Lincoln has won himself a place in the Republic of 
 literature, where distinction is only awarded to genius. As poet, as 
 novelist,^ as orator, as political writer, he has placed his name where 
 it will not soon die out. Had he had a hireling tongue, or a saleable 
 conscience, he might now be a wealthy man. A poor man with his 
 talents can have his choice in this world — he may keep a conscience 
 or may keep a carriage. Thomas Cooper has preferred to keep a con- 
 science. He has always eaten precarious bread, and looks back with i 
 proud satisfaction on an incorruptible life. The author may look : 
 back from the platform through his chequered career, and find more \ 
 than the world knows of to love and reverence. The working-class 
 can point to Thomas Cooper, and say — what cannot be said of all — 
 ' Hear him — read his works — follow him home. He is one of us. He 
 has nothing to conceal ; we have nothing to fear.' The man whose 
 career exalts the people, should be respected by the people — and as 
 one of the people, I am proud of Thomas Cooper, of his genius, and 
 his reputation. 
 
 Yet I am no adulator. I who speak thus have reason to complain 
 
 * If however a man is disqualified for regard because of irritability, the world will have- 
 to give up many noble affections of long standing. ' There seems good proof that Socrates 
 was by natural temper violently irascible — a defect which he generally kept under severe 
 control, but which occasionally betrayed him into great improprieties of language and 
 demeanour.'— Grote : Vol. viii. Hist. Greece. 
 
 t The principles of the ' Charter ' are not necessarily a gage of defiance to the rich, but 
 at that time they were so, because Mr. Cooper had been imprisoned as one who sought spo- 
 liation through politics. It was false, but the Government believed it then of nearly all 
 Chartists. 
 
 t Vide his ' Alderman Ralph,' ' Family Feud,' etc. 
 
THE CONVERSION OF THOMAS COOPEE. 7 
 
 The estimation of publicists not to be partial. Requital of service. 
 
 of his injustice. It is not pretended that Thomas Cooper is faultless ; 
 but it is our duty not to judge a public man solely from the points of 
 personal annoyance, or even injury to ourselves. We are bound to 
 judge of his whole character and his whole services. One does not 
 like the metaphysical dreaminess of Gladstone ; but where have we 
 another statesman of whom we are so sure that he has a conscience ? 
 On some points Mr. Cobden is as impracticable as a Communist of the 
 old schools, but there is a quality of stubborn honesty in him we are 
 all sorry to miss from Parliament. Mr. Bright's doctrine of Peace-at- 
 any-price (which he has not, like Mr. Cobden, repudiated) is alto- 
 gether to be deplored ; but who in the House of Commons exceeded 
 him in the will, the courage, or the power to rebuke an aristocracy in 
 its fits of insolence ? It is not the thing a practical politician admires 
 to see Mr. Roebuck so prompt to punish official incompetence, so care- 
 ful to avoid himself official responsibility. Yet where have the people 
 a tribune of the same knowledge, spirit, and vigilance ? In judging 
 Thomas Cooper, you have, as in these cases, to take into consideration 
 genius, services, and character, as well as special conduct. He who 
 insists upon perfection in others, is very far from perfection himself 
 in judgment, or experience. He who has no generous appreciation 
 except for him who is a monotonous echo of his own ideal virtues, 
 will all always be (and deserves to be) in a party of one. 
 
 But whatever personal respect we may entertain for Mr. Cooper, it 
 is no less a duty to examine strictly the grounds of his new opinions. 
 From the manner in which he speaks of them, and from the nature of 
 them, it appears to me that he arrives at them more through his 
 feelings than his reason. There have occurred several conversions 
 that appear to me to resemble his. When a man of highly sensitive 
 and poetic nature has during the ardour of youth and the prime of 
 manhood struggled with the world and found no resting place, he 
 grows sad, and sometimes reacts. The life of an honest publicist is a 
 perpetual hazard. He is a kind of moral gamester, who plays against 
 the world, and finds himself opposed to a very unscrupulous antago- 
 nist. Assailed by the press, and poorly supported by those whom he 
 served, Mr. Cooper gave the morning of his life to Chartism. Care 
 and duty, and a scant table, were his daily lot. Then came that 
 unfriended struggle at his trial, and the dreary years of prison life. 
 Since those days the ' battle of life ' has gone on with him in the old 
 way. Bound himself by honour and conscience, his chances have been 
 few. In the narrow way of duty you meet oftener with Care than 
 with a friend. Those who stand aloof and criticise, are more looked 
 up to than those who do the work. He who follows the beaten road 
 of trade and fortune, and gives £5 a-year from his gains, attains to 
 honour without responsibility, and wins more distinction than he who 
 dies at the outpost of public duty. The people hold you responsible to 
 them to stand by your professions, and maintain consistency to your 
 principles, but never hold themselves responsible to you that your 
 family shall have shelter and your table shall be spread. If you seem 
 
THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Disappointment leading to Theism. Truth for her own sake. 
 
 anxious about these things you appear selfish, and if you are not 
 anxious you die ; or, what is worse, you incur pecuniary obligations 
 you know you cannot meet. For long years you are too proud to own 
 it. Perhaps few would believe it, and few heed it, if you told it. At 
 last a sensitive spirit gives way. It turns to the idea of God, who is 
 said to watch the silent struggle, and at last reward the solitary 
 devotee of duty. To such a one it becomes a consolation to repose on 
 the consciousness of God, and to believe that the struggles the worldj 
 will never know, are not hidden from His eyes. The poetic nature, 
 which is at once tender and true, must have sympathy. Men like 
 Ebenezer Elliott, who had a spirit like the iron in which he dealt, at 
 last exclaimed : — 
 
 He does well who does his best; 
 
 Is he weary? let him rest: 
 
 Brothers ! I have done my best, 
 
 I am weary — let me rest. 
 
 After toiling oft in vain, 
 
 Baffled, yet to struggle fain; 
 
 After toiling long, to gain 
 
 Little good with mickle pain ; 
 
 Let me rest 
 
 Tired and thankful, let me rest 
 
 Like a child, that sleepeth best 
 
 On its gentle mother's breast. 
 Men like the poet Thorn, of Inverury, will, as he did, suffer the 
 heart to break and make no sign ; but other men act like a human 
 ostrich, bury their heads in the clouds of the Church, without the 
 courage to look on the storm they have no longer the strength ta 
 breast. This is the kind of experience which I take it accounts for 
 Thomas Cooper's conversion ; and I own I have no words of scorn for 
 such an experience. I can commiserate over the struggle which haa 
 bowed so true a spirit. But though I sympathise with, I do not 
 share the conclusions to which Mr. Cooper has come. Truth is a 
 contest, and unless the combatants enter into it in the spirit described 
 by a modern poet, they can never be relied upon : — 
 Keckless of danger, loss, and shame, 
 
 In the free, fearless faith of youth, 
 I hope through good and evil fame 
 
 To battle in the cause of Truth. 
 I hope to bear, through toil and pain, 
 
 Her standard on to victory, 
 And from the very strife to gain 
 
 Strength to dispense with sympathy* 
 Truth must prevail. Meanwhile endure. 
 
 Of worldly peace let worldlings boast. 
 Amid the storms of life, be sure, 
 
 The loftiest spirits suffer most.f 
 
 * As the author has elsewhere written these lines, 
 t Vide ' Shadows of the Past,' by Lionel H. Holdreth. 
 
THE FA LEY AN SCHOOL. 
 
 Recent instance of Hindoo renunciation of Christianity. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PALEYAN SCHOOL. 
 
 The Theist who was the subject of the last chapter rested, in the 
 Discourses to which the writer listened, his Theism upon the Argu- 
 ment of Design. As this is the great resource of the popular thinker, 
 Paley, the great type of this school, is a proper subject of examination. 
 As this argument is universal, and references to Thomas Cooper 
 personally will seldom be necessary, this is the proper place to remark 
 that since the observations contained in the preceding chapter were 
 first made (now a year ago), Thomas Cooper has receded into far-gone 
 Evangelical views, judging from letters in circulation among his friends. 
 This implies a greater deflection from the views he previously avowed 
 chan the present writer expected ; but it in no way alters the estimate 
 he has made of Thomas Cooper's personal character.* As this sheet 
 is passing through the press, a letter reaches me from Captain Mac- 
 kenzie, of India, enclosing a communication here printed verbatim from 
 the Hindoo Patriot of April the 2nd, 1857, in which it appears. It is 
 (pertinent to the subject of 'conversions': — 
 
 A Renunciation. — To the Editor of the Hindoo Patriot. Sir, — 
 Hitherto I was a follower of the religion of Jesus Christ. My con- 
 version into this faith did take place on the 25th of March, 1855, when 
 I was about sixteen years of age. But deep and candid inquiry leads 
 me to the belief of its utter worthlessness to satisfy the religious 
 cravings of mankind. I have also been convinced, that its funda- 
 mental doctrines are not reconcileable with the rational dictates of 
 reason and of moral justice. Consequently, I have come to the con- 
 clusion that such a religion, containing, as it does, a great many absurd 
 theories, such as the Trinity, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, 
 sould not have come from God — the immaterial and common Father of 
 ;he Universe. I therefore publicly renounce Christianity through the 
 nedium of your journal. I beg you will be good enough to insert 
 ;he above declaration in your to-morrow's issue, and oblige yours 
 ruly, Shamapkosad Chatterjee. Bhowanipore, April 1st, 1857.' 
 
 This frankness is not unusual with 'Young India :' — But this detains 
 is from the Paleyan reasoners. 
 
 It is evident on reflection,' says a competent writer, ' that there can 
 be no more than two ways of proving the Being of a God, if it be 
 possible to establish his existence at all. 
 ' I. It is impossible to prove either merely that he is ; 
 ' II. Or, that besides being, he must 5e.'f 
 
 * In technical strictness, the reference to ' Lincoln' (page 6), should have been to Gainsbro' ; 
 nd ' morning ' (page 7) should have been noon. ' All ' before ' always ' (same page) is an 
 bvious interpolation. 
 
 t Vide The Necessary Existence of God. By W. Gillespie. Chap. I. 
 o 
 
10 THE TRIAL Or THEISM. 
 
 Modern development of Theological Schools. The Archdeacon appears. 
 
 The mode of proving that Deity is, is called the a posteriori method 
 — i.e., reasoning from effects to causes. 
 
 The mode of proving that Deity must be, is called the a priori 
 method — i.e., reasoning from cause to effect. 
 
 These two methods have given rise to two great schools of Theolo- 
 gians. 
 
 The a priori divines have asserted that Deity can never be proved 
 by the a posteriori method. 
 
 The a posteriori theologians have held that everybody has failed 
 to prove Deity by the a priori method. 
 
 These conflicting opinions have given rise, of late years, to a third 
 school* of theologists, who declare that both methods must be employed 
 at once, and then the proof comes right. 
 
 Which leads impartial spectators to remark that they do not see how 
 it is, when neither of two roads leads to Deity, in what way going 
 down both at once can bring you there ! 
 
 Mr. Pearson's significant words are — ' Too exclusive an importance 
 has been attached to each of these celebrated forms of proof, as if the 
 one were absolutely independent of the other. The two in a great 
 measure go hand-in-hand, and conduct us to the position that there is 
 a God.' If two proofs fail singly, it is difficult to divine how they can 
 succeed by combination. 
 
 As two blacks cannot make one white, as two noes cannot make one 
 yes, as two contradictions cannot make one agreement, so two failures 
 do not make one success ; nor does the discovery of two insurmount 
 able barriers in our path facilitate our arrival at the desired goal.f 
 
 The universe is a mystery. The Positivist also wishes it cleared 
 up. Life is dark — he also will be glad of light. The secret of the 
 universe seems hidden in the haze of Infinity. You can only pene- 
 trate it by an inference or a fact. Natural Theologians have no posi- 
 tive fact, and their inferences are dim. Hereupon Paley arises, and 
 exclaims — ' Sceptics are wilfully blind, and the Preachers are timid 
 Wait awhile, and I will construct you a key with which any man 
 may pick at will the lock of all this mystery.' \ 
 
 * Vide Prize Essay of the Evangelical Alliance, on Infidelity, by the Eev. T. Pearson, ch. i| II 
 
 t An objector, seizing upon a chemical instead of the moral sense, might allege that a 
 chemist might develop a white out of two blacks. True ; but he must first decompose themj 1 
 And if a white reason is to come out of two black arguments, they must be re-constructeC 
 and then they become other arguments. In their black state they cannot be held to 
 white, and that is the point. If A and B both contradict C's calculation of an eclipse, it ma; 
 be said that their joint contradictions ' make one agreement ' to do so. True ; but thei 
 agreement to contradict a calculation does not prove an agreement in it, or with it, and thii 
 is the point. Failures are with some men but ' stepping-stones to success.' Hence a casi 
 may be quoted in which double failure had led to success, but the ' two failures ' did notJSf 
 make ' one success,' but the subsequent steps which the two failures prompted. Two failures 
 in argument may lead to a new attempt, which shall be more fortunate ; but the failures 
 themselves are not a success, and that is the point. 
 
 % The reader may find in a little work entitled ' Paley Eefuted in His own Words,' the 
 argument and terms employed by the Doctor systematically estimated. The followinfltl 
 pages deal with supplementary controversy. 
 
THE PALEYAN SCHOOE. 11 
 
 Character of Paley's proof. The answer founded on the same premises. 
 
 Dr. Paley — and it is essential to notice this — proposes to satisfy the 
 understanding. His object is not to furnish ingenious theories for 
 poetic dreamers, but to meet the requirements of hard reason. He 
 professes to dare the judgment, to satisfy the logician, to compel 
 conviction. His pretension is, that he leaves the Sceptic without 
 excuse, and puts him in that dilemma in which he has no choice but 
 to own himself a believer or a fool. 
 
 Paley marches to his encounter with confidence. He fights with 
 two weapons. He points to ' contrivance,' and he appeals to ' expe- 
 rience.' He is no German idealist — he cares nothing for the 
 'subjective' or 'objective' — he despises 'intuitions' — he dispenses 
 even with God's grace — he can carry his point with popular forces. 
 With him Divinity is reduced to Mechanism — he regards the pulpit 
 as an anvil — he blows his own bellows, and strikes like a blacksmith. 
 
 He at once hammers out this process of the Design Argument : — 
 
 The world exhibits marks of design : 
 
 That design must have had a Designer : 
 
 That Designer must be a person : 
 
 That Person is God. 
 
 But it does not appear that this Person & God. Because the 
 God of the Universe must be the sole Supreme, whereas the 
 • Person ' of the Design Argument is the least of an Infinite series of 
 Gods. 
 
 Design implies a Designer — a Designer implies a Person. This 
 Paley grants, and this Person, Paley says, is God; but he ignores 
 :hat a Person implies organisation, and organisation implies contri- 
 vance, and this contrivance a contriver, and that contriver another 
 contriver, which leads not to the sole God, but to an endless rank and 
 nle of Deities. 
 j The justification of this view is obvious. 
 
 "We ask why does design imply a Designer ? 
 
 Paley answers, ' Experience tells you so.' 
 j Why does a Designer imply a Person ? 
 
 Paley answers, ' Experience tells you so.' 
 
 Why does a Person imply organisation ? Nature gives the same 
 ?eply, ' Experience tells you^so.' 
 
 ! The Natural Theologian asserts that the Designer of Nature must 
 3e a Person, because, as he observes, we never knew Design proceed 
 except from a Person. To which it may be added, ' that we never 
 snew a Person unassociated with organisation.' 
 
 i Natural Theologians depose that a Person need not have an organi- 
 sation. To which the reply is, ' Then the Designer of Nature need not 
 m i Person' 
 
 : The principle on which this answer is based, has been admitted by 
 iume, Shelley, Gillespie, and others. 
 
 : Whoever alleges that the Designer must be a Person, must appeal 
 jn proof to universal experience. 
 
 Whoever answers that a Person must have organisation, can equally 
 ippeal in proof to universal experience. 
 
12 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Paleyan Argument fully exhibited. The theory of a Pre-purposer. 
 
 The appeal is the same in both cases, and he who denies the appea 
 to the Sceptic must deny it to Paley. 
 
 Whoever says a Person may exist without organisation, contrary t( 
 experience, is saying at the same time that Design may exist without ♦ 
 Designer, contrary to experience. And this is conceding the whoh 
 question to the Sceptic. 
 
 The world exhibits marks of Design : 
 
 That Design must have had a Designer : 
 
 That Designer must have been a Person : 
 
 That Person must have an organisation : 
 
 That organisation must have exhibited marks of contrivance : 
 
 That contrivance must have had a contriver : 
 
 Therefore the God of the Design Argument was himself contrivec 
 by a higher God, and so on, and so on, for ever ; and to us who waitec 
 to catch the image of the Infinite Deity, is shown a tumultuou 
 series of huge Beings, definite and material, disporting in bewildering 
 gradations one above another, and this hideous vision is the solt 
 reward of our attention, our patience, and our teachableness ! An^ 
 this exquisite mockery is called demonstrating the footprints of Deitv 
 in the field of Creation. 
 
 There is another view of this case, briefer and perhaps clearer. 
 
 The question is continually put — ' Whence comes man ?' 
 
 The Sceptie replies, for all we know to the contrary, he has pro 
 ceeded according to some primeval law of development. 
 
 The Theist answers ' No ; man capable of high intelligence, curiously' 
 and wonderfully made, could not exist without Design.' 
 
 Then the reply is again obvious. If man may not exist without 
 design, neither may Deity — a being of far more wonderful power* 
 than man — exist without design. But if Deity may exist without tin 
 action of a Pre-purposer, the world may exist without the action of : ; 
 Pre-purposer. All the wonders of the Universe, human, animal, ane 
 inorganic, may exist without a Pre-purposer ; for all taken together 
 are a less miracle than the Existence of God — i.e., a Being who begai 
 to be before there was Time for anything to he ; who w r as omnipresen- 
 — i.e., everywhere, before there was anywhere to occupy. 
 
 At this point it is pretty clear that we are lost in our inquiries. Th<i 
 Sceptic of Theology considers it honesty if not piety to say so, anc 
 endeavours to find his way back to Nature. The Theist maintains 
 his argument, though he has lost his ground. 
 
 We therefore, for a third time, endeavour to ascertain his views. 
 
 The primary question is, 'if designed, who is the Designer o| 
 Nature ? 
 
 The Theist reiterates, 'a Person,' and declares that we do noi 
 understand the ' scholastic,' or literary sense of the term Person.* 
 
 * ' The word [Person] is of generic import, and is used to express either an organised 
 
 human being, or an unorganised Divine Being It sometimes means an immaterial 
 
 being.' Rev. H. Townley. Discussion with G. J. Holyoake. pp. 39-40. It is to be observefj 
 that a Paleyan cannot use the term person to signify an ' unorganised Divine Being,' excepi 
 in violation of his own analogy, to which his own citation of Experience leads. 
 

 THE PALEYA> SCHOOL. 13 
 
 Manner of existence the key to conclusiveness. 
 
 A Person signifies one of two things, mind animating an organised 
 frame, or mind existing unorganised, as an element is conceived to 
 exist. Either hypothesis fails the cause of the Theist. If a ' Person ' 
 be an organised frame, it is a contrived frame, and had a contriver ; 
 such a Person Anti-Theists have shown cannot be God. And if the 
 Designing Person be not, and need not, be an ' organised frame,' but 
 * an immaterial being,' or essence, some independent, undefined element, 
 then the Designing Principle may be ' something ' not organised, and 
 it may be Nature, which is what the Sceptic conjectures. 
 
 Paley carries his point by audacity. He is the Danton of Divines. 
 'There,' he exclaims, throwing down his argument before you, 
 ' answer that if you can.' He does not tell you that it is only half an 
 argument, with the beginning so smothered in illustrations, that you 
 do not see that it has no end, and you mistake the heap for the con- 
 clusion. Paley gives you an idea of intelligent action, as the source 
 of Design, but gives you no conception of the actor, and shuts his book 
 the moment you open your mouth to ask him for it. Now, concep- 
 tion of the actor is necessary to the identification of the actor. The 
 actor maybe Nature instead of God ; we can never know which, except 
 we identify the cause of the action. Without identification, the 
 inquirer is put off — he is not satisfied. The argument of Natural 
 Theology is one great popular put-off. 
 
 It is of no use proving that something exists. Something is any- 
 thing, and ' anything ' is Atheistie : it may as well be matter as spirit. 
 It is urged, that provided we prove that a Supreme Being exists, it 
 matters little whether we know the manner of such existence. We 
 answer, it matters much. Manner of existence is essential to be known 
 with respect to hidden existences. It is only through the ' manner ' of 
 Being that we can arrive at the nature of the Being, and until we 
 know the nature we know not what it is that we call God.* Without 
 identification there is no scientific knowledge ; our Theology is reckless, 
 and our reverence random. 
 
 An analogy is to be distinguished from an illustration, which is 
 a resemblance in one particular. An ' analogy is a resemblance of 
 relations.' f As an example of an illustration, take this from the store- 
 house of them, wonderfully furnished by Archbishop Whately : — 
 
 ' A knave's own heart limits his knowledge of human nature to 
 those below him. He can form no notion of a nobler nature than his 
 own. He is like the goats in Robinson Crusoe's island, who saw 
 clearly everything below them, but very imperfectly what was above 
 them, so that Robinson Crusoe could never get at them from the 
 valleys, but when he came upon them from the hill-top, took them 
 quite by surprise.' Here the comparison is perfect, and full of light. 
 The dark part of the subject treated, is illuminated by it. 
 
 Analogy does not mean the similarity of two things, but the simi- 
 
 * ' When we know not the character of the agency of the alleged First Cause, how have 
 we accounted for anything?' Professor Newman.—' The Soul.' 
 
 t Archoishop Whately.—' Logic,' Book 4, chap, v. 
 
14 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 What is analogy. It amounts rnerety to presumption — never to proof. 
 
 larity of two relations. There must be more than two things to givci 
 rise to two relations : there must be at least three ; and in most cases) 
 four. Thus A may be like B, but there is no analogy between A ana 
 B : it is an abuse of the word to speak so, and it leads to much confiH 
 sion of thought. If A has the same relation to B, which C has to D.i 
 then there is an analogy.* 
 
 ' The fact that from birth different persons have different bodily! 
 constitutions, in respect of complexion, stature, strength, shape.! 
 liability to particular disorders, etc., which constitutions, however, arej 
 capable of being, to a certain degree, modified by regimen, medicine,] 
 etc., affords an analogy, by which we way form a presumption that the 
 like takes place in respect of mental qualities also : though it is plairij 
 that there can be no direct resemblance, either between body and; 
 mind, or their respective attributes.' - }* 
 
 In analogies it is the rule ' not to presume that because the relation 
 is the same, or similar in one or two points, therefore it is the same, or 
 similar in all ;' and it matters little how much of an analogy be irre- 
 levant, if the points insisted on be pertinent. 
 
 But in these cases the analogy merely illustrates your argument, 
 In Natural Theology it is the argument itself, and must be wholly 
 true, or the argument will be in part false, or incomplete, or unreliable. 1 
 If Paley had said because the watch had a designer, it is probable that! 
 the man himself had a designer, but what that designer is we cannot 
 tell ; there is the ' presumption ' of its being similar to humanity, 
 but of what nature we have no certainty. This is what the Atheist 
 would agree to, and this is as far as Paley was warranted in goingj 
 But when Paley says — As the watch was made by a watchmaker, so 
 man was made by a man-maker — he assumes identity of analogy all 
 through. He drags in human intelligence, and arbitrarily excludes 
 organisation, an equally relevant relation. If one did not think that 
 Paley was self- deceived, his argument might be said to be audacity 
 carried to mendacity. 
 
 Expositions of Theism, after the manner of Paley, have the quality 
 Mr. O'Connell once pointed out in the arguments of an adversary, 
 who was always unanswerable, because all his reasonings were so wide 
 of the mark that no reply could overtake him. There never can be a' 
 battle between two persons, if one of the combatants never comes up. 
 The Paleyan proposes by examination of the wonders of creation to 
 illustrate and establish the design argument. But if your first prin- 
 ciples are wrong, no illustrations will make them right. 
 
 If any one will insist that three and four are eight, he may go on 
 adding three and four together for ever, but all his eights will be 
 wrong. No argument from design does prove what it is employed to 
 prove; and no repetition of an error can make it a truth. If two 
 and two make four, no repetition nor addition of all the numerals of 
 arithmetic can add to the force of the proof. If design prove a 
 
 * Copleston quoted.— Whately's ' Rhetoric' Appendix E, p. 292. 
 t Whately's ' Rhetoric' Part 1, chap. ii. 7. 
 
THE PALEYAN SCHOOL. 15 
 
 Inferences of design in Nature made on artificial ground. 
 
 Designer in the Paleyan sense, the proof is as clear from the finger nail 
 as from the anatomical structure of the whole body. If a blade of 
 grass does not carry conviction, the universe cannot do it to a logical 
 mind. All the elaborate instances of the Bridgewater Treatises only 
 confirm the remark of Mr. Ruskin, where he derides * That well-known 
 weakness of the popular mind, which renders a statement credible in 
 proportion to the multitude of local and circumstantial details which 
 accompany it.' 
 
 With respect to design, the Theologian entraps you into the 
 admission and admiration of it by the use of the same logical arts 
 which carried him captive. If the Sceptic fail to see absolute design 
 in ' this or that,' the Theist exclaims, ' Presumptuous mortal, dost 
 thou pretend to be wiser than Omnipotence ?' And the Theist, on his 
 own ground, is right. If God be assumed as all-good and all-wise, 
 every thing he has made must be exactly the thing. It is ingratitude 
 to question, and blindness not to admire — you cannot criticise without 
 blasphemy. 
 
 The Natural Theologian praises the divine contrivance which has 
 given man two eyes. They would have been equally rapturous had 
 he had four, so that he could have looked east, west, north, and 
 south at the same time ; and successive Paleys would have celebrated 
 the providential arrangement which enabled policemen and sentinels 
 to conduct four-fold observations without turning their heads. Again, 
 if man, like Polyphemus, had had but one eye given him, the Dr. 
 Paley would have proved it impossible that he could ever have seen 
 at all with two : or if he had, that he would see double. Since the 
 invention of the stereoscope, there has been a long discussion as to 
 how it is that a man can see one object with two eyes ; and vice versa 
 how tioo objects come to appear as one. 
 
 Had man only one arm, no Natural Theologian would have missed 
 the other ; had he three they would find reason to praise the Trini- 
 tarian arrangement, and no doubt declare it to be a mystic symbol 
 for the confutation of Unitarians. 
 
 Yet we must do Theists the justice to own that to refute the Argu- 
 ment of Design is not to refute Theism ; it is merely to disprove their 
 most popular method of supporting it. 
 
 There are other totally different replies to Paley, and quite as con- 
 clusive as the one here examined, but their force is only perceived by 
 closer thinking. Carlyle said of Gilfillan, ' he thought he was a great 
 painter, because he used a big brush.' Paley was under some such 
 impression. When he painted the Design Argument for the people, 
 1 he painted with a big brush,' and if the reply is to be understood by 
 the people, it must be painted with a big brush too. An efficient 
 answer to Paley must be as broad and as wide as his argument. The 
 respondent must borrow his pencil, and make outlines as broad as 
 those of an Archdeacon. 
 
 The growing distrust of these tiresome speculations arises here — they 
 never satisfy the understanding. Preachers give you no unanswerable 
 
16 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The great principle announced by Mr. Grote. 
 
 word to speak. You cannot dare judgment with their arguments 
 Their own reasons always subside into Dr. Fellism. Their final stor} 
 of Theism is this : — 
 
 Much I like thee, Dr. Fell, 
 
 The reason why I cannot tell ; 
 
 But this I know, and know full well, 
 
 Much I like thee, Dr. Fell, 
 
 We may say to the Theist, You do not know the mystery of thin^ 
 we do not know. Yet some advantage is ours. We know that you dc 
 not know ; we also know that we do not know, whereas you do noil 
 know that you do not know. Socrates once said, ' Men call me wise 
 Certainly I know little. I will inquire.' He then questioned manj 
 people, and indeed found that they knew little, but then they thought! 
 that little much. ' In fact,' said Socrates at length, ' though I know as 
 little, yet in one thing I am their superior. I know how little thai 
 little is, whereas they are ignorant how ignorant they are.' 
 
 It is no matter of exultation to an inquiring mind to find thatj 
 nothing is known on the most interesting of all speculative problems 
 But the truth-seeker consoles himself with the memorable words ol| 
 Grote, in his Preface to his great ' History of Greece ': — 
 
 ' I shall hope, when I come to the lives of Socrates and Plato, to 
 illustrate one of the most valuable of their principles, that conscious and 
 confessed ignorance is a better state of mind, than the fancy, without the 
 reality, of knowledge.'' 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE ARGUMENT OF DESIGN. 
 
 Nearly every page of Mr. Pearson's chapter on Atheism, in his Prize 
 Essay, written for the Evangelical Alliance, abounds in the most 
 obvious contradictions. We scarcely need look elsewhere for testimo- 
 nies against the whole Design Argument. ' In one place,'* he says, 
 ' Design proves a Designer, but it does not prove that the Designer is 
 God.' Is not this the precise admission for which the Sceptic contends ? 
 Again : ' The idea of a great First Cause is not derived originally from 
 the phenomena of nature around us, but assumed in our investigations 
 into these phenomena.''!' If ' assumed,' why so much Theistical wrath 
 at the Sceptic for saying so ? If the idea of a great First Cause ' be 1 
 ' not derived from nature,' in what respect does the Sceptic err who 
 points out that it is not so derived ? 
 
 We have lately heard the assertion that ' Paley has nowhere, nor 
 at any time, been answered ; but he has been given up, and given up 
 by his own side, which he never would have been had he not been 
 answered over and over again beyond hope of redemption. 
 
 * Page 26. Large Edition. t P. 22. Idem. 
 
TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE ARGUMENT OF DESIGN. 17 
 
 Gillespie's Defects of the Design Argument. De P. O'Kelly's ' Theological Papers.' 
 
 We turn to the corroborative testimony of Mr. William Gillespie, 
 who does not willingly create arguments which may favour the Anti- 
 Theist, since he gives it as his opinion that an ' Atheistic Propagandist ' 
 (who is one who warns others of the unsatisfactory nature of 
 Theistic assertions) ' seems a nondescript monster created by nature in 
 a moment of madness.'* 
 
 From this writer we take eight (from twenty-four) 'defects of 
 a posteriori arguments,' alleged by him, in substance, as follows : — 
 
 I. The a posteriori argument reaches only a Utile way. If we 
 confine ourselves merely to its evidence, we shall inevitably find our- 
 selves surrounded by many serious difficulties. 
 
 II. This argument can never make it appear that infinity belongs 
 in any way to God : for by no rule in philosophy can we deduce an 
 infinite existence from a finite effect. All marks of design we can 
 discover must be finite in extent.f 
 
 III. What then becomes of the Omnipresence of Deity ? 
 
 IV. His wisdom and power cannot be shown to be more than finite, 
 and he can never be proved to be a free agent. 
 
 V. If we cannot prove God to have a particular infinite attribute, 
 we can never show that infinity of any kind belongs to him. 
 
 VI. The argument a posteriori cannot prove that God is of infinite 
 goodness and justice, or has other infinite moral perfections. 
 
 VII. But whether there be one God or many Gods, the argument 
 from experience doth by no means make clear ; whether the cause of 
 the phenomena be one God or many Gods, it pretends not to deter- 
 mine past all doubt. 
 
 VIII. Besides, to insist on no other topic, if we cannot prove the 
 eternity of God, it is not possible that we can prove the Unity of God. 
 To say that, for anything we know to the contrary, God may not have 
 existed from all eternity, is much the same thing as saying, that, for 
 anything we know to the contrary, there may be another God, or 
 many Gods, besides. 
 
 Valuable additions to the discussion of the Design Argument have 
 lately been made in the 'Theological Papers' of Mr. De P. O'Kelly, 
 all the more to the purpose of citation here as the author is himself a 
 Theist. He has explained that there are' steps which precede Design.' He 
 asks, ' Why should Paley select a watch as his instance ? Why not take 
 mind as an example of Design ? The structure of mind is as wonder- 
 ful as the structure of a watch. The laws of thought are full as 
 striking as the principles of mechanism :' which leads the Anti-Theist 
 to observe, that if the human mind is replete with evidence of Design, 
 we step quickly and irresistibly to the conclusion that the alleged 
 Designing Mind of Nature was itself designed. Paley ought to have 
 told us more or told us less. 
 
 Professor Newman, whose views are in another place treated, argues 
 
 * 'Necessary Existence of God.' Preface, p. x. In the quotation from this author (p. 8), 
 the word ' impossible ' should have been printed possible. 
 t This is Hume's objection. 
 
18 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Testimonies of Professor F. W. Newman, Baron Humboldt, and Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 thus : — ' We discern Design in the world. Fitnesses are the clue by 
 which we track it out.' He admits at the same time that there arei 
 ' antagonist fitnesses. Two mouths want the same loaf, and it cannotj 
 have been intended for both.' Mr. Newman indeed holds that 
 Universal Mind in nature is evident to all but almost brutal insensi- 
 bility,' but his reasons for saying so are not Paley's. His memorable: 
 words are these : — ' Design represented as a search after causes, until) 
 we come to a first cause, and there stop, is an argument, I confess, 
 which in itself brings me no satisfaction.' 1 
 
 It is admitted by many other Theists, that the argument of 
 Design can prove nothing as to the attributes of God. Not 
 only may good and evil be a Manichean war, it may be more 
 than a war between two principles, it may be a war between a dozen; 
 personal and contending Beings.* 
 
 The analogy between a watchmaker and a world-maker only proves i 
 that both work on pre-existing materials ; it proves at least two Deities: 
 exist, a material and a spiritual one. 
 
 Even the Evangelical Prize Essay, by the late Mr. Pearson,; 
 confesses that the Design Argument does not prove a God, it: 
 only 'points the way thither.' But it does not point the way 
 thither ; it points a thousand ways, and no one way the way to Deity. 
 
 A. C. G. Jobert, a somewhat distinguished member of the French 
 Geological Society, has passed deliberate judgment upon Paley's 
 argument. When fortified by all the ingenuity of Lord Brougham, 
 M. Jobert pronounces it ' one continued sophism.' 
 
 Baron Humboldt, the most eminent name in science, has given his 
 weighty verdict against the great argument of Natural Theologians. 
 ' Assuredly,' says he, ' the evidences of design in the creation require 
 a previous idea in the mind that perceives them. Were not man a 
 designer they never would be perceived ; and man therefore uses 
 nature as a mirror, wherein are reflected the properties of his own 
 being.'f 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, a believer in Deity himself, for reasons of his own, 
 dismisses the argument of Design from the category of Theistical logic. 
 His words are these : — 
 
 ' The whole current hypothesis of the universe being a machine, 
 and then of an Architect, who constructed it, sitting, as it were, apart, 
 and guiding it, and seeing it go, may turn out an inanity and non- 
 entity, not much longer tenable ; with which result we shall, in the 
 quietest manner, reconcile ourselves. Our natural theologies may, in 
 reference to the strange season they appear in, have a certain value, 
 and be worth printing and re-printing ; only let us understand for 
 whom, and how, they are valuable ; and be in no wise wroth with the 
 Atheist, whom they have not convinced, and could not and should not 
 convince.' | 
 
 * The Rev. Hugh McNeile has put this conviction in emphatic words. Vide ' Last Trial 
 by Jurv.' p. 43. 
 t Topic No. 12. 
 X Mis., p. 321, vol. Lv. Art. Diderot. 
 
CLEARNESS THE CRITERION OF TRUTH. 19 
 
 The problems of life and nature incapable of absolute solution. 
 
 In all our speculations we have never yet passed beyond pheno- 
 mena in our knowledge. At best we can but know what is, we cannot 
 tell why it is. Yet we are not without guidance in that which is of the 
 most importance— the work of to-day. Duty may be clear though 
 destiny be unknown ; all we need pray for is, that we may pass sately 
 through the confusions of the theologies. 
 
 The life of man and the course of Nature are both problems, ot which 
 do exercise of thought appears to afford a solution. The result of the 
 clearest speculation does no more than present definitely the difficulty. 
 If a man declare his will not to be free, the unconscious impulse of his own 
 thoughts appears to belie his assertion. If he declare the human will 
 to be free, his practice towards others, when he attempts their per- 
 suasion, contradicts his theory. 
 
 The fitness of the lungs for breathing, and the telescopic relation ot 
 the eye to light, are ostensibly identical with the efforts of human 
 design. If we admit, then, the existence of design in the human 
 structure, and in the floral and solar fields of nature, the question 
 arises, What causes this design? If we ascribe it to an external 
 Being, we are quite unable to conceive of such a Being as self-originated. 
 I The idea of Deity connotes prior causation, as irresistibly as 
 does the universe itself. If we say nature is self-designing design 
 implies intelligence and consciousness. If we assume the whole to be 
 intelligent, we cannot show that the parts are, and the theory oi 
 Pantheism ends in an act of imagination, which leaves us silent before 
 every flippant questioner, and without the power of producing intelli- 
 gent conviction in the serious. Theism, or Pantheism, resolves itself 
 into a feeling which trusts it knows not what, hopes without proof, 
 and worships without knowledge. Atheism, seeking satisfaction for 
 the understanding, utters its reluctant negation of Theistic .dog- 
 matism and Pantheistic visions, studies the laws of Nature in the fields 
 of its marvels, and yields to mankind the sympathies disengaged from 
 . creeds. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CLEARNESS THE CRITERION OF TRUTH. 
 
 Illuminism, the name which in Germany stands for that philosophy 
 
 • which, under so many forms throughout Europe, has combated tor 
 humanity, on behalf of reason, takes for its primary maxim, Clearness 
 
 • is the criterion of truth.'* We accept the principle. 
 
 An objector, whose arguments fail to effect all he intends, sometimes 
 demands of the sceptic, 'What amount of evidence will satisfy him r 
 The physician might as well inquire of his patient, ' \\ hat amount ot 
 medicine will cure him?' When a sufficient amount of evidence 
 appears, the effect will show the fact. The proof that sufficient 
 evidence is present, is the formation of conviction. Sufficient evidence 
 
 is its own sign. 
 
 * Dr. Kahnis's ' History of German Protestantism.' 
 
20 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Edmund Burke aud Chevalier Bunsen on the Authority of Reason. 
 
 When a man is asked to admit that God exists, he has the right to 
 demand explicit information as to what is meant by the term God. 
 He must know, or his assent is ignorant ; he must know, or he may 
 be misled ; he must know, or he may miss the true object of reverence, 
 he can have no proper conviction, his worship cannot be intelligent. 
 
 One, who bore no willing testimony on behalf of the people, yet. 
 counselled men to hold fast by reason, said : — ' We are indebted 
 for all our miseries to our distrust of that guide which Provi- 
 dence thought sufficient for our condition, our own natural j 
 reason, which rejecting both in human and divine things, we: 
 have given our necks to the yoke of political and theological slavery. 
 
 A great authority on Protestantism has told us that reason must be I 
 the test of revelation and Christianity : — ' Revelation reveals truth, ! 
 but does not make truth ; that truth must be true in itself ; now 
 if true in itself, revealed truth must be intelligible to reason. Either 
 Christianity is true, or it is not true; Christ either spoke the 
 truth, or he did not speak it. Now, if Christianity be not true, 
 what authority in the world can make it true ? But if it be true, it 
 is true because true in itself, and wants no authority whatever to 
 make it true. Scripture to be believed true with a full conviction, 
 must be at one — consonant — with reason. 'f 
 
 But whatever is true in itself, is intelligible in itself, else how do we 
 know that it is true ? 
 
 'Upon points on which philosophers know nothing, philosophers 
 should say nothing. That is a beautiful school of philosophy which 
 teaches man to say of most things — ' It may be so, and it may be 
 otherwise. It is a point on which I only know that I do not know.' j 
 
 To be able to distinguish what we know from what we think we 
 know, is the beginning of security ; to carefully limit our speech to our 
 knowledge, is the beginning of verbal honesty. 
 
 Sects are religious telescopes, and a wise man prefers that which 
 has the most powerful lens. The Pope is no optician in theology : he 
 thinks the less men see the more they will believe. Rome keeps a 
 kind of peep show, where you look through a dark hole down into 
 hell, and through another aperture up to the Virgin. Luther was the 
 inventor of the theological telescope which rendered many new objects 
 visible to the Churches. After him, Protestant glasses became very 
 popular. The Dissenters got hold of them, altered the focus, and in- 
 creased the power ; they made some new discoveries, but they make 
 much ado if they catch any one else using the same instrument, and 
 taking the same liberty. Dr. Priestley constructed an Unitarian tele- 
 scope with a new and powerful lens, with which he swept the field of 
 material nature, and resolved the cluster of the Trinity into one 
 central Deity. His successors seem about to return to the use of the 
 
 * Burke. 
 
 t ' Hypolytus and his Age.' By Chevalier Bunsen. 
 
 X Edinburgh Review, January, 1852. Art. Genius and Writings of Descartes 
 
CLEARNESS THE CRITERION OF TRUTH. 21 
 
 Impatience of ignorance not always conducive to knowledge. 
 
 )ld instruments. The students of Realities, who occupy the Secular 
 ield of thought, fearlessly employ every improvement in the optics of 
 nvestigation that ingenuity may invent, or daring use. 
 
 A number of people exist who must account for everything, and so 
 .inpatient are they for a theory of everything, that they will adopt a 
 contradiction rather than put up with a mystery. The desire of 
 ittaining to final causes is a very natural and a very useful curiosity, 
 Dut they who are determined to have a final cause, will often put up 
 with a false one. Upon some subjects mankind must be content to 
 remain in ignorance. Many things excited the curiosity of our fore- 
 fathers, of which no adequate explanations were given till ages after, 
 md we are perfectly sensible that a modest ignorance became them 
 better than a presumptuous knowledge. To be without doubts or un- 
 certainties of any kind is a desirable and agreeable condition, as 
 lesirable and agreeable as it is for the senses to be gratified, and the 
 person placed in security. There is a competence of intellect as well 
 is a competence of fortune, but he who is resolved of attaining to 
 aerfect sensational enjoyment will often be found preferring pleasure to 
 luty. In the same manner, he who will have intellectual satisfaction 
 will sometimes accept it in error when he cannot find it in truth. 
 
 1 It is not sufficient to speak the truth, it is necessary to know that 
 we do so. He who should affirm that the grains of sand on the shore 
 form an even number might be right, but he would still be chargeable 
 with rashness. And they, also, are rash who, at a period when 
 nothing is admitted before inquiry and proof, assert : " God exists ; 
 virtue is his law, and this law is obligatory on all free and intelligent 
 beings."' * 
 
 To apply the remarks of a distinguished modern writer, ' Theology 
 resembles a French dinner, of which we know neither the ingredients 
 nor the manner in which they have been compounded, nor the hands 
 through which they have passed, but are content to take and eat it as 
 it is served up to us. " Theological systems are too often," says Jortin, 
 I as temples dedicated to implicit faith, and he who enters to worship 
 in them, instead of leaving his shoes, after the eastern manner, must 
 leave his understanding at the door, and it will be well if he find it 
 when he comes out again." ' * 
 
 Every man prefers that religion of which he can understand the 
 most. Men found their rejection of Paganism, or Buddhism, or 
 Mahomedanism, or Catholicism, or Methodism, on the ground that 
 it outrages or does not satisfy the understanding. Every Christian 
 Founds his choice of the sect whose communion he accepts upon its 
 apparent reasonableness to him. This must be true of all who reflect, 
 for if a man takes no care to understand his religion, why should he 
 not accept anything offered to him ? All men feel in reality that the 
 understanding is the surest test by which we can try false religions, 
 and is the only security we possess against superstitions being imposed 
 
 * De Potter's ' Social Studies. ' t R. W. Mackay. 
 
22 THE TRIAE OF THEISM. 
 
 Reply to the author of the ' Eclipse of Faith.' 
 
 upon us. If we decided by Intuition, or custom, we should find thai 
 Intuition would lead us anywhere — Pagan-ward as soon as Christian- 
 ward — and Habit would reconcile us to anything. 
 
 Why any one is an Atheist is therefore evident. Partly because hq 
 fails to understand what is meant by the term God, in which he if 
 desired to believe. 
 
 But we are told men believe in many things which they do not un- 
 derstand — then why not in God ? 
 
 Possibly men do believe in that which they do not well understand; 
 but in such cases their belief is not of a very confident nature, and M 
 relates to matters of opinion rather than to grounds of action. And 
 propositions so believed in are commonly warranted by some proba-J 
 bilities of human experience. In any case in which a man was called'! 
 upon to believe what he did not understand, and to risk great interest** 
 on such belief, he would regard it as a calamity to be compelled to act| 
 without understanding all about it. 
 
 In the Prize Essay against Infidelity of the Evangelical Alliance.ft 
 the reverend author invokes, at a critical point, the help of Mr.j 
 Rogers, an evangelical writer who continually furnishes arguments^ 
 against Christianity which its opponents would not dare to invent. 
 From this source Mr. Pearson quotes the following assumed-to-be-un- 
 answerable argument : — 
 
 ' Nor do we well know what multitudes, who neglect religion on 
 account of the alleged uncertainty of its evidence, could reply, if God 
 were to say to them, " And yet, on such evidence, and that far inferior 
 in degree, you have never hesitated to act when your own temporal 
 interests were concerned. You never feared to commit the bark oi 
 your worldly fortunes to that fluctuating element. In many cases you 
 believed, on the testimony of others, what seemed even to contradict] 
 vour own senses. Why were you so much more scrupulous in relation! 
 to Me ?" ' 
 
 What could we answer Mr. Rogers ? The answer is obvious. Ini 
 human affairs, when we act on partial evidence, it is either fromjj 
 caprice or necessity. When from caprice it is a fault — when from ne-i 
 cessity it is a misfortune. In the case of God it is a tribute to him toj 
 pause. Where so many incompetent sects, in narrow knowledge and] 
 distracted voices — affluent in imputation, and bitter in tone — each 
 claims to have discovered God, and to know his will, it is humility to 
 hesitate, and reverence to doubt. 
 
 The general ground on which Theism is objected to is its unreason- 
 ableness. By what standard is it judged ? This depends much 
 upon the education of the individual. Theism, which does not; 
 lean on revelation, but seeks to justify itself by philosophy, is not 
 more uniform in its standards than anti-Theism. When the Theist 
 speaks, the main and general want the hearer experiences is want ot 
 original light — manly clearness. To profess to clear up one difficulty 
 by substituting another is simply an adjournment of the problem, not 
 a solution of it. 
 
CLEARNESS THE CRITERION OF TRUTH. 23 
 
 Actual knowledge the measure of actual power. 
 
 The constant complaint that the theory of Atheism robs man of 
 cherished expectations, and consigns him to sadness and disappoint- 
 ment, is not well founded. He who reposes on baseless expectations, 
 may be pained by being undeceived, but he is served by the truth. 
 
 Nobody likes the restriction or discipline which higher knowledge 
 imparts. We know this very well. The rustic dancer, who is the 
 admiration of the village green, will not take a step in the presence of 
 a dancing-master. The confident instructor of the private class falters 
 in the presence of the professed grammarian. The singer, who is 
 rapturously applauded at the evening party, cannot be prevailed upon 
 to utter a note at a public concert The provincial actor, who nightly 
 * brought down the house ' in Richard III., is timorous in a rehearsal 
 before Macready, Phelps, or Wigan. The orator, who sets the counties 
 on fire, stammers in the House of Commons ; as Canning said, ' He finds 
 that the atmosphere in which the demagogue shrinks into his natural 
 dimensions.' These persons, once brought out into higher society, are 
 in that light where defects can be seen, and, what is more to the 
 purpose, where they cannot be hidden. The single step which is right, the 
 single sentence which is correct, the single note which is perfect, the 
 single passage rendered by the actor with cultivated success, the 
 shortest speech which has the grace of close sense and pure intonation, 
 is a source of more confidence to the individual, and gives him more 
 power to command the applause of all whose applause is worth having, 
 than all the display, screaming, gabble, gesticulation, and declamation, 
 which make up the bulky acquisitions of the novice, the pretender, or 
 the quack. The moment we step into the circle of the better informed 
 than ourselves, we feel our deficiencies, and are suddenly contracted 
 down to the little that we really know. A man may deceive those who 
 know less than himself, or the same as himself, but he can never 
 deceive those who know more. Knowledge pierces instantly through 
 the thickest covering ingenious ignorance can put on. Our actual 
 knowledge, whatever it is, is the measure of our actual power. This is 
 felt to be true everywhere, except in Theism. There men seek strength 
 in professions, instead of in facts. Men who would not face their 
 dancing-masters with a false step, nor their classical professors with a 
 false quantity, will face Heaven with a false proposition. The student 
 who dare not take up to his mathematical tutor a problem he does not 
 understand, will take up to God a creed he never did understand, and 
 never expects to understand. The believer who cannot impose on his 
 professor, thinks to escape the detection of Deity. 
 
 There is no pride, except in exactness ; no strength, but in truth. 
 There is no more heroic thought than that of Mark Antony — 
 ' Who tells me true, though in the tale lie death, 
 I hear him as he flattered.' 
 
 There is no universal argument on Atheism which will correct all 
 errors, any more than there is a universal medicine which will cure all 
 diseases. Only quacks in logic ever pretend to cure all mistakes of 
 the understanding by a single pill. The mind, like the body, is 
 
24 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Coups d'etat in arguments the dreani of quacks in logic. 
 
 subject to a variety of maladies, and requires studious and diverse 
 treatment, and oftentimes an intimate personal knowledge of the 
 patient. Men believe in Theism as they fall in love in their youth. 
 Some marry a dimple, some raven locks, some laughing lips, and some 
 laughing eyes. One man is attracted by graceful carriage, another bj 
 graceful dress. A splendid shawl, an ancient family, a desirable 
 fortune, are the stars that lure many to the hymeneal altar. Some 
 marry from antagonism, wedding some lady they do not want, in ordei 
 to spite some lady whom they do want. But in time the dimple dis- 
 appears, and the raven locks turn grey, the laughing lips are silent; 
 and the laughing eyes are sad, the graceful carriage disappears, and 
 the graceful dress is worn out, the splendid cashmere fades, the ancient 
 family will not own you, the desirable fortune is spent, but the attach- 
 ment is continued from habit, though it probably began in defective 
 taste. 
 
 Something analogous to this occurs in conversions to Theism. Some 
 men are won over by miracles, others are astonished out of theii' 
 reason by prophecies. The doctrine of inspiration seduces many 
 Great names, paraded on the side of Christianism, attract numbers. 1 
 The antiquity of a creed, the reputation of a preacher, the fashion- 
 ableness of a congregation, draw others into the fold. Arguments^ 
 a priori, a posteriori, philological, critical, metaphysical, and consola- 
 tory, have charms for the intellectual or the sorrowing. Some attach 
 themselves to Theism because they dislike Atheists, and others be- 
 cause they would rather account for the mystery of life badly, than 
 not account for it at all. 
 
 At length moments of reflection occur, and free inquiry leads tc 
 doubt. Miracles seem the arguments of the ignorant ; prophecy seems] 
 beside the question, and no proof of moral truth. Inspiration 
 proved to be defective. Great names are found on every side which] 
 has any historic tradition. Antiquity is discovered not to belong to Chris- 
 tianity only ; fashionableness of society is but a poor argument for sj 
 profession of opinion that ought to be built upon the conscience: 
 Arguments are seen to have two sides, and require the honest intel- 
 lect to watch the balance of probabilities, in which all speculative 
 problems have to be weighed. It is felt that true consolation coined 
 from action, and not from creeds. But he who has once committed 
 himself to error, finds himself bound by a thousand ties it is hard tc 
 unloose, and he continues to profess, from convenience, the faith he 
 adopted from ignorance, from indolence, from caprice, from impatience: 
 or from fear. 
 
 Men ought to act in religion as they ought to act in love. Their 
 object ought to be to marry worth, and worship truth. Then' 
 beauty might fade, and fortune vanish, but affection wculd remain till 
 death. Then false creeds might change, and erroneous reasons migh< 
 be abandoned, but the star of truth would shine before us for ever— 1 
 light to the wandering, guidance to the brave, and hope to the weak. 
 
UNDERSTANDING A CONDITION OF BELIEF. 25 
 
 Dr. Parr's retort, and Pascal's experiment. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING A CONDITION OF BELIEF.* 
 
 When one said to Dr. Parr, that 'he would believe in nothing 
 that he did not understand,' the Doctor is said to have replied, ' Then, 
 young man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I know.' 
 Yet what harm is there in being as this young man ? Better to have 
 i short creed which you do understand, than a long one which you do 
 not. The world has no time to discover what men really know, and 
 so it is easily imposed upon by large pretensions of knowing. Neither 
 the individual nor society is served by this. Is it not Bacon who says, 
 ;hat if there were let out of most men's minds all fancies, conjectures, 
 «id rumours, the residue of pure knowledge would be very small ? If 
 3acon's experiment were tried, it would be like pricking a balloon, 
 she collapse would be so obvious. It is true, all time over, that the 
 rogs wish to be as large as the oxen ; but, as JEsop warns us, all vain 
 puffing out is not merely ridiculous, it is dangerous. 'Whatever 
 knowledge,' says Bacon, ' men cannot at all work upon and convert, 
 s a mere intoxication, and ends in the dissolution of the mind and 
 jnderstanding.' 
 
 If we believe in matter which we cannot understand, that is no 
 •eason why we should also believe in spirit which the Theist cannot 
 inderstand. But do we believe in what we do not understand, except 
 Ji cases in which we believe upon authority ? In philosophic 
 nquiry, however, belief is supposed to rest, not upon authority, but upon 
 evidence. This form of objection is put: — It is urged that 'we do 
 Delieve that grass grows, though we do not know ichy it grows. Yet 
 since we believe in its growth, it is clear that we do believe in what we 
 io not understand.' The answer is this : — ' Our belief is limited to the 
 iact that grass does grow, and does not include ivhy it grows.' When 
 some one told Pascal that Sunday was a day of rest, it occurred to him to 
 tscertain whether nature rested on that day; and being a mathe- 
 matician, he went out in the evening of Saturday, and measured 
 certain blades of grass in a field, and on Monday morning he measured 
 ihem again, when he found that the grass had grown during the time, 
 imd that Nature (and, according to the Theist, the God of Nature) 
 iiad been Sabbath-breaking. Now Pascal knew that grass grew, 
 m had evidence of it ; he therefore rationally believed that grass did 
 jrow ; but this belief that grass did grow, in no way included a belief 
 is to why it grew. The fact was clear, the cause was as much hidden 
 is before. Now, all rational belief is of this restricted nature. The 
 )elief relates to processes, and not to causes — to operations, and not to 
 
 | * This chapter is virtually a continuation of the preceding one, but placed under this 
 itie as bringing further out the purport of both. 
 4 
 
26 THE TRIAE OF THEISM. 
 
 What the properties of matter accomplish, and how far man assists. 
 
 essences. Men believe that the sun shines, but do not believe why 
 it shines ; for no one has explained why. Men believe in the laws of j 
 light. They believe there is light, but do not believe in the nature of] 
 light ; for no one has laid satisfactory evidence before the world 
 on the subject. Physical philosophers do not believe why the 
 sun shines, because they do not understand why. Faraday does not 
 believe in the essential nature of the principle of light, because he does I 
 not understand what it is. His wise and cautious beliefs (in matters j 
 of science) are limited to processes and conditions which he £an' 
 understand.* 
 
 The limited part man can but play in the great field of nature, I 
 either in act or understanding, has been put in a striking way by I 
 James Mill, in the opening of his ' Elements of Political Economy." 
 'It is found,' he writes, ' that the agency of man can be traced to very: 
 simple elements. He does nothing but produce motion. He can moves 
 things towards one another, and he can separate them from one! 
 another. The properties of matter perform the rest. He moves! 
 ignited iron to a portion of gunpowder, and an explosion takes place. 
 He moves the seed to the ground, and vegetation commences. He; 
 separates the plant from the ground, and vegetation ceases. Why, or 
 how, these effects take place, he is ignorant. He has only ascertained, 
 by experience, that if he perform such and such motions, such and 
 such events are the consequence. In strictness of speech, it is matter 
 itself which produces the effects. All that men can do, is to place 
 the objects of nature in a certain position. The tailor, when he makes 
 a coat, the farmer, when he produces corn, do but the same thin^ 
 Each performs a set of motions ; the properties of matter accomplish 
 the rest. It would be absurd to ask, to which of any two effects the 
 properties of matter contribute the most ; seeing they contribute 
 everything, after certain portions of matter are placed in a certain 
 position.' One of the off-hand arguments of modern invention is this :- 
 
 'What is life? 
 
 ' You do not know — nor do I. 
 
 ' God, therefore, is the source of life.'f 
 
 This affects to meet the difficulty ; but it does not remove it. As; 
 an argument it stands thus : — 
 
 What is life ? 
 
 I do not know. 
 
 You do not know. 
 
 Therefore we both know — that is, we both know that God is its 
 source. 
 
 The safer way of reasoning is, ' where you know nothing, to 
 say nothing.' Thoughtful men require that the difficulties that have 
 ' accumulated on their course of religious faith be removed, and that: 
 
 * In matters of theology he repudiates the prudence of science. Vide his ' Observations 
 on Mental Education.' 
 
 t Thomas Cooper. 
 
UNDERSTANDING A CONDITION OF BELIEF. 
 
 Laxity of belief characteristic of modern Theism. 
 
 not by the dishonest process of shutting their eyes to them, but by the 
 manly and candid one of thinking more deeply.'* The Atheist is one 
 not unwilling to believe, he is simply unable. His position is, that he 
 does not see sufficient evidence in proof of Theism, and he endeavours 
 to limit his affirmations to what he can explain or prove. His 
 language is proportioned (as it should be with all men who do not 
 mean to deceive) to what he knows. And there is grave reason for 
 the rule. ' The constant presence of words in the mind slackens its 
 curiosity by leading it to believe that, in fact, it knows what it does 
 not know.'f 
 
 Without understanding, worship is a risk. Men know not whether 
 they worship the right Being or not. Manner of existence, we 
 repeat, is the only clue to the identity of a hidden existence. But of 
 what are we sure, when Sir Isaac Xewton tells us that ' God exists 
 to us in a manner altogether unknown f\ The Rev. W. Wollaston 
 very clearly owns that comprehension will form but a small part of 
 Theistical credence : — ' The manner of God's existence is above all 
 conception; neither infinite space, nor infinite duration, nor matter 
 infinitely extended, nor externally existing, nor any nor all of these 
 taken together, can be God.'§ 
 
 All men disbelieve in the idea of God at various periods of reflective 
 life, and would continue to do so, in many cases, were they not indolent or 
 cowardly — indolent in not seeking the path of Nature when the path 
 of Theology is closed ; cowardly in not daring to risk all upon 
 the issue of the understanding. || The only purpose of controversy is 
 to satisfy the understanding. The Theist who makes a dark problem 
 plain, carries him who observes it captive. Give me a case with 
 which I can dare the judgment of others, and I thank you — give me 
 the unanswerable word, and I shall be proud to speak it. But should 
 I willingly propose to others a case I cannot defend, or pronounce a 
 ivord I cannot explain ? 
 
 A practical toleration has however been established, through 
 sceptical criticism. So little is really known, as Christians now 
 idiscover, concerning Deity, that when men are pressed to declare 
 their knowledge, they are afraid of exposing that little — and 
 any man who chooses to employ the name of God in a newspaper 
 article, or a vestry speech, and takes an oath as though conscience was 
 a caprice, passes in any society. He may hold any office, or be received 
 in any company, provided he keeps clear of association with suspected 
 •sects. What he means by ' God' few will ask him ; and if any do, 
 any pretension is admitted — any evasion is accepted. You may call 
 
 * North British Review, No. 43, p. 114. 
 
 t Taylor's 'Physical Theory of Another Life,' p. 150. Quoted in ' Familiar Words,' p. 147. 
 
 % Brucker : Chalmers' Biog. Diction. Art. Newton. 
 
 § ' Religion of Nature Delineated.' 
 
 (! It does not appear, from any true history or experience of the mind's progress, that 
 any man, by formal deductions of his discursive power, ever reasoned himself into the 
 belief of a God.— En. Brit., p. 30*. Art. Moral Philosophy. 
 
28 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The pre-Lutheran doctrine of ignorance being the source of reverence, still extant. 
 
 God Mind, or Power, or Will,* or Spirit, or Love, or Law, or Life, 
 or Light, or Intellect — anything — and anything will do ; or you may 
 fall back on consciousness, that new retreat of the bewildered, and 
 confess you do not know, but you feel. If you neither know, nor see, 
 nor apprehend, you may profess to feel— feeling will do — no man can 
 deny that, and no man can challenge it. If you assert without proof 
 that which defies proof, it will be accepted for proof. If you, 
 however, confess to having a conscience — to employing serious 
 thought upon so great a subject — to be desirous of defining what you- 
 believe, and of believing only in that for which you find rational 
 and sufficient evidence — if you make your words the honest measure 
 of all you really know (little or much), then indeed you run the risk 
 of being driven from the Court of Law, and distrusted in society. 
 All this is the demoralisation of determined understanding and 
 fearless veracity, which are the true glory and strength of man. 
 
 The doctrine of the pre-Lutheran days still holds its ground 
 among us under new forms — namely, that blind faith is the sure source 
 of reverence. In his ' Study of Words,' Dean Trench has some remarks 
 which are an answer to this latent error, and which are an honour to 
 the pen of a priest : — ' We indeed hear it not seldom said that ignorance 
 is the mother of admiration. .No falser word was ever spoken, and 
 hardly a more mischievous one ; implying, as it does, that this 
 healthiest exercise of the mind rests, for the most part, on a deceit 
 and a delusion, and that with better knowledge it would cease ; while, 
 in truth, for once that ignorance leads us to admire that which with 
 fuller insight we should perceive to be a common thing, and one 
 demanding therefore no such tribute; a hundred, nay a thousand 
 times, it prevents us from admiring that which is admirable indeed. 
 And this is so, whether we are moving in the region of God's 
 wonders, or in the region of art, which is the region of man's 
 wonders.' 
 
 Beware of those who deride understanding as the test of belief. 
 Only forgetful people or weak people make this objection. A true 
 thinker knows that men cannot understand too much. A pure Super- 
 stition is that worship in which men understand nothing. A pure 
 Rationalism is that system in which men understand everything. 
 When you lay down the proposition that men ought not to believe 
 what they do not understand, narrow people take alarm at once — 
 for all they know, you may call upon them to explain how much 
 they understand, and this would never do. So they stand up stoutly 
 for the right of believing what you want, and understanding what 
 you can. 
 
 The Theologian is rather an obstructer than an instructor. He is 
 not a Path-finder, he rather blocks new paths up. He seeks to pacify, 
 not to gratify, the inquirer. Suppose that Euclid, instead of explain- 
 
 * ' My faith is this:— God is the Absolute Will: it is his Name and the meaning of it.'— 
 Coleridge's Table Talk, June 23, 1834. Also Liter. Remains, Vol. III. 
 
UNDERSTANDING A CONDITION OF BELIEF. 
 
 Basil Montague's description of the intellect of Bacon. 
 
 ing and demonstrating the. properties of lines and angles, had called 
 upon men to reverence the mystery of Mathematics ; we should now 
 have a creed of geometry, instead of a science of geometry ; and our 
 architects would have been priests, believing in houses and bridges, 
 instead of building them. Thus priests have acted with regard to the 
 properties of nature. They have deified what they should have 
 studied, and they conceal their timidity, their incompetence, or their 
 indolence, under the guise of reverence. One is tempted to say that 
 if Deity cared for reverence at all, he would provide himself with 
 better worshippers. 
 
 The conquest the clergy should promote is the conquest made by 
 intellect. The faculties to be called forth are those which Basil 
 Montague ascribed to Lord Bacon. There never lived a man, except 
 Aristotle, to whom the same terms could be applied. The perfection 
 of the human power was never so happily described before : — 
 4 His noblest faculty was the understanding : it was sublime, clear, 
 
 and aspiring His discourse was almost as quick as intuition; 
 
 he was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding ; he could sooner 
 determine than we can dispute. Like the sun, his mind had both 
 light and agility ; it knew no rest but in motion ; no quiet but in 
 activity. It did not so properly apprehend as irradiate the object ; 
 
 not so much find, as make things intelligible He came into the 
 
 world a philosopher. He could see consequents yet dormant in their 
 principles, and effects yet unborn and in the womb of their causes ; 
 his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his 
 conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of predic- 
 tion; it rested in the notion without the smart of the experiment. 
 Could any difficulty have been proposed, his resolution would have 
 been as early as the proposal ; it could not have had time to settle into 
 doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his inquiries was an 
 Eureka ! an Eureka ! the offspring of his brain without the sweat of 
 his brow. There was with him no poring, no struggling with 
 memory, no straining for invention. His faculties were quick and 
 expedite ; they answered without knocking, they were ready upon the 
 first summons, there was freedom and firmness in all their operations.'* 
 
 There is no place for these faculties in theology, where Faith is 
 higher than Conduct, where all but one-sided inquiry is prohibited, 
 and Doubt is regarded as a crime. 
 
 * These words are borrowed by Montague, from one of Dr. South's Sermons, where he 
 describes the genius of Adam before his fall. 
 
30 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Intellectual histories of converted Sceptics a deficiency in polemics. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ETERNAL PROBLEM OF EVIL. 
 
 The author of a very suggestive volume, entitled ' Guesses at Truth,' 
 advises men to acquire the habit of writing or speaking as well as they 
 can, and to let that pass : not to go back and mend it, and ptch it up, 
 but to go right on. He says we should act upon the spontaneity of 
 our thoughts, and believe in the efficiency of present expression. We 
 fall into negligency of thought unless we do this. We are not careful 
 to do the best we can at the moment, thinking we can go back after- 
 wards and correct errors. If we suffer ourselves to fall into such a 
 habit, we lose the faculty of putting forth all our powers and best 
 attention at once. We are never ready for the highest impromptu 
 action. Our powers become second-hand, and are always lying behind 
 the occasion. Circumstances force upon the writer this impromptu 
 exercise, and he prays the reader to accept the explanation as account- 
 ing for rugged passages which have had no revision, and want it. 
 
 There has been a good deal of speculation as to the profession of 
 Job. Might he not have been a controversialist lecturer, or would 
 he have exclaimed, ' O that mine enemy would write a book ?' The 
 pen is so much more reliable than the tongue. Rousseau, with all his 
 caprices, set a valuable example in writing his ' Confessions.' If all 
 the clergy who have condemned Rousseau had gone and done like- 
 wise, we should now be in possession of valuable data on which to 
 found theological criticism. It is to be hoped that Thomas Cooper 
 will do himself the justice, and us the service, of writing a history of 
 his religious opinions. The history of every mind would not be worth 
 reading, for some people never think at all, or think foolishly ; but an 
 expository record of the changes of conviction in any thoughtful, 
 capable, and converted Sceptic, would possess instruction. The want 
 of such personal narratives have enabled the clergy to assume conver- 
 sions to have taken place in the case of many who were never 
 Sceptics at all. It is time that some arrangement existed among 
 Sceptics for ascertaining not only what opinions are held, but why they 
 are held. Those who come after us will probably see all sects ranging 
 themselves under two great banners — those of Catholicism and of 
 Rationalism. Puseyism is drifting to Catholicism, and Evangelicalism is 
 drifting to Puseyism, and sooner or later Catholicism must be the logical 
 end of all who accept the Bible as the basis of a Church. And it is time 
 that the great party of Freethought, which has now the right to think 
 as it pleases, should please to declare what it does think, and why it 
 thinks what it does. We shall then know how to judge conversions 
 when they are reputed to occur. 
 
 That Thomas Cooper's conversion, for instance, to which reference 
 
THE ETERNAL PROBLEM OF EVIL. 31 
 
 The three popular ' Causes of Infidelity ' considered. 
 
 has been made, is a matter of feeling* rather than logic, is corroborated 
 by the attempts made by him to reconcile physical and social evil 
 among animals and men, with the existence, wisdom, and goodness of 
 God. Upon the theory that his new views have come to him, 
 by way of the understanding, it is difficult to tell what particular 
 argument has had most weight with him. He appears to have been 
 converted by everything at once. The argument of Design, the 
 Immortality of the Soul, the doctrine of a Moral Governor of the 
 universe, the Existence and Attributes of Deity, are but a few of the 
 positions he undertakes to defend. Indeed, upon becoming a Theist, 
 he appears, if one may use a profane simile, to have taken to the 
 whole stock in trade, lease and fixtures, of all the Theologians. It 
 will however appear, upon examination, that he has purchased a 
 great many worthless articles ; that he has been greatly imposed 
 upon, since the logical value of his principal goods in the market of 
 reason is much lower than he has been led to believe. 
 
 He assigns three causes of ' Infidelity,' which we are left to suppose 
 had formerly influenced himself : — 
 
 I. The bad example of many religious professors, which led many 
 to give up religion as dishonest. 
 
 II. The repression of free inquiry by Christians, which led many 
 to give up Christianity as timid. 
 
 III. The existence of oppression, contemporaneously with religion, 
 which led many to distrust it as impotent. 
 
 The bad example of reputedly pious men may lead men to doubt 
 the moral efficacy of creeds ; but it can never affect the facts — if any 
 — upon which the creeds themselves may be founded. Certainly 
 many Christians are better than their creeds. The second cause 
 assigned has force in it. The repression of inquiry, where attempted, 
 no doubt does, and ought to, create distrust of Christianism. 
 
 Very naturally oppression irritates men and makes them antago- 
 nistic. But every educated Freethinker is taught to watch against 
 mere antagonism as misleading, and to found his disbelief on dis- 
 passionate and independent reasons. The universal cause of Scepti- 
 cism, and reason of its permanence, is the discovery of the insufficient 
 evidence offered on the side of Theism. 
 
 Mr. Cooper exclaimed, ' God does hear the cry of the oppressed.' 
 Would that it were true ! One can only say very sorrowfully, that 
 looking at the state of France, Italy, and Hungary, it would seem that 
 if the cry be heard, it is not attended to. And it only does mischief to 
 hold out the hope where there is no realisation.f 
 
 How are we to get at the moral or intellectual character of Deity 
 by the methods of natural theology ? 
 
 * On the subject of ' Theism of the Heart,' we may in this place refer the reader to a 
 paper by L. H. Holdreth, in Reasoner No. 573. 
 
 t Answers to several theological points, not noticed in these pages, may be seen in ' A 
 Reply to Thomas Cooper's Recent Lectures.' By Robert Cooper. 1856. 
 
 
32 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The conclusions of Theism more disquieting than those of Atheism. 
 
 Suppose we grant that everything is designed. ' Has every pebble 
 washed up by the sea, has every bone imbedded in the mud,' a 
 definite mission ' to lie where it lies ?' ' To become,' says Mr. 
 Newman, ' an agent of cruelty in tormenting a martyr, would be a 
 crime-: yet if nothing but the immediate will of God, exerted as 
 directly as by the torturer, makes the scourge to cut, and the flesh to 
 feel, then God is an accomplice in the crime.' The Theist says ' No ; 
 God has not designed these enormities.' Then we remind the objector 
 that if God has not designed them, He permits them ; and we recur to 
 the lines of Darwen — 
 
 ' He who allows oppression shares the crime.' 
 
 Talk of Atheism revolting the moral sense ! Is not this Theology 
 revolting? It is surely far more reverential in Atheism to say 
 humbly, ' I know not how these things are,' than for an impatient 
 and reckless Theism to suggest these tumultuous perplexities to men ? 
 
 Where next does the Theist retreat ? He confesses God does not 
 design all things in detail. He acts by general laws. But you never 
 can discover the attributes of God in general laws. Mr. Newman 
 admits you can no more detect God's moral thoughts, in the detailed 
 actions of material objects, than you can detect the affections of a 
 watchmaker by inspecting his watch.* The same time-piece that 
 warns the victim when to escape, instructs the murderer when to 
 strike. The same fire that warms the lost and torpid traveller, makes 
 the flesh of the martyr to quiver in the flames. All the Theist can do 
 is to re-urge, ' God governs by general laws.' Then where do the 
 exceptions come from ? We die through the misapplication, or mis- 
 understanding of general laws. How do the misapplications and 
 misunderstandings come about ? If God does not design them, nor 
 permit them, who does, or what does ? The Theist does not know, 
 and yet it is the Theist who complains that Atheism accounts for so 
 little, and adopts Theism because it explains so much ! — that Theism 
 which cannot explain the most tremendous and obvious difficulties 
 that lie at the door of humanity. It is far better to die in quiet and 
 confessed ignorance, than to be tormented by this terrible and 
 pretended knowledge. 
 
 In the universe, the Theist remarks (what none deny) magnificent 
 evidences of order. He cannot believe that this ' could exist without 
 there being a purpose in it.' Granting that there is general order, the 
 question is, whence does it arise ? Is it inherent in Nature, or is it 
 impressed upon Nature by a Power outside of Nature ? Our answer 
 is, that order appears to be 'inherent' in Nature. All effects 
 proceed from causes. But the universe is not an effect : we say so, 
 because it is impossible to conceive of causes which could have produced 
 it. At least we ought not to affirm it was created, until we 
 can conceive how something could be produced out of nothing. 
 
 * Vide ' Soul,' p. 37. 2nd Ed. 
 
THE ETERNAL, PROBLEM OF EVIL. 33 
 
 The presumption of the Theist compared with the criticism of the Atheist. 
 
 * Something ' is self- existent, by its very nature. "What is that 
 something ? We answer, that which is indestructible is that which 
 was uncreated. Matter is indestructible, and, no doubt, is the 
 uncreated eternal self- existence. The only great cause conceivable is 
 Nature. 
 
 Assuming that order exists, what is its nature ? It is not perfect 
 order, because painful proofs of disorder exist. Is the purpose of order, 
 such as it is, the happiness of man ? All we are justified in saying is, 
 that this order is compatible with happiness, and is, indeed, a basis of 
 it. More no man can declare, without assuming himself capable of 
 penetrating the inscrutable issues of the universe. 
 
 It is said that there are arrangements in the universe which 
 answer, on a large scale, all the purposes of benevolence. This may 
 be granted ; yet it has to be observed that there are arrangements also 
 which end in misery. If we are to judge from merely human reason, 
 it is impossible that these double arrangements would proceed from a 
 Being all-Good, all-Wise, and all-Powerful. If we are not to judge 
 these things from mere human reason, then Theism cannot be proved 
 agreeable to human reason, for you cannot at the same time appeal to 
 human reason, and disown it. 'Why does a system of prey exist in 
 the animal and social worlds ?' It is said races of animals would else 
 overstock the earth. But why should animals be created in excess ; 
 only that the required portion should live in terror, and the excess 
 die in convulsive agony ? Why should the poor fly live in terror of the 
 spider's web ? Why should the shoal fish dread the jaws of the shark ? 
 Why should the pigeon dart in alarm from the hawk, or the timid 
 hare from the fangs of the dog ? Why should the negro perish under 
 the hands of the white? Why should so many poor men be the 
 hopeless prey of destitution ? It is of no use to allege that it is a law 
 of nature that the weak shall fall before the strong. Why are 
 there any weak, and why are the strong made savage f It is not I 
 who raise these painful questions, it is the Theist. The anti- 
 Theist allows it to be as absurd as it is useless, for a man to 
 commence objecting to the world in which he finds himself. 
 He does not dictate to God; nor obtrude himself forward as the 
 mouth-piece of God; nor, with incredible presumption, attempt to 
 justify the ways of God to man ; nor does he profess to discover the 
 designs of God. He neither criticises nor complains. He criticises 
 Theism ; and it is very dirferent from criticising the confessed 
 actuality of God, to criticising what one regards as wholly misleading 
 accounts of a hidden existence. 
 
 Some, unable to account for the presence of evil in the world, 
 persuade themselves there is a use for it. To such the reply is brief. 
 Do you tell us that evil is necessary discipline, and is the condition 
 of good ? Then we ask, why do you not take steps to increase evil, 
 that discipline may abound, and good be universal ? If this doctrine 
 be true, the hospital is an heretical institution, and medicine is a blas- 
 phemous profession. The gout is a stimulus to Heaven, and the 
 5 
 
34 THE TRIAL OF THEISM, 
 
 The one philosophy with which we comhat evil. 
 
 toothe-ache an unappreciated blessing. It does not matter what a 
 theorist says. We know what he secretly feels by his practice. Do 
 we not all combat evil ? Do we not count it the triumph of humanity 
 when we conquer misery ? Does not the Idealist dream of perfection ? 
 Does not the Philanthropist toil for it ? Does not the Poet paint the 
 golden age ? Does not the heart of the world yearn for the Millennium ? 
 We believe, then, the absence of evil to be possible, and know it to be 
 desirable. Since, then, we believe universal Happiness to be possible, 
 how dare Theism say God could not make good without evil ? And 
 since we feel the abolition of misery to be the passion of all good men, 
 how dare Theism say that a good God has designed the suffering which I 
 makes the breast to sigh, and the earth to seem sad? There is j 
 far more reason in Atheism which confesses, ' all this is not to be \ 
 understood ; ' and far more reverence in Atheism which refuses 
 to ascribe suffering to God ; and far more modesty in Atheism which i 
 prefers to maintain silence where speech is a contradiction of itself, or , 
 an imputation upon Deity. 
 
 We no longer live in a state of society, where the strong man 
 knocks with impunity the weak man on the head ; but we do live in 
 a state where Capital is selfishly despotic, and Knowledge a monopoly. 
 In every English town, thousands hold their lives at the caprices of I 
 commerce, or are liable to be thrown out of employment by the 
 accident of a new invention. Homes are broken up, household gods 
 are sold off, and penniless and despairing families march away, to 
 struggle for precarious bread at the diggings of Australia; 
 or to perish in cultivating the swamps of the Mississippi. 
 Wisdom is the perquisite of the rich. Education makes the few 
 giants, and ignorance keeps the many dwarfs. The instructed talk in 
 tongues the people cannot communicate in; they live in realms of 
 thought the people can never enter ; they create and control influences 
 the people can never counteract. Wealth and Intellect will indeed 
 bring blessings to all in due time ; but who will save those who perish 
 while the blessing is coming ? No man's heart can tell him so clearly 
 that God exists, as every man's heart tells him that all human misery 
 should be averted. We appeal to all who have felt the sharp pang of 
 inevitable horror, and fruitless hate. What is the lot of the poor but 
 to suffer and be impotent, and die like quarry slaves in the heart of 
 civilisation ? Living, men give up in despair, and accept the coward's 
 consolation of Theism. They may accept it who can. We prefer to 
 strive. Let whoever believes in God, believe that misery exists in spite 
 of Him ; and continues to fight against wrong and suffering, believing, 
 that if God exists, he stands on His side in doing so. Suffering 
 should not teach men dependence; it should teach men to combat. 
 There are many precepts, but there is but one virtue, and that is, to 
 work; there are many Finger-posts, but there is only one Path, the 
 path to truth ; there are many Theologies, but there is but one philo- 
 sophy, and its name is Fortitude.* 
 
 * Vide last words of the last note to the ' Last Days of Pompeii.' 
 
PHASES OF THEISM. 35 
 
 The history of the idea of Deity disproves its iunateness. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PHASES OF THEISM. 
 
 Theism is not old, it is new. It is not of primeval origin, but a com- 
 paratively modern growth. It came by elaboration, not by revela- 
 tion. The disproof of the alleged innate idea of Deity has been 
 expressed in decisive language, by a recent writer : — 
 
 4 No doubt there existed in the human mind from the very beginning 
 J something, whether we call it a suspicion, an innate idea, an intuition, 
 lor a sense of the Divine power. What distinguishes man from the 
 [rest of the animal creation is chiefly that ineradicable feeling of 
 I dependence and reliance upon some higher power [the power of 
 Nature], a consciousness of bondage from Avhich the very name of 
 I" religion " was derived. The presence of that power was felt every- 
 where, and nowhere more clearly and strongly than in the rising and 
 [setting of the sun, in the change of day and night, of spring and 
 [winter, of birth and death. But, although the Divine presence [of 
 : Nature] was felt everywhere, it was impossible in that early period of 
 khought, and with a language incapable as yet of expressing anything 
 I but material objects, to conceive the idea of God in its purity and 
 Ifulness, or to assign to it an adequate and worthy expression. Children 
 j cannot think the thoughts of men, and the poets of the Veda could 
 not speak the language of Aristotle. It was by a slow process that 
 | the human mind elaborated the idea of one absolute and supreme 
 j Godhead [it is not yet elaborated] ; and by a still slower process that 
 the human language matured a word to express that idea. A period 
 of growth was inevitable, and those who, from a mere guess of their 
 own, do not hesitate to speak authoritatively of a primeval revelation 
 which imparted to the pagan world the idea of the Godhead in all its 
 purity, forget that, however pure, and sublime, and spiritual that 
 revelation might have been, there was no language capable as yet of 
 Expressing the high and immaterial conceptions of that Heaven-sent 
 message. The real history of religion during the earliest mytho- 
 logical period, represents to us a slow process of fermentation in thought 
 and language, with its various interruptions, its overflowings, its 
 coolings, its deposits, and its gradual clearing from all extraneous and 
 foreign admixture. This is not only the case in India, in Greece, and 
 in Germany. In Peru, and wherever the primitive formations of the 
 intellectual world crop out, the process is exactly the same. " The 
 religion of the sun," as it has been boldly said by the author of the 
 i Spanish Conquest in America," " was inevitable." It was like a deep 
 furrow which that heavenly luminary drew, in its silent procession 
 from east to west, over the fallow mind of the gazing multitude, and 
 in the impression left there by the first rising and setting of the sun, 
 
36 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Origin of the idea of God in different nations. 
 
 there lay the dark seed of a faith in a more than human being, the 
 first intimation of a life without beginning, of a world without end. 
 Manifold seed fell afterwards into the soil once broken. Something 
 divine was discovered in everything that moved and lived. Names 
 were stammered forth in anxious haste [it is still the case], and no 
 single name could fully express what lay hidden in the human mind 
 and wanted expression, the idea of an absolute, and perfect, and 
 supreme, and immortal Being.'* [This is still the problem of Theism.] 
 
 Muscatel, a little boy, once asked, why a new cat ran away from 
 him when he stroked it ? He was told, that she was strange ; and that 
 when she became used to us, she would stop and purr. Shortly after, 
 a new Parisian lamp was introduced into the house ; but the first 
 efforts to light it proving unsuccessful—' Father,' exclaimed Muscatel, 
 ' will the lamp burn when it is used to us ?' Muscatel believed in the 
 Personality of the lamp ; and, with a very little persuasion, he would 
 have believed in its Divinity too.f Such has been the origin of Gods 
 in the infantine ages of the human race. 
 
 The beginning of religion was Fetichism. * In its simplest form, 
 Fetichism ascribes divine virtue to some common object ; to a stone, a 
 beast, a tree, or a scrap of writing. Any of these may be made a god, 
 an amulet, or talisman ; or may vary from the one character to the 
 other.' | . 
 
 Dr. Reid remarks :—' When we turn our attention to external 
 objects, we find either the objects must have life and active power, as 
 we have, or they must be moved or changed by something that_ has 
 
 life or active power Our first thoughts seem to be that the objects i 
 
 in which we perceive such motion, have understanding and active j 
 power as we have. " Savages," says the Abbe Raynal, " wherever J 
 they see motion which they cannot account for, there they suppose a 
 soul. All men may be considered as savages in this respect, until I 
 they are capable of instruction, and of using their faculties in a more 
 perfect manner than savages do." The Abbe Raynal's observation is I 
 sufficiently confirmed, both from fact, and from the structure of all 
 languages. Rude nations do really believe sun, moon, and stars, earth, j 
 sea, and air, fountains and lakes, to have understanding and active power. P 
 To pay homage to them, and to implore their favour, is a kind of I 
 
 idolatry natural to savages We still say the sun rises and sets, I 
 
 and comes to the meridian, the moon changes, the sea ebbs and flows, 1 
 the winds blow. Languages were formed by men, who believed these 
 objects to have life and active power in themselves.'§ 
 
 It will be said in reply, if such be the case, why has it not been 
 more universally evident to man? The answer is, time and cultivation 
 are required to make the clearest truths universally evident. Men I 
 
 * Times, April 17th, 1857. Art. ' Buddhist Pilgrims.' 
 
 t Especially if his young understanding had been imposed upon, as Beattie imposed upon 
 his son, in his garden. — Vide Beattie's ' Life.' 
 
 % Professor Newman. 'The Soul, 'chap. i.,§ 1. And Grote's' Hist, of Greece,' vol. i., p. 464. 
 § Vide J. S. Mill's ' System of Logic' Vol. I., pp. 364—5. 3rd edition. 
 
PHASES OF THEISM. 87 
 
 The mental law which accounts for the idea of God. 
 
 not only believe what they fancy ought to he true, but they come to 
 believe it to be true in the absence of all evidence whatever. 
 
 Humboldt has remarked, that ' long before the discovery of the New 
 World, it was thought land could be seen in the west, from the 
 Canaries and the Azores. They were phantasms not produced by any 
 extraordinary refraction of the rays of light ; but merely by a longing 
 [for the distant, for that which lies beyond the present.'* 
 
 There is a law of the human mind, in its uncultured state, which 
 leads to these aberrations, and which accounts for the origin of 
 j superstitions, and for their long life. 'Error,' as W. J. Fox once 
 i said, ' always dies game.' This law of error has been ascertained now. 
 jit is stated thus by Mr. J. Stuart Mill, in his great work, which 
 has become an acknowledged authority on laws of thought : — 
 4 There is, then, a spontaneous tendency of the intellect to account 
 to itself for all cases of causation, by assimilating them to the inten- 
 tional acts of voluntary agents like itself. This is the instinctive 
 philosophy of the human mind in its earliest stage, before it has 
 become familiar with any other invariable sequences than those 
 between its own volitions and its voluntary acts. As the notion of 
 fixed laws of succession among external phenomena gradually 
 2stablishes itself, the propensity to refer all phenomena to voluntary 
 agency, slowly gives way before it. The suggestions, however, of 
 daily life, continuing to be more powerful than those of scientific 
 thought, the original instinctive philosophy maintains its ground in 
 the mind underneath the growths obtained by cultivation, and keeps 
 up a constant resistance to their throwing their deep roots into the 
 soiL't 
 
 The Theism of this day is as yet little more than a sublimated and 
 disguised Fetichism. The Pantheist does not worship the several 
 parts, but he worships the whole of Nature. Just as Franklin 
 suggested, that grace should be said over the entire harvest, 
 instead of over each repast ; so the Pantheist, by one compendious 
 act of praise, economises his spiritual duties. The mere or- 
 thodox Theist is more idle and disrespectful still. He has neither 
 prayer nor praise for Nature. He has no wonder for its mysteries, 
 nor reverence for its power. He regards all its properties as 
 derived and second-hand. Its eternity, its self- subsistence, its self- 
 action, excite in him no awe. He has no penetration to discern, and 
 no wish to understand, more than certain Jewish fishermen happened 
 to communicate eighteen centuries ago. He sees in Nature nothing 
 but blind matter, which goes drudging along, under the surveillance 
 of an External Taskmaster. This glorious universe is, in the Theist's 
 eyes, nothing but an automaton, whose strings are pulled in another 
 sphere ; and he believes that one day the strings will be let go, and 
 then we shall have the ' wreck of matter and the crush of worlds,' 
 
 * The Rev. Baden Powell's ' Unity of Worlds,' p. 11. 
 t ' System of Logic.' Vol 1, pp. 365—6. 
 
38 THE TRIAL OF THEISM 
 
 Orthodox theories of Nature hleak and feehle. 
 
 and Calvin, Knox, and the Wesleyan Conference, the editor of the ! 
 British Standard and the author of the ' Eclipse of Faith,' Canon Stowell 
 and Mr. Spurgeon, will be caught up in the air with the sheep, and 
 everybody else will disappear with the goats. Such at least are the 
 characteristics of the prevailing faiths. The orthodox Theist despises 
 Nature, and the pure Theist ignores it. Instead of putting themselves 
 in patient and studious relations to it, they subordinate Nature, and 
 escape from humanity, and seek to propitiate by creeds and words the God 
 they invent ; instead of serving by life and works the Nature they find. 
 If it were useful to form theories without reference to facts or ex- 
 perience, Pantheism might be converted into the most attractive of 
 creeds. If Nature be God, let the fancy regard it as being propitiated 
 by Science. The stars shall sing as they shine, and we will have the 
 music of the spheres not merely in poetry, but in fact. Everything 
 shall speak with an audible voice. In the ring of the bell shall be 
 heard the exclamation of Nature on being struck, and in the rumbling 
 of the earth as the waggon moves over it, its groaning under the 
 weight of its oppression. The roar of the waters shall be the ex- 
 pression of their grand reluctance to rise from their fathomless beds, 
 the thunder peal shall be a sublime protest against being dragged from 
 its dreadful lair, and the flashing lightning shall be the evidence of 
 the hot indignation of the offended elements. Viewing the ever- 
 beautiful world, we will exclaim, with Wordsworth : — 
 
 ' So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive; 
 Would that the little flowers were born to live 
 Conscious of half the pleasure which they give. 
 That to this mountain daisy's self were known 
 The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown 
 On the smooth surface of this naked stone.' 
 
 Orthodoxy has dreams more groundless than these. But the office 
 of man is not to dream dreams, or have visions, but to trace facts, find 
 out the truth, and walk close to his great Teacher, Experience, and 
 Protector, Science. 
 
 Theism has three possible sources : — 
 
 1. Facts. 
 
 2. Inferences. 
 
 3. Consciousness. 
 
 Physical facts in favour of Theism there are none. Apart from 
 revelation, no one pretends that there ever was proof by facts of the 
 existence of Deity. Inferences unbased on facts are, at best, but 
 probable. All human reasonings can be but from the finite to the 
 infinite, and the small part we do see is inadequate to inform us of the 
 universe which we do not see. Our consciousness is but the echo of 
 human realities and personal experiences ; and we continually have 
 to employ facts and logic to correct our deepest impressions. A man 
 who shuts out and disuses experience and reason, and gives himself 
 up to unchecked consciousness, becomes a Theist of the Heart. He 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THEISM. 39 
 
 A summary of Theistical difficulties stated by the North British Review. 
 
 is not only one sided, lie is one-third sided. He in whom experience, 
 logic, and feeling are at the same time operative and unbiassed, can 
 find freedom for growth and development in Naturalism alone. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF THEISM. 
 
 The real difficulty of comprehending ' God,'* of reducing that con- 
 ception to an intelligible formula — the dislike of thinking men to 
 affect to account for the existence of phenomena by a Term instead of 
 by a Fact, and the repugnance of honest men to use a word which they 
 could not explain, has lain at the foundation of Atheism in all time. 
 Had there not been some intellectual conviction at the bottom of it 
 recurring to each generation, Atheism had not lived on from age to age. 
 
 ' Can God be known by man ? If a negative answer must be re- 
 turned to this question, our deepest feelings are, it seems, founded on 
 illusion, and human regard should be contracted within the limits 
 of this earthly life. Religious belief cannot be originated when its 
 nominal object is wholly unknown ; and all the words which express 
 what is called theological knowledge, should be excluded from lan- 
 guage as unmeaning sound. We cannot obtain such knowledge either 
 naturally or supernaturally. Can a being, in any sense, be " revealed" 
 who is absolutely incognisable ? Is not the revelation impossible, or, 
 at least, incapable of being attested by evidence ? But if this result is 
 at variance with our moral aspirations, and even with the necessities 
 of reason, an affirmative reply seems, on the other hand, involved in 
 inextricable intellectual difficulties. How can the infinite God be in any 
 way an object of our thoughts ? To conceive an object is, in some sense, 
 to define it. Definition implies limitation, and an infinite object cannot 
 be limited. Moreover, the unlimited Being is not only an incon- 
 ceivable Being. His very existence does not logically consist with the 
 existence of any other being besides. In every act of knowledge, I 
 must distinguish myself from the object known by me. Every object 
 that exists must, therefore, be either limited by the subtraction from it of 
 my finite being ; or, as infinite, must absorb me and all the universe into 
 itself. An infinite Being existing in plurality — as one among many — 
 seems an express contradiction, while the only logical solution of the 
 difficulty lands us in the doctrine of Spinoza. Atheism or Pantheism 
 are thus the only alternatives when the response to our question is 
 logically weighed.'f 
 
 We must honour the candour and perspicacity of the great Scottish 
 organ of religious criticism, that states the case of the Atheist with 
 so much fairness and penetration. 
 
 * ' There is hardly anything more inconceivable than how a thing should be of itself as 
 God is 1 ' — Tillotson : Sermon. 
 
 t North Brit. Rev., No. 43, pp. 113—14. 
 
40 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The essential condition of definition never complied with by Theists. 
 
 ' A difficulty was evidently felt by the poets of antiquity in framing 
 their preternatural stories. They found it easy enough to describe 
 men in a certain constitutional subjection to the Deities, and those 
 Deities themselves in various degrees of subordination, till they arrived 
 at Jupiter, the father of Gods and of men. But then came the hitch. 
 He was the son of Saturn, but how, and by what reaction of effects 
 upon causes, the son came to be master of a still existing father, was a 
 matter so difficult to be explained, that the explanations are many and 
 various. Then, who was the father of Saturn, and so on ? But, when 
 the genealogists had gone back as far as they could carry the patience 
 of their readers, there arose a far more serious question than all, which 
 continually creeps out even in the popular mythology of Homer. Who 
 governed the Gods ? Who imposed the laws, the objects, the bounds, 
 and the goal of their dominions ? Who made them what they were ? 
 Hence the convenient fiction of the Fates who governed gods and 
 men, and whom Jupiter was supposed to consult and obey so assidu- 
 ously, that in some instances he assumes the character of the " wise j 
 man " of popular magic, who merely interprets a superior will. But, ; 
 then, who made the Fates ? Did they make events, or were events i 
 self-made, and the Fates an abstraction, representing the order of \ 
 events ? In this way history, religion, poetry, and thought itself, were j 
 lost in the interminable search for the first great cause, the real 
 governor of the world, the ordainer of events, and the author of laws.' * 
 
 Men can ill comprise Nature in a definition ; how, then, can they i 
 hope to define Deity, a something which they set above Nature ? We ! 
 will borrow light upon this point from the law of definition laid down 
 by Mr. Mill : — ' It is not to be expected that there should be agreement 
 about the definition of a thing, until there is agreement about the thing 
 itself. To define a thing, is to select from among the whole of its pro- 
 perties those which shall be understood to be designated and declared 
 by its name ; and the properties must be well known to us before we 
 can be competent to determine which of them are fittest to be chosen 
 for this purpose.'f 
 
 Have men 'agreed about the thing' called Deity — are the 
 ' properties ' of Deity ' well known ? ' There is no Babel jargon 
 so loud, no contradictions anywhere in the world so direct, as 
 upon these very points. We are sure, therefore, nothing is yet 
 known on the subject, and Atheism, in giving its denial, in the face of 
 this mighty and incoherent clamour, is merely pronouncing a negation 
 of that which is rudeness to Nature and distraction to mankind. 
 
 It is said, that in mathematics we have an illustration of the imma- 
 teriality of Theistical Beings. Mathematical lines have no break, and 
 mathematical points no magnitude ; and yet these definitions lie at the 
 basis of the most definite and certain science in the world. The 
 answer to this, in the words of one]: who is an authority upon the 
 subject, is this : — ' This assumption, in the case of the definitions of 
 
 * Times, April 22, 1853. t A System of Logic, p. i. t John Stuart Mill. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THEISM. 41 
 
 Failure of mathematical analogies of Immaterialism. 
 
 geometry, is false : there exist no real things exactly conformable to 
 the definitions. There exist no points without magnitude, no lines 
 without breadth,* nor perfectly straight; no circles with all their 
 radii exactly equal, nor squares with all their angles perfectly right. 
 It will, perhaps, be said that the assumption does not extend to the 
 actual, but only to the possible existence of such things. I answer 
 that according to any test we have of possibility, they are not even 
 
 possible The points, lines, circles, and squares, which any one 
 
 has in his mind, are (I apprehend) simple copies of the points, lines, 
 
 circles, and squares which he has known in his experience Our 
 
 idea of a point I apprehend to be simply our idea of the smallest 
 
 portion of surface which we can see We cannot conceive a line 
 
 without breadth ; we can form no mental picture of such a line : all 
 the lines which we have in our minds are lines possessing breadth. If 
 any one doubts this, we may refer him to his own experience.'! 
 
 If the most abstract science ever conquered by man — the parent 
 science of all refinements in speculative thought in the world — must 
 thus bow to the omnipresence of material conditions, we must own 
 that Materialism is the universal link which connects humanity and 
 intellect to Nature. The idea of spirit, or mind, is that it is im- 
 material, has no qualities by which it becomes evident to the senses, 
 that it is not subject to the conditions of matter, that it is self-acting, 
 and originates motion ; that it has consciousness without a sensorium, 
 that it has thought without culture, and intellect without brain. The 
 great controlling mind is that which does not inhere in Nature, and is 
 no part of it. It gives law, but is itself above law. Now spirit, 
 taken as God above Nature, or as an element pervading Nature, is alike 
 unfruitful for study and unstable for trust. If we conceive of God as 
 possessing a definite intellectual constitution, His mind is subject to 
 law also, and that which is subject to law is part of a greater whole 
 than itself. Such a God is, therefore, not God in the strict Theistical 
 sense. A God who is bound by consistent attributes of justice, good- 
 ness, and wisdom, is under the same laws as humanity. Such a Deity 
 is not distinct from Nature. He is simply an extension of Nature, cut 
 off from all the planets by a few clouds and a gulf of thin space. If 
 it is said that Deity is clearly above law, and wholly independent of 
 law, we can learn nothing by the study of Him. We cannot allure 
 him by any praise, nor move him by any prayer. We cannot tell 
 why or when to trust Him. Existing without definite attributes, and 
 acting without rules, he affords neither instruction nor support. 
 
 ' Our minds cannot be satisfied,' remarks Professor Whewell, ' with 
 a series of successive, dependent causes and effects, without something 
 first and independent. We pass from effect to cause, and from 
 that to a higher cause, in search of something on which the mind 
 can rest; but if we can do nothing but repeat this process, there 
 is no use in it. We move our limbs, but make no advance. Our 
 
 * On p. 40, line 5 from bottom, for « break ' read breadth. 
 t System of Logic, vol. i., Book ii., chap, v., pp. 251-2. 
 
 6 
 
42 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Distinctions between the Deity of Theism and the Entity of Nature. 
 
 question is not answered, but evaded. The mind cannot acquiesce in 
 the destiny thus presented to it, of being referred from event to event, j* 
 from object to object, along an interminable vista of causation and fl 
 time. Now, this mode of stating the reply — to say that the mind can- j 
 not thus be satisfied, appears to be equivalent to saying that the f 
 mind is conscious of a principle, in virtue of which such a view as this i 
 must be rejected — the mind takes refuge in the assumption of a First f 
 Cause, from an employment inconsistent with its own nature.' 
 
 A conclusion is denied to the Atheist, who says so, and submits. The | 
 Theist refuses to acknowledge the law which protects God's secret from a 
 him, and assumes the secret.* The Atheist recognises the phenomenon '(i 1 
 of human intelligence, which he considers an attribute of organisation ; f 
 he also recognises in Nature manifestations greatly transcending the 'J 
 effects of human intelligence, but apparently of a different essence, as t 
 he fails to detect in them that personal consciousness inseparable from ';]: 
 human intelligence. Nature seems adequate to produce man as she J" 
 produces the flower and the star, which are as wonderful as man, at jjj 
 least more wonderful than the works man ever performs. But to say, I" 
 therefore, that Nature is intelligent, as we are, would lead us beyond our f 
 knowledge. If we call Nature intelligent, we endow it with con- f 
 sciousness ; and though Nature acts wonderfully, it does not appear to f 
 feel. The phenomena observed in Nature, the Atheist regards as the r 
 attributes of matter, as they appear (when traced somewhat) to be j" 
 To call these powers God, is to describe God as an attribute of matter, f 
 To evade this difficulty, others say God is a Spirit ; but when pressed F 
 to define what they mean by Spirit (as distinct from the attributes of f 
 matter), it always comes out that the Theist does not know what it is. r 
 Then, how does he know that the Atheist is wrong in calling Nature f 
 the only Infinite and Eternal Existence ? To call Nature God is no gain j 
 in exposition, for God is taken to be the name of that Being which is " A 
 not Nature, but the Being who preceded Nature — the Cause of Nature, J 
 the Ruler over Nature. To make God co-eternal with Nature, is to ¥ 
 concede to Nature the power of existing independently of God, in :| 
 which case God is not the Chief Existence, nor Almighty, nor Infinite, f 
 To make God co-diffused with Nature, as the Pantheist does, or as f 
 Pope does when he represents God as present in every star, and stone, f 
 and tree, is to identify God with Nature : he is no longer the Being f 
 prior to Nature, he is no longer the Infinite independent of Nature, f 
 If Nature be God's mode of manifestation, the God whom we seek is f 
 the Nature which we know. To say some Independent Being controls ¥ 
 and animates Nature, such a Being must be self-existent and supreme, V 
 distinct from the Universe, and more powerful than it — a second j J 
 self- existence governing the first. This is not a doctrine that clears up J 
 difficulties. 
 _ J 
 
 * The doctrine of an ' Infinite Series,' analogous to the difficulty put by Dr. Whewell, f 
 will be found discussed by ' Aliquis' (whom one not given to praise Secularists — the Rev. B. r 
 Grant — denominates one of their ' cleverest writers') in his controversial papers in reply to 
 AVilliam Gillespie. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THEISM. 43 
 
 The two aspects of Nature— unheeding those who Pray, teaching those who Study. 
 
 The existence of Nature all men own. It is the first fact of con- 
 sciousness. Man tries his powers upon it. He finds it boundless. 
 When he reaches what he fancies to be the confines of space, he in- 
 stantly imagines something beyond. In every direction the telescope 
 reveals what appears as limitless phenomena. Acknowledging its 
 xtent, man comes to inquire into its age. When did it originate ? 
 It could not have been created. Whence could it have come ? From 
 nothing ? That is impossible — at least, our powers cannot conceive 
 the operation. Did it come from something ? Then it was not created, 
 but produced from pre-existing materials. We recommence our in- 
 quiry at this point. Whence came these materials ? We can no more 
 xmceive how pre-existing materials could come from nothing, any 
 nore than present matter. Then did God create them ? But what is 
 his new existence which we have introduced under the name of God ? 
 Not matter, for then we must suppose that God and Nature are one. 
 [f God, to whom we refer, be not matter, what is he ? We have no 
 Dower to conceive of an existence utterly devoid of material attributes. 
 We then refer the origin of Nature to a Being whom it is impossible 
 :o conceive, who creates matter by a process which we cannot under- 
 hand. This is hardly making the confessed mystery of things plainer. 
 Ind if any persist in representing God as a Being, whether we under- 
 hand him or not, who created all things, we have a right to ask 
 
 where was God before anything existed ? Was there a time when 
 ;he God over all was God over nothing ? Can we believe that a God 
 wer nothing began to be out of nothing, and to create all things when 
 ;here was nothing ? Is it not easier to believe that this stupendous 
 md mighty frame of Nature always was, and that what seems to be 
 .nfinite was also eternal ? He, however, who adopts this opinion ex- 
 plains nothing absolutely. He does not explain how matter came always 
 ;obe,nor can any man. Nature no man can fathom. We can only sup- 
 Dose, and all that is given to us is not to suppose contradictions. Sup- 
 Dose what we will, we shall still stand like children on the shores of 
 Eternity, who must look forward with wistful and unsatisfied curiosity. 
 'But let the profound sense of our littleness, which here creeps over us, 
 meek the dogmatic spirit, and arrest the presumptuous word. We 
 stand in the great presence of Nature, whose inspiration should be that 
 }f modesty, humility, and love. To accept Nature as the great cause 
 Df all things, is that theory which involves the most coherent conse- 
 quences, and it binds us to attempt explanations of mysteries by laws 
 3f science and philosophy. These methods may not lead us far, but 
 they will not lead us wrong, and they will keep us modest by enforcing 
 (ome proportion between what we declare and what we know. 
 
 It is not Atheism that makes the world without God : it finds the 
 vorld without determinate knowledge of such an existence. Science 
 las shown that we are under the dominion of general laws, that there 
 s no Special Providence, that Prayer is useless, that propitiation is 
 rain ; that if Nature be God, it is the God of the iron path that passes 
 m without heeding, without feeling, without resting. In one aspect 
 
44 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Infinite Enigma— its alleged characteristics. 
 
 of Nature, it acts with a fearful uniformity ; stern as Fate, absolute as 
 Tyranny, merciless as Death. It is too vast to praise, too inexplicable 
 to worship, too inexorable to propitiate. It has no ear for prayer, no 
 heart for sympathy, no arm to save. We reap from it neither special 
 help nor special knowledge. It protects itself from our curiosity by 
 giving us only finite powers. Its silence is profound, and when we ask 
 its secret, it points to Death. Yet if we are wise to learn, this great 
 Teacher, before whose presence priestly creeds are shattered and dogmas 
 cancelled, is a monitor who instructs humanity by a single lesson, I 
 whose beneficence is universal, and who blesses all who study, and 
 protects all who obey. But men, vainly preferring Theology to 
 Science, babble of the future with profane presumption ; they dazzle j 
 themselves with an ideal world they have never seen, and with images 
 founded on unreality. Allured by the ideal, they cheat themselves of ; 
 the real, and are betrayed by false dependence to their own destruc- 
 tion. But Nature refers us to science for help, and to humanity for 
 sympathy. Love to the lowly is our only homage, study our only 
 praise, quiet submission to the inevitable our duty, work our only 
 worship. 
 
 God cannot be a First Cause — all cause is bifold. God cannot be a 
 Power — that is an attribute of matter, and never impersonal. It can- 
 not be a Spirit — that is the negation of matter, the negation of all we 
 know. It cannot be Light — light is subject to law. It cannot be In- 
 telligence — that grows, and has conditions of development. It cannot 
 be Consciousness — that is human. It cannot be Love — that is a per- 
 sonal attribute called forth by external and relative objects. It cannot 
 be a Principle — that is either a material force or a logical rule. God 
 is the eternal unanswered Why ? to which no man has replied. It 
 presses upon us as the universal question to which there is no answer 
 in life. It met the first man — it seems likely to perplex the last. It 
 is the Infinite Enigma which no Sphynx has solved ; the solemn and 
 sublime Mystery which we die to find out. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THEISTICAL NEGATION 
 
 Whenever Dr. Spencer T. Hall, a poetic and passionate Theist, meets; 
 the present writer, he remarks, ' Ah, my friend, art thou still trying, 
 to establish negations?' Dr. Hall, who is a Christian, forgets that: 
 the apostles spent their lives in propagating a negation of the 30,000 
 gods of Greece, in favour of three Jewish Deities on whose behalf they 
 are now understood to have appeared ; and unless the early Christians 
 had devoted the first three centuries to this negative work,* Dr. Hall! 
 would be a Polytheist at this day. Never was there a more dreary 
 and barren negation set up in this world than that of Christianity by; 
 
 * Vide ' Neander's Church History,' vol. i., p. 382. 
 
THEI9TICAL NEGATIONS. 45 
 
 Pierre Leroux. Theism the denier of Nature. 
 
 the side of Polytheism— opulent, graceful, and gorgeous. When some 
 one made a remark upon the present author to Pierre Leroux, the 
 witty Frenchman answered ,' Yes — Mr. Holyoake is a great affirmer 
 of negatives.' The philosopher of Socialism overlooked that all 
 negatives are half affirmations. The broadest half of Pierre Leroux's 
 Socialistic affirmatives are but brilliant negatives of Compe- 
 tition. The questioning of Theism is the negative side of Atheism. 
 On the positive side, we find the assertion of the principles of 
 Naturalism. The Archbishop of Dublin urges it is a significant ob- 
 jection to us, that we account for nothing — we always choose the po- 
 sition of assailants. This shows that the Archbishop fails to perceive 
 the consciousness of positive truth, which underlies all assault, and 
 creates the assailant. 
 
 Suppose Atheism were merely negative— what then ? If it be true, 
 it will still be of service. Negative truth is better than positive error. 
 If a vessel is being steered in a wrong direction, it is better the captain 
 should know it, although he who discovers the error cannot tell the 
 true course. It is of no use that the traveller goes down the wrong 
 road, even if the person who warns him is not aware of the right one. 
 A sick man had better take no medicine than swallow that not pre- 
 scribed for him. There is the chance that Nature, unaided, may carry 
 him through the malady he has, but the wrong medicine will very 
 likely carry him off. But the argument of the Theist is : better steer 
 anywhere than nowhere, better go down the wrong road than not keep 
 walking, better swallow the wrong medicine than swallow none. The 
 ordinary theologian reasons as though he would rather go to a positive 
 Devil than be saved by a negative salvation. 
 
 Many who stand aloof from us do it solely because they have taken 
 up the assumption that Atheism is a mere negation. They say there 
 is nothing in it which calls forth the great faculties or enthusiasm of 
 men — that there is no element of inspiration in it. To these we say — 
 is not Secular truth an inspiration ? Will not reality awaken power 
 and interest of the highest order ? Is it an established proposition 
 that men have always been, and always must be, best moved by an 
 imaginary class of incentives ? We think not. There is no lasting 
 enthusiasm like that born of realities, no interest so deep and perma- 
 nent as that inspired by an intelligent perception of vital interests, or 
 by comprehensible ideals of development. It would require a long 
 chapter to give proof of this assertion from the history of science, but 
 it may be useful to assert in this place that the proof is ample, that 
 the martyrs of science are more numerous and far more illustrious in 
 modern times than the martyrs of the Church. When the literature 
 of Secular devotion shall be enlarged, it will be found that positive 
 philosophy is fertile with the noblest affirmations, and that theology 
 is replete with negations of nature, of humanity, and of vital truth. 
 The absolute belief in Nature is considered atheism to God. But is it 
 not true that the theory of Deity is atheism to Nature ? The ortho- 
 dox who believe themselves the affirmers of ' saving truths,' are, in 
 
46 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Grote on the Olympian gods. The God Ganges and Mother Nerbudda. 
 
 fact, the deniers of natural morality, of inherent human goodness, of,' 
 the purifying influences of wise material conditions, of freedom of; 
 thought, of the eternity, the self- existence, the infinity of Nature; inj 
 fine, the Churches affirm the fictions of theology, but blaspheme 1 
 humanity, and abound in the most dismal negations which ever re- 
 pressed hope or misdirected human endeavour. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PRIMITIVE DEITIES AND POPULAR DEFENCES. 
 
 In his inestimable volume on ' Catholic Union,' Mr. Newman remarks 
 upon the many kinds of inspiration that hold men together. Men will 
 face death for the honour of two figures as the ' 77th,' the number of * 
 the regiment. It seems absurd to say, therefore, that men will never 
 act upon the inspiration of clearly defined, vital, human ideals and 
 principles. When it is argued that we must retain the idea of God, 
 whether philosophically demonstrable or not, as a moral incentive to 
 races, it is sufficient to recal a remarkable passage occurring in the 
 first volume of Mr. Grote's * History of Greece.' The chief part of I 
 the extract will be found in a note to p. 463, and the italics are the his- 
 torian's. The passage shows the strange materials of which gods have J 
 been made. A mountain or a river is, certainly, a very unexpected ] 
 ' bond of union' : — 
 
 'The great Olympic gods were, in fact identified with each 
 
 river, mountain, cape, town, village, or known circumscription of ter- 
 ritory There cannot be a better illustration of this feeling 
 
 than what is told of the New Zealanders at the present time. The 
 chief Heu-Heu appeals to his ancestor, the great mountain Tonga Riro : 
 " I am the Heu-Heu, and rule over you all, just as my ancestor Tonga 
 Riro, the mountain of snow, stands above all this land." * Heu-Heu 
 refused permission to any one to ascend the mountain, on the ground 
 that it was his tipuna or ancestor : " he constantly identified himself 
 with the mountain, and called it his sacred ancestor " (vol. ii., c. 4, p. 
 113). The mountains in New Zealand are accounted by the natives 
 masculine and feminine : Tonga Riro, and Taranaki, two male 
 mountains, quarrelled about the affections of a small volcanic female 
 mountain in the neighbourhood.! 
 
 ' The religious imagination of the Hindoos also (as described by 
 Colonel Sleeman in his excellent work, Rambles and Recollections of 
 an Indian Official), affords a remarkable parallel to that of the early 
 Greeks. Colonel Sleeman says : — 
 
 ' " I asked some of the Hindoos about us why they called the river 
 Mother Nerbudda, if she was really never married. Her Majesty 
 (said they with great respect) would really never consent to be mar- 
 
 * E. J. Wakefield : ' Adventures in New Zealand,' vol. i., c. 17, p. 465. 
 t Ibid, ii., c. 4, p. 97. 
 
PRIMITIVE DEITIES AND POPULAR DEFENCES. 47 
 
 Theism covertly maintains that Deity came by chance. 
 
 [ried after the indignity she suffered from her affianced bridegroom the 
 Bohun : and we call her mother because she blesses us all, and we are 
 mxious to accost her by the name which we consider to be the most 
 [respectful and endearing. 
 
 [ • " Any Englishman can easily conceive a poet in his highest calen- 
 bure of the brain, addressing the Ocean as a steed that knows his rider, 
 ind patting the crested billow as his flowing mane. But he must come 
 j;o India to understand how every individual of a whole community of 
 \many millions can address a fine river as a living being — a sovereign 
 \orincess, who hears and understands all they say, and exercises a kind of 
 Vocal superintendence over their affairs, without a single temple in 
 which her image is worshipped, or a single priest to profit by the 
 llelusion. As in the case of the Ganges, it is the river itself to whom 
 \ l hey address themselves, and not to any deity residing in it, or presiding 
 \wer it — the stream itself is the deity which fills their imaginations, and 
 [receives their homage."* Compare also the remarks in the same work 
 pn the sanctity of Mother Nerbudda (chapter xxvii., p. 261) ; also of 
 i;he holy personality of the earth — " The land is considered as the 
 [mother of the prince or chief who holds it, the great parent from 
 whom he derives all that maintains him, his family, and his establish- 
 ments. If well treated, she yields this in abundance to her son; but 
 f he presumes to look upon her with the eye of desire, she ceases to 
 I Je fruitful ; or the Deity sends down hail or blight to destroy all that 
 jme yields. The measuring the surface of the fields, and the frequently 
 Inspecting the crops by the chief himself or his immediate agents, were 
 considered by the people in this light — either it should not be done at 
 ill, or the duty should be delegated to inferior agents, whose close in- 
 spection of the great parent could not be so displeasing to the Deity." 'f 
 I The difficulties in which the Theist lands himself are precisely those 
 jsvhich he thinks he discerns in Atheism. Question every other person 
 you meet in a walk, and the dialogue might fall in the following 
 iform : — 
 
 Atheist. — Why do you believe in the existence of God ? 
 
 Theist. — There must have been a God to have made the world. 
 
 A.— Why ? 
 
 T. — Because the world could not have made itself. Things do not 
 :ome by chance. 
 
 A. — There we are agreed : then how do they come ? 
 
 T. — God made them. 
 
 A. — You think, then, that everything must have had a maker ? 
 Which is but a covert way of saying that God must have had a maker. 
 
 T. — No. God was self-made. 
 
 A. Then why may not Nature be self-made ? 
 
 T. — It does not follow. God has existed from everlasting. 
 
 A. — Then may not Nature have existed from everlasting ? If I say 
 
 * ' Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official,' c. iii., p. 20. 
 t Ch. xxvii., p. 248. 
 
48 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Brief explanations of Cosmism. Definition of Pythagoras. 
 
 Nature was not made, you count that equivalent to saying it came by 
 chance. Yet if you say God was not made, is not that equivalent to 
 saying God came by chance ? If God made the world, out of what did 
 he make it ? If out of pre-existing materials, then something existed 
 before Deity. If you say God made Nature out of nothing, is that an ! 
 explanation? Is it not a supposition, for which no reason can be 
 given? It does not appear that the world was made. Nature appears! 
 to have been self-existent. Self-existence is not chance. If a man say 
 Nature is self existent, he says the same as the Theist when he declares 
 God to be self-existent. If a man say Nature may exist without a 
 maker, he but says the same as the Theist, who affirms that God exists 
 without a maker. If a man affirm Nature to be self-existent, he can- 
 not explain the point. If a Theist say God is self-subsisting, he cannot 
 explain his assertion. Each believes what neither well understands. 
 Where, then, is the distinction ? It is first as to manner. The Atheist! 
 speaks diffidently, not dogmatically. It is second as to fact of con- 
 sciousness. "We may conceive of God as non-existent. We cannot 
 conceive of Nature as being non-existent. It is more reasonable, 
 therefore, to hold that Nature is the something which must existj 
 which has always existed, which does exist, which will ever exist. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COSMISM THE AFFIRMATIVE COMPLEMENT OF ATHEISM. 
 
 Cosmism is the perception of the order of Nature— order, not in the 
 sense of beauty merely, but, in respect of definite, calculable, and, 
 therefore, reliable procedure. If I attempted to define an idea oi 
 God, I should speak of it as the Eternal Process, Ever-Present and 
 Ever- Acting. The discernment of Nature is the truth which men 
 seek for guidance. Error is, when men are deluded by the counter- 
 feit of Nature ; disaster when they miss their way to it. The knoi 
 ledge of Nature, in phenomena and in society, is the universal wisdom 
 mankind desire in their glorious dream of Perfection. All intelligent 
 life is a search for the real ; all philosophy is the interpretation of it 
 all science is the mastery of it ; all art the presentment of it ; al! 
 progress the possession of it. 
 
 A Cosmist* is one who believes in Nature, and studies the order in 
 Nature. He endeavours to master what is, and out of that mastery 
 alone hopes to discover why it is. He considers that Nature is self-! 2 
 existent, self-subsistent, self-active, the Eternal,f the Infinite, and! 
 Material. The Theist denies this. He is the sceptic, the negationist. 
 the Atheist. Theism is Atheism to Nature. The tyro in Atheisn? 
 
 * The fabric of the external universe first received the title from the Greeks, of Cosmos.' 
 or beautiful order. The word is ascribed to Pythagoras, b.c. old.— Trench : ' Study of Words, 
 pp. 97-8, and Humboldt's ' Cosmos.' 
 
 t Ocellus Lucanus, who is supposed to have lived b.c. 500, is considered to have been the! 
 first, or one of the earliest, who maintained the eternity of the world— Thomas Taylor't 
 ' Intro, to Ocellus Lucanus,' pp. ix-x. 
 
COSMISM THE AFFIRMATIVE fOMPIEMEKT OF ATHEISM. 49 
 
 The Cosmist the student of Realities. 
 
 regards the mere controversial confutation of Theism as his sole pro- 
 j fession ; but only the unthinking, or unreflective, or untaught, do so. 
 •■ Unconscious of his own inspiration, which he owes to realism, uncon- 
 ; scious of the principles of Nature which prompt him to protest against 
 I a misleading Theism, he has, perhaps, paid small attention to Cosmism, 
 \ which term may be used to express the principles of naturalism, which 
 f he has deferred to study and neglected to affirm. The sceptics of 
 Theism are considered by the orthodox very wicked, and by the re- 
 sflective, in a worldly sense, as very impracticable people. Such desig- 
 nate us 'negationists.' Even if we were so, if we did only deny what 
 is wrong, we might be useful in our way. But there are many persons 
 who consider that in some states of society fixed error is better than 
 unsettled truth. This party, to whom our statesmen belong, are very 
 influential, and we are bound to satisfy them as well as the philo- 
 sophical Christian, that we do affirm something, that we have positive 
 and practical views, if we can but make them plain. 
 I Nature, as Paley observes, is a collective name; it stands, as Cole- 
 ridge expresses it, for the sum-total of things as far as they are objects 
 of our senses. To the Theist, it is merely an unintelligent instrument 
 — clay in the hands of a potter. To the Cosmist, it seems to possess 
 the attributes of self-existence,* eternity, and self- direction. The 
 Atheist taking this view is yet charged by the Theist with being the 
 advocate of a negation. This is said by the Theist who is himself the 
 advocate of the existence of a Great Spirit — a Spirit which is the 
 negation of all the attributes of matter. Theism takes us from, Cosmism 
 brings us close to Realism, and if we must worship, it gives us the 
 best reason for it — it shows us Nature, it discovers to us the actual, and 
 educates the judgment. An opponent! in one of the few thoughtful 
 passages delivered against us, remarked : — ' I cannot make out to the 
 satisfaction of my own reason the theory of life, on what its force 
 depends, or what it is, or why it is nourished by certain material con- 
 ditions ; and no one has ever yet made it out ; still we know that we 
 ire nourished by our food. Any one who will afford me a metaphysical 
 satisfaction as to the growth of a tree, why a seed draws from the 
 2lements its proper nourishment, and on what forces it is marshalled 
 into growth, will afford me more light than all the books of science. To 
 say it is done " by the laws of nature," is to feed my reason with the 
 garbage of mysticism.' And to say it is done by Deity (a term, under 
 ;he circumstances, which only hides our ignorance) is, to employ for a 
 noment the same language, to feed our reason on the garbage of 
 mperstition. 
 
 The Cosmist, seeing nothing and knowing nothing beyond Nature, 
 ;s yet willing to discern more and learn more. Dissent from Theism, 
 where it occurs, arises from dissatisfaction with the reasons given by 
 Theists touching the origin and government of the world. Many in- 
 telligent men, following an unbiassed judgment, are Cosmists. ' The 
 
 * Self-existence includes all.— Milner's ■ End of Controversy.' 
 t The Rev. Brewin Grant : Cowper Street Discussion. 1853. 
 
 7 
 
50 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Cosmical and Theistical views compared. 
 
 principles, the sources, and the modes of motion — that is, the tenden- 
 cies and appurtenencies of every form of matter are the proper field of 
 philosophy.'* We can only learn processes, not penetrate essences. 
 Nor is the Cosmical view of Nature deficient in the element of re- 
 verence. ' Let us try for a moment to abstract from a mass of earth 
 or stone, its form, colour, extension, and gravity, which are only modes 
 of our sensation, and depend on the structure of our organs, and our 
 utter inability to form the least notion of what remains may read us a 
 lesson of caution as to how we speak of it. Or, again, if we think how 
 it came to be. Either it was created out of nothing b}' Almighty GodJ 
 or it is eternal. And it is hard to say which alternative is the more' 
 awful.']" 
 
 Here the Theist steps in, declaring there is higher light than Nature 
 affords, and deeper secrets than Science can penetrate. 
 
 The Cosmist says : — ' Sir, I thank you for the information ; show 
 me these discoveries ? ' 
 
 The Theist borrows from Voltaire, whom he traduces, his reply. 
 Voltaire being asked how he Avould demonstrate the existence of God? 
 answered, ' Mais en ouvrant les yeux' (by opening the eyes). ' If you 
 do not see,' continues our Theist, ' all I can say is, you are deficient in a 
 sense.' 
 
 The Cosmist answers: — ' Sir, I make a note of your communication j 
 as to my loss of a sense. I apologise for my deficiency, but under- 
 take, with such residue of powers as you may feel justified in allowing 
 me, to show that your own explanations are untenable, inadequate, 
 perverse, or self-contradictory.' 
 
 If the Cosmist cannot account for the origin of man, it does not fol- 
 low that the Biblical theory is correct. If man does not come by law 
 of development, it does not follow that he came of the dust of the 
 ground. Moses is no more to be trusted than the author of the 
 4 Vestiges.' If Lamarck be untenable, it is not a scientific in- 
 ference that Miller must be. We must wait till science finds out the 
 cause, identifies it, and exhibits it. Conjectures do not settle truth — 
 we must wait for proof. Because Plato did not know the cause of the 
 rainbow, it did not follow that Noah's account was the true one. The 
 world had to wait for the true theory until Newton arose. 
 
 One who has won for himself a distinguished place among modern 
 thinkers, relates : — ' In a debate upon the development hypothesis, 
 lately narrated to me by a friend, one of the disputants was described 
 as arguing that, as in all our experience we know of no such phe- 
 nomenon as the transmutation of species, it is unphilosophical to assume 
 that transmutation of species ever takes place. Had I been present,; 
 I think that, passing over this assertion, which is open to criticism, I 
 should have replied that, as in all our experience we have never known 
 a species created, it was, by his own showing, unphilosophical to assume 
 that any species ever had been created. Those who cavalierly reject 
 
 * Bacon. 
 
 t Eraser, No. CCLVI., p. 429. Art. ascribed to J. A. Fronde. 
 
COSMISM THE AFFIRMATIVE COMPLEMENT OF ATHEISM. 51 
 
 Spencer on the development theory of Nature. There is no natural theology. 
 
 the theory of Lamarck and his followers, as not adequately supported 
 by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no 
 facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, 
 they demand a more rigorous proof of any adverse doctrine, but assume 
 that their own doctrine needs none. Here we find scattered over the 
 globe vegetable and animal organisms numbering, of the one kind (ac- 
 cording to Humboldt), some 320,000 species, and of the other, if we 
 include insects, some two millions of species (see Carpenter) ; and if to 
 these we add the numbers of animal and vegetable species that have 
 become extinct (bearing in mind how geological records prove that, 
 from the earliest appearance of life down to the present time, different 
 species have been successively replacing each other, so that the world's 
 Flora and Fauna have completely changed many times over), we may 
 safely estimate the number of species that have existed, and are 
 existing on the earth, at not less than ten millions. Well, which is 
 the most rational theory about these ten millions of species ? Is it 
 most likely that there have been ten millions of special creations ? or 
 is it most likely that by continual modifications, due to change of cir- 
 cumstances, ten millions of varieties may have been produced, as 
 varieties are being produced still ? One of the two theories must be 
 adopted. Which is most countenanced by facts ? '* 
 
 Theism does not clear up the problems of life. There is no natural 
 theology — there is a presumptuous theology, which attempts every- 
 thing, outrages everything, and explains nothing. Why, in every age, 
 have men clung to the idea of a revelation ? — because they were too 
 impatient to study Nature, and too ill trained to submit to the dis- 
 cipline of facts. Unable to answer the plain questions of independent 
 inquirers, Theists have availed themselves of revelation to put down, 
 by authority, the doubts they could not solve by reason. Now, how- 
 ever, criticism has checked the pretensions of book revelation. Theists 
 have returned to the field of Nature, and there the combat may be 
 expected to end, since there, for the first time, the combatants are on 
 equal ground. Lord Mansfield's oft-quoted advice to a certain im- 
 promtu governor of a colony was, to give his decisions boldly, for they 
 would almost always be right, but never to give any reasons for them, 
 as they would almost always be wrong. But right or wrong, the 
 Cosmist must give his reasons. He may err, but he must answer ; he 
 may not succeed, but he must attempt explanation of the views he 
 holds ; he is candid, if not clear ; he confesses frankly his inability to 
 know where he cannot command information The mere Spiritualist 
 can retreat to mere consciousness. He can be indolent, silent, or dog- 
 matic : he may believe without external evidence, he may assent 
 without giving reasons. But the Eationalist chooses a manlier part. 
 He must examine, he must judge, and he must justify his judgment. 
 
 What is Nature ? The aggregate of matter. 
 
 What is matter ? That which is material. 
 
 What is material ? That which is calculable. 
 
 * Herbert Spencer : ' Haythorne Papers.' Vide Leader. 
 
52 THE TRIAL OF THEISM 
 
 John Stuart Mill's definitions of Matter and Mind. 
 
 What is calculable ? That which manifests itself under law. 
 
 "What is a law of Nature ? The name we give to a uniform process 
 which we observe. 
 
 'A Being is that which excites feelings, and which possesses attributes. 
 Extension, colour, wisdom, virtue, are not beings. Some of the ancients 
 held that the cardinal virtues were animals. The Platonic school held 
 the doctrine of self-existent Ideas. The followers of Epicurus held 
 that Sensible Forms detach themselves from bodies in every direction, 
 and, by coming in contact with our organs, cause our perceptions.'* 
 
 The writer, whose remarks we are here quoting, observes : — ' In 
 the present state of the discussion on these topics, it is almost univer- 
 sally allowed that the existence of matter or of spirit, of space or of 
 time, is, in its nature, unsusceptible of being proved ; and that if any- 
 thing is known of them, it must be by immediate intuition.' This dif- 
 ficulty should check dogmatism on both sides. 
 
 How little men can penetrate essences, we learn from the definition 
 of matter and spirit given by the same writer. ' Of bodies and minds, 
 philosophers have at length provided us with a definition, which seems 
 unexceptionable.' 
 
 What is Matter — what is Mind ? The nearest answers ever given 
 are these : — 
 
 ' A body, according to the received doctrine of modern metaphy- 
 sicians, may be defined, the external cause to which we ascribe our 
 sensations. When I see and touch a piece of gold, I am conscious of a 
 sensation of yellow colour, and sensations of hardness and weight ; and, 
 by varying the mode of handling, I may add to these sensations many 
 others completely distinct from them. The sensations are all of which 
 I am directly conscious ; but I consider them as produced by some- 
 thing not only existing independently of my will, but external to my 
 
 bodily organs and to my mind. This external something I call body 
 
 Body having been defined as the external cause, and (according to the 
 more reasonable opinion) the hidden external cause to which we refer 
 our sensations, it remains to frame a definition of mind. For, as our 
 conception of a body is that of an unknown existing cause of sensations, 
 so our conception of a mind is that of an unknown recipient or per- 
 cipient of them ; and not of them alone, but of all our other feelings. 
 As body is the mysterious something which excites the mind to feel, 
 
 so mind is the mysterious something which feels and thinks It is 
 
 necessary to remark, that on the inmost nature of the thinking prin- 
 ciple, as well as on the inmost nature of matter, we are, and with our 
 faculties must always remain, entirely in the dark. All that we are 
 aware of, even in our own minds, is a certain thread of consciousness. 
 
 Thus, then, as body is the unsentient cause to which we are 
 
 naturally prompted to refer a certain portion of our feelings, so mind 
 may be described as the sentient subject (in the German sense of the 
 term) of all feelings. But of the nature of either body or mind, further ■' 
 
 
 
 * Vide ' System of Logic,' vol. i., p. 52. 
 
COSMISM THE AFFIRMATIVE COMPLEMENT OF ATHEISM. 53 
 
 The Priest construes the rejection of his errors as the rejection of truth and justice. 
 
 than the feelings which the former excites and the latter experiences* 
 we do not, according to the best existing doctrine, know anything.' 
 
 Here we have one of the highest and most reliable statements on 
 record of the ' nature ' of matter and spirit, so far as that nature can 
 be delineated. Body is an independent existence, and the material 
 seems the only independent existence. Mind is dependent on body. I «, 
 All we can, with certainty, declare is that inorganic body acting on in-/ 
 organic body effects physical change, that organic body acting on the 
 greater susceptibility of organic body effects mental change. Through- 
 out life and nature there is one thread of material action. 
 
 Since the knowledge of Nature possessed by man is so limited, 
 it would appear that Theism was born in impatience, in despair, 
 in presumption, or in some dream of untutored and wild speculation. 
 To the great mystery of Nature man has wantonly added the greater 
 mystery of a Being above Nature. Whoever sees in Atheism simply 
 the development of a negation sees but half the truth. Even in this 
 respect (supposing existing theological systems to be erroneous) 
 Atheism has the merit of clearing the way for pure moralism. To 
 resolve religion into dependence,* is canonising human weakness ; 
 whereas man rather needs that which shall develop his strength. Is 
 this salutary teaching ? Life should be self-reliant. The light of 
 Nature and the experience of man are anterior to clerical dogmas, and 
 are the sources whence guidance and duty independently spring. The 
 Priest breaks in upon the integrity of life, and diverts its course. 
 His assumption is, that he makes an addition to our knowledge. But 
 does he do so ? He professes to show us the hidden things of the 
 future : we fail to see them. He simply encumbers us, and we pray 
 him to stand aside. The responsibility of our course is our own, 
 and not his ; and we have a right to be left free when we demand 
 exemption from his mistaken interference. Rejecting (as in self- 
 defence we are bound to do) the irrelevant advices of the Priest, he 
 goes and proclaims that we reject truth, honour, justice, love. Whereas 
 the fact is, we merely reject him. His denunciation of us is his 
 error, or the retaliation of his disappointment. We appeal, therefore, 
 to the informed, the impartial, and the candid, to judge between us. 
 We respect theology, inasmuch as it professes to explain man's destiny, 
 and regret that it bears no fruit for us ; but this is not our fault, and 
 we therefore attempt to solve the problem of the Present and the Future 
 for ourselves. 
 
 If the Atheist be unable to believe in a God, it is demanded, in what 
 does he believe ? We answer, though he may not be able to explain 
 the origin of all things, he may yet believe in the things them- 
 selves; though he may not be able to account for Nature, 
 it does not follow that he disbelieves the existence of Nature. 
 Without powers to penetrate the secret of Nature; without the 
 intuition which guesses it ; without the facts which explain it ; 
 without being convinced by any theories extant upon the subject; 
 
 
 Vide Theodore Parker's theory. 
 
54 THE TRIAL OP THEISM. 
 
 The testimony to the character of Atheists borne by Theodore Parker. 
 
 without being able to learn of the existence of one spot of land on the! 
 wide sea of theological conjecture; warned by the wrecks floating ini 
 sight, of those who have perished in ancient times, and the tossing to' 
 and fro of those still upon that fathomless deep of speculation, which! 
 we have no vessels adequate to navigate, nor compass nor chart to| 
 guide; from which no spiritual Columbus has ever yet returned, 
 bringing report of the new world ; the Atheist keeps by the shore, 
 the broad and pleasant shore of humanity, relinquishing the fabulous ; 
 legends which superstitious cupidity, or unrest, or fancy, have origi- 
 nated, and reposes in the more useful, but less ambitious, belief of I 
 growth and development, of science and art, of trust and truth, of; 
 service and endurance. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 Mr. Theodore Parker has contributed to the world so many noble 
 discourses and brilliant criticisms, and speaks such hearty and fearless 
 words for humanity, that one is reluctant to take decided exception to 
 his views, as stated in one of his most confident books, ' Atheism, 
 Theism, and the Popular Theology.' When, in this work, he speaks 
 of Atheism, he speaks from feeling, and very turbid feeling too. He 
 sees nothing deeper in Atheism than antagonism. ' Had the Church 
 granted full freedom, there would have been no Atheism.' This 
 is the orthodox mistake. Mr. Parker, however, bears frank testi- 
 mony to certain merits in Atheism, that an orthodox writer would 
 withhold. His words are : — ' The Christian world has something to l 
 learn at this day, even from the Atheist ; for he asks entire freedom ! 
 for human nature ; freedom to think, freedom to will, freedom to love, 
 freedom to worship, if he may — not to worship, if he will not.' 
 
 The Atheistic view of life is a cheerful and trustful view. The 
 Christian view is one of distrust of humanity. That Atheistic confi- 
 dence in mankind is no theoretical admiration, but a brave reliance, is 
 proved from the fact that the Atheist is prepared to see society based 
 on the ' entire freedom of human nature.' This noble preacher has 
 no stone to hurl at his brother because he does not belong to his 
 Church. He remembers that Christianity was at first but a new 
 ' superstition.' ' It was the religion of a " blasphemer," who had got 
 crucified between " two others, malefactors." Christianity was then 
 the " latest form of infidelity." ' Mr. Parker makes some admissions, 
 which equal in liberality those made by Coleridge. ' Atheists,' says 
 Mr. Parker, ' are not always bigoted, but philosophical. A few of 
 them are in America founding schools and sects of their way of 
 thinking. Some of them are men of quite superior ability, men of 
 very large intellectual culture. They seem to be truth -loving and 
 sincere persons, conscientious, just, humane, philanthropic, and modest 
 men. They are men who aim to be faithful to their nature, and to 
 
THE0D0BE PABKEB. 55 
 
 The coward and the murderess equally condemned hy Atheism as hy Theism. 
 
 their whole nature. I am acquainted with some of them ; they are 
 commonly on the side of man, as opposed to the enemies of man ; on 
 the side of the people, as against a tyrant ; they are, or mean to be, 
 on the side of truth, of justice, and of love. I shall not throw stones 
 at these men ; I shall devise no hard names against them ; they will 
 get abuse enough without my giving them any at all. I feel great 
 tenderness towards them, and very great compassion, which, I suppose, 
 they would not thank me for. Some of them I know personally, 
 others by their reputation ; some by their writings. I think they are 
 much higher in their moral and religious growth than a great many 
 men, who are always saying to God, " I go, sir," and yet never stir. 
 These are men who have made sacrifices even to be faithful ; and, 
 without knowing it, they have a good deal of practical religiousness of 
 character, both in its subjective form of piety, and in its objective 
 form of personal and social morality.' 
 
 Yet Atheism, as it is described by Mr. Parker, is certainly the sad- 
 dest of life philosophies imaginable. He tells us that when the war 
 trump is blown, one brother goes out and fights, and comes home to 
 die, covered with heroism and gashes. Another brother, in that time 
 of peril, is a coward, and creeps into the oven. When the war is over, 
 the oven brother comes out with a whole skin, and says, ' What a fool 
 his soldier brother was to lay down his life for him, and get nothing 
 for it.' The Atheist, says Mr. Parker, ' declares the coward brother 
 to be right.' On the contrary, the Atheist declares the coward brother 
 ought to be kicked. Is it true that brave men get nothing by their 
 struggles ? Do they not resist tyranny, give security to their country, 
 win dignity and self-respect ? The noblest course is best for those 
 who fail. In an inevitable struggle, the noblest course is better than 
 the vilest for those even who perish. Mr. Parker argues as though most 
 men might get into ovens if they pleased. He forgets that if they did, 
 the bayonet would make contemptuous thrusts at the miserable 
 posteriors there exposed. Therefore, if there were no dignity in duty, 
 no grandeur in courage, it would still be worth w^hile not to get in the 
 oven very extensively. One mother, says Mr. Parker, whose self- 
 denial leads her to cherish her sickly child, dies at last, and there is 
 an end of her. Another mother abandons her dying child, and lives 
 forty years of wantonness, and when she dies, it is to the same end as 
 the other. It may be so, but no Atheist says it ought to be so. But 
 if apparently so in death, is it the same in life ? Bad as the world is, 
 is forty years of wantonness what every heartless mother may reckon 
 upon as her reward here ? And is there nothing in the pure and 
 sublime joy of tenderness, which the self-sacrificing mother bestows on 
 her child ? Is this world so constituted by the Deity you proclaim, 
 Mr. Parker, that the murderess and the merciful may be equally happy ? 
 
 The moral of all Mr. Parker's Theism is, ' What shall I get here- 
 after by it? Save me from Atheism — it gives nothing.' Negro- 
 holders stand by slavery on the same principle. Liberty 'gives 
 nothing' which they care for. The Theist opposes slavery because he 
 
56 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Atheism a manly refuge from the effeminacy of Theism. 
 
 shall get more from God in reward of his forbearance. Mr. Parker's 
 Theist is only a sharper kind of Yankee. May Mr. Parker pardon 
 the remark, but he seems to me to own a sad whining Theism. We 
 have much English and Scotch orthodoxy more self-reliant. Professor 
 Newman, in England, is as distinguished as Mr. Parker for an intense 
 Theism, but Mr. Newman is an utter contrast in respect of the logical 
 and manly spirit in which he holds his principles. With Mr. New- 
 man, Theism is a light by which he walks ; with Mr. Parker, it is a 
 crutch. Mr. Newman can walk alone, Mr. Parker cannot stir. The 
 idea of immortality is not essential to Mr. Newman. His unfaltering 
 trust in duty sustains him. Mr. Parker never moves without a sedan 
 chair, a lantern, and an amulet. ' I am not,' says he ' a cowardly man ; 
 but if I were convinced that there was no God, my courage would 
 
 drop as water, and be no more I am not a sad man, but take away 
 
 my consciousness of God ; let me believe there is no infinite mind, 
 
 conscience, and affection that the sad people of Europe, Africa, 
 
 America, have no guardian, all the joy I have in the daily busi- 
 ness of the world, in literature, science, and art, in the friendships and 
 
 wide philanthropies of the time, would perish at once Yes, I 
 
 should die in uncontrollable anguish and grief.' To one who thinks 
 thus, the truth of religion is unnecessary. He does not want conviction ; 
 his need is consolation, and a superstition will do for him as well as 
 a rationalism ; in fact, it would do better, as he would be less likely to 
 be disturbed by any misgiving or doubt. When Mr. Parker departs 
 from this strain, it is only to talk confusion. ' If a man confesses that 
 he has a natural and absolute obligation to think true, to do right, to 
 
 feel kind, it is of little consequence whether he says he derives 
 
 the obligation from Nature or God, because, in such a case, he means 
 by the word Nature what another means by the word God.' This is 
 absurd. What has Mr. Parker just said about the Infinite Mind 
 thinking for him, the Infinite Conscience feeling for him, the Infinite 
 Affection guarding him, etc. ? This personal dependence of Theism 
 is not involved in the independent idea of Nature. Secular morals 
 are derived from uniform action in Nature, Theistic morals from per- 
 sonal intention and Providence in the author of Nature. 
 
 Theism is paternal, and like paternal government it takes a 
 pound from you by force and gives you sixpence back by charity. 
 Theism makes the world into a schoolroom, and keeps men always at 
 the desk. Theism plays at an everlasting game of Family, and keeps 
 men always children, and always dependent on the governor. It is a 
 state of things neither good for the children nor the governor. Atheism 
 acknowledges the manhood of men, sends them out into the world, 
 teaches them self-reliance. Looking at the character this kind of 
 Theism gives to Deity, one can have no wish to be connected with it ; 
 looking at the kind of worship thus prescribed, one can have no wish 
 to join in the irreverence ; and Atheism is a manly refuge from this 
 slavery and grossness of sentiment. A glance at the state of the con- 
 tinent will show us the impotence of Theism for redress. We are 
 
FBANCIS WLLLIAM NEWMAN. 57 
 
 The utter impotence of Theism for political protection. 
 
 told it is the friend of liberty. What does it do for Poland, for Hun- 
 gary, for Italy, for France ? We are told it is the friend of good 
 feeling, good morals, and good faith. What influence has it over the 
 dungeons of Austria, over society in Naples, or over the consciences 
 of Emperors in Paris ? The peoples of the continent crouch in chains 
 and blood, Despotism sits erect in insolent security. Imperial perjury 
 flourishes in France. In the old days, Providence was said to help 
 the poor : now it helps kings — it bends the bayonet of Milano, it 
 diverts the bullets of Pianori, it preserves the life of gaolers and takes 
 the life of prisoners, it holds up tyrants who bow down nations. 
 Where is the influence of Theism in all these scenes ? Theism is said to 
 abhor a lie and to be the friend of humanity. Its voice is dumb, its 
 arm is impotent ; it makes no vindication of the honest who are as- 
 persed, it makes no effort for the relief of the poor who are oppressed. 
 It is worse than impotent — it is treacherous. It is the apologist of 
 might. It cringes round the throne, it gives its voice against the 
 people In the old time, Religion pretended to be deliverance, in 
 recent times it has pretended to be consolation. It is neither consola- 
 tion nor deliverance. It is a traitor. It binds the spirit that Despotism 
 may better bind the hands — it has no help for those who cry to it, it 
 betrays those who trust it. The honest poet exclaimed — 
 
 ' When wilt thou save the People, 
 
 O God of mercy, when ? 
 Not thrones or priests — but nations, 
 
 Not Kings or Lords — but men.'* 
 
 It is time the people understood that they must fight their own 
 battles by wisdom and sacrifice, strength and courage. The god of 
 battles is no longer on the side of right, but of might. He is on 
 the side of the strongest battalion, of the heaviest gun, and of the 
 minie rifle. If the contest be between brain and brain, the victory 
 is with the largest knowledge, the deepest sagacity, with the men 
 who have mutual trust, a practical aim, and unresting activity. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN. 
 
 In 1849 a volume appeared, entitled ' The Soul, Her Sorrows and Her 
 Aspirations.' The author was Francis William Newman, the brother 
 of John Henry Newman, known now as * Father Newman,' who 
 represents the Catholic ; Professor Newman, the author of the work 
 here considered, the Rationalistic, side of religion. 
 
 The Church of England seldom gives you the impression of being 
 
 * Ebenezer Elliott. 
 
58 THE TKIAIi OP THEISM. 
 
 Mr. Newman's views on the independence of Morality. 
 
 in earnest. Its hierarchy seems maintained for show. You must visit j 
 the ranks of Evangelicalism for religion in activity. The Church j 
 bears the sword of the State — Evangelicalism the sword of the spirit 
 both cut disagreeably, one the body, the other the soul. Eeligion is 
 altogether repulsive, until it wears the robe of Rationalism. 
 
 The casual observer of religious sects must be aware of the variety 
 of types extant. There are the low, the intermediate, and the high. I 
 Mr. Newman represents the highest type. We know very well that i 
 many people profess the lower forms of the Christian faith who would j 
 not do so were they acquainted with a higher, delineated by the hand 
 of one whose piety cannot be called in question. We make here an 
 abstract of Mr. Newman's views. They may thus be brought under 
 the notice of many Christians who never heard of Mr. Newman's 
 work, and who could not buy it if they would, and (to tell the whole 
 truth) would not buy it if they could, till some one has shown to them 
 its safety. This book has instruction also for Freethinkers, who, 
 anxious for the realisation of Christianity, take an interest in all that 
 approximates to what they think the truth. 
 
 Those who make it a rule to pass over the preface of a book as not 
 relating to it, will profit in this case by returning to the good old 
 practice of reading it. Nowhere does Mr. Newman appear to write 
 unless he has something distinctive to say, and whatever he sees well to 
 say is worthy the reader's consideration. It is in the preface to the ' Soul ' 
 that Mr. Newman remarks, that ' a long period passed in the history 
 of mankind when the morality of every great national system was 
 supposed to depend entirely on the external authority which promul- 
 gated it; but in later stages of mental culture the authoritative 
 
 sanction which is superadded to moral precepts became valued, not as 
 that which is essential to guarantee their truth to a cultivated moral 
 nature, but as that which (like parental command) enforces action 
 while the moral sense is in its infancy.' In this respect Mr. Newman 
 agrees with Sir James Mackintosh, that morals are intrinsically inde- 
 pendent — that theology may add a sanction to them, but does not 
 create them. One great charm of Mr. Newman's book is its directness 
 of language. Whether there are any subjects upon which the author 
 would be reserved or mystical I know not, but it seems that he does 
 not write on any subject upon which he does not choose to be explicit. 
 Emerson is an oracle often admitting of a double interpretation — 
 Carlyle is a riddle by the wayside, puzzling all passers by — but 
 Newman discourses in language which is the servant of his thought. 
 
 It seems a light matter to say that each page is reliable. When Mr. 
 Newman describes Fetishism, it is an addition to our knowledge which 
 we can quote. The reader can trust all instances — and such an assu- 
 rance is a boundless satisfaction to one who desires to learn as he 
 reads. Of large historical knowledge, knowing the most important 
 languages, able in mathematics, versed in practical science, quick to 
 comprehend, and, more than all, conscientious to report, Mr. Newman 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN. 69 
 
 The deficiencies and misdirection of popular literature. 
 
 fulfils all the requirements of the reader, who feels that what the 
 author states he has verified, and that he speaks on matters of fact with 
 the authority of nature. It is difficult for the well-favoured reader to 
 estimate the value of such an author to the ill-favoured learner — the 
 poor student belonging to the working classes, whose every day is 
 engrossed beyond his strength in the battle for the supply of animal 
 wants, and who is turned at night, wearied (like a jaded horse into a 
 barren field), to browse on the casualties of literature — the cheap 
 periodicals ; so often got up without adequate means, and oftener 
 without conscience; where that which is original is poor, and that 
 which is borrowed is uncertain — inferior food, of which no quantity 
 yields any strength. To children of the people, to whom scholastic 
 guidance is never vouchsafed, beguiled by a show of popular learning 
 which seduces them and abandons them to mediocrity, such a book as 
 this — profound in thought, affectionate in spirit, trusty in report, 
 accurate in speech — is an epoch in personal history, disciplining the 
 understanding, and giving a new tone to character. 
 
 The modest object of this work is that of making a contribution 
 towards a Natural History of the Soul, as the true basis of theology. 
 What may be accomplished in this direction in the way of scientific 
 proof is not quite clear, but that this is the right way of procedure we 
 have no doubt. Presumptive evidence of the existence of Deity, 
 founded on the analysis of human feeling, has long appeared to be 
 the only ground on which the believer could ever win the ear of the 
 world ; and it was with curiosity I learned that the first part of this 
 ground had been occupied by Mr. Newman. He has furnished an 
 entirely new statement of theology : a statement we know to be new 
 because it presents an old subject without once reviving those sensa- 
 tions, utter and profitless weariness, of which once-believers dread 
 the repetition. 
 
 Modern books which have attained celebrity in defence of popular 
 Christianity, differ little from older ones except in amplification of 
 former arguments, now urged with more decorousness than was 
 formerly the case ; but there is no more feeling displayed in the efforts 
 than before. The critical surgeon has removed the diseased part, or 
 perhaps amputated the limb very cleverly, and taken his fee of public 
 applause as a skilful operator; but he has displayed no personal 
 sympathy with his patient. In Mr. Newman's case it is altogether 
 different. He never forgets that his patient is his brother. You may 
 feel pain under his hand, but you are persuaded his is the hand under 
 which you will suffer least, and that his affection and intelligence will 
 save you all he can. He is the friend, and never the opponent. He 
 does not offend you by spiritual superciliousness. There is no tone of 
 pride about him. There is no lie for the glory of God in him : he does 
 not recognise that God can be glorified by any word of deceit. To 
 disparage, to mortify, to obtain a victory over you, are pettinesses of 
 controversy which he despises. He is never angry, petulant, or harsh. 
 He never plays the priest — soft and gracious when his argument 
 
60 THE TEIAE OF THEISM. 
 
 Characteristics of Mr. Newman's theological writings. 
 
 opens, menacing, imperious, and contemptuous when it closes without 
 being accepted. His profound respect for others, for their sincerity 
 and well meaning, is uninterrupted. Yet in all this courtesy there 
 mingles no weakness. Every affectionate word is animated by a mas- 
 culine strength of will, and in this union of both qualities a great 
 lesson in intellectual and moral strength is afforded. No man, whether 
 believer or Atheist, can read this book without great improvement, 
 unless he be very good indeed, or entirely incapable of moral appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 I do not suppose that the Christian world will be thankful for this 
 work. They rarely discriminate their true friends, and are 
 seldom grateful to them. To some sour effusion of Evangelicalism 
 which contradicts Christianity's capacity for charity — to some adroit 
 treatise which confounds but does not convince, they would give an 
 exuberant welcome ; but for a book conceived in the highest genius 
 of proselytism, which must command respect for the religious 
 sentiment wherever it is read, they have had no word of thankfulness. 
 That which strikes me as the quality of its proselytising power is its 
 absolute candour. Most religious books of polemical purport seem 
 to be fencing with the reader. They never trust him or trust 
 themselves. There is nothing out-spoken, frank, and chivalrous 
 about them : all seems to be cautious, giving one the idea there is 
 something to conceal. Mr. Newman's book is marked by the utter 
 absence of this tone. Knowing that no earnest men are wholly in the 
 wrong in matters of humanity, he does not fear to admit what is right 
 on his opponent's side, which certainly does not indispose an opponent 
 to admit what is right on his. He thus inspires you with confidence 
 and respect, and this is the foundation of all healthy concurrence. 
 This predisposing element to uniformity Mr. Newman's book has 
 eminently. If one does not concur in it, it is because of the presence 
 of intellectual error — no prejudice stands between the reader and the 
 author. Others, besides Christians, who study its ability, may learn 
 of its wisdom of manner, in the written and oral advocacy of their 
 views. All accounts of its daringness, of its strong rejection of so 
 much to which the mass of believers cling in indiscriminating adora- 
 tion, refer only to that which constitutes the framework of the book, 
 without its life — indeed less than that, for such rejection is merely the 
 clearing of the ground in order to occupy it by a new superstructure. 
 
 ' All human knowledge, like human power, is bounded ; and it is 
 then most accurate when we can sharply draw the line which shows 
 where ignorance begins' (p. 1.) With this remark, so pregnant with 
 purpose, Mr. Newman opens his inquiry into what we know, that 
 shall, when distinctly defined, justify a programme of religious belief. 
 He accurately observes, that ' It is a condition of human existence to 
 be surrounded with but a moderately diffused light that instructs the 
 understanding, and illimitable haziness that excites the imagination ' 
 (p. 1.) The foundation of Mr. Newman's system, he frankly permits 
 us to perceive, lies in the fact that this ' obscurity ' without us is cal- 
 
FBANCIS WIIXIAM NEWMAN. 61 
 
 The qualities of the religious nature enumerated. 
 
 culated to call forth religious sentiments. ' The region of dimness is 
 not wholly without relations to our moral state.' The great theologi- 
 cal problem he proposes to solve was never so usefully expressed 
 before — viz., how ' to reconcile Passion, Prudence, Duty, Freethought, 
 and Reverence ' (p. 4.) 
 
 In the relation of the child to the parent, Mr. Newman sees the 
 model of human life throughout its entire extent. In the 'loving 
 reverence, sure trust, and unreflecting joy which a child may exercise 
 towards a parent, whose wisdom and goodness appear to him illimit- 
 able,' Mr. Newman beholds ■ a source of moral perfection ' desirable 
 for men ' whose understandings have opened wide enough to see that 
 all human minds are limited, all human hearts shallow, and that no 
 object worthy of absolute reverence comes within the reach of sense' 
 (p. 3.) It is this ' absolute object ' which Mr. Newman seeks. In 
 his search he takes for his guide a new definition of the Soul, which 
 he names ' that side of our nature by which we are in contact with 
 the Infinite.' Eeligion he regards as the cultivation of this side of our 
 nature, by bringing it into contact with an object of absolute perfection 
 and goodness, which shall inspire us with aspirations after purity, and 
 cheer us by rational hope. There is a freshness in these conceptions 
 which, after the hard, acid, and incongruous theology of the pulpits, 
 comes over the feelings like a charm. The fruits of this religion 
 which Mr. Newman eliminates are, he tells us, * Meekness, thankful- 
 ness, love, contentment, compassion, humility, patience, resignation, 
 disinterestedness, purity, aspiration, devoutness' (p. 21.) 
 
 By an analysis of human sentiments Mr. Newman delineates the ' Sense 
 of the Infinite.' The processes are these : — 
 
 1. Awe, that feeling with which darkness inspires U9, of which we 
 are sensible in a walk alone by night under thick trees, when a sense 
 of the unknown pierces through and unmans all but innocence. 
 The moral effect of Awe is a pervading sense of our littleness in the 
 presence of immensity (p. 11.) 
 
 2. Wonder, that feeling which is excited by the sublime and 
 astonishing scenes of Nature when Awe has somewhat subsided. Its 
 moral attribute is an aspiration after fuller knowledge of that 'power, 
 principle, or person, out of which all that we see has proceeded * 
 (p. 13.) 
 
 3. Admiration is the perception of natural Beauty, whose appro- 
 priate function is ■ to call forth the heart into admiration and prepare 
 it for love: ' As a glimpse of life beyond the grave, and a glance 
 of the eye into the depths of space, are adapted to calm stormy 
 passions, so a tranquil resting of the soul, on whatever form of beauty, 
 tends to impart cheerfulness, elasticity of spirits, and mute thankful- 
 ness, towards — perhaps we know not whom' (p. 19.) 
 
 Mr. Newman's conception of the functions of these sentiments is as 
 lofty as it is healthy. Awe, Yfonder, Admiration, he regards as 
 fitting man to discharge his duty in that perilous hour when Duty 
 clashes with Interest. Enthusiasm, that passionate love for some 
 
62 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The eight points of philosophical religion. 
 
 idea which, whatever form it may take, is capable of animating 
 to every sacrifice of Self, Mr. Newman regards as the Life of Morality 
 and the one universal enthusiasm he thinks is that ' called out by •< 
 sense of the Infinite, wherein we feel Self to be swallowed up. Al 
 the generous side of human nature is nurtured and expanded by th<! 
 contemplation of the Infinite' (p. 26.) 
 
 4. A ' Sense of Order ' Mr. Newman traces from the operations o 
 nature. Order is the type of Unchangeableness, and ' the recognitiorji 
 of unchangeableness is the turning point and passage from barbariar 
 to cultivated religion.' The perception of Universal Order involves! 
 the refutation of Polytheism. The One who is regarded as the] 
 Supreme (source of order) is considered to have ruled upon the! 
 same principles in every conceivable age, and here an idea of kid 
 Eternity comes in. At this point, and after, a man's religion falls under thei 
 control of his understanding : « henceforth contemplations and imagi-j 
 nations concerning the Infinite put on the coherent form of Thought| 
 and Speculation.' ' A new element has been admitted which willi 
 either dissolve all the rest, or by blending with them happily will; 
 give to the religion definiteness of form, consistency, and notions! 
 which can abide the criticism of acute incredulity ' (pp. 28, 29.) 
 
 5. Sense of Design. To those who fail to recognise an active Will] 
 in the universe, Mr. Newman addresses the consideration of design. 
 Without antagonistic argument or intrusion of human artifice, he] 
 takes things fresh from nature. Lungs are fitted to breathe and eyes J 
 to see, and in this Fitness he sees Design. ' No syllogism is pretended 
 that proves that a lung was made to breathe, but we see it,' he says, 
 'by what some call Common Sense, and some Intuition' (p. 32.); 
 And ' when the whole human world is pervaded by similar instances 
 of fitnesses, not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears almost a 
 brutal insensibility; and if any one intelligently profess Atheism, the 
 more acute he is the more distinctly we perceive that he is deficient 
 in the Religious Faculty. Possibly some day, by a new development 
 of his character or by the contagion of sympathy, he may acquire 
 Religious Insight ; but for the present, we lament that he has it not, 
 and hereby is cut off from the profoundest influences of humanity' (p. 
 33.) Holding that * such Fitnesses as meet our view on all sides bring 
 a reasonable conviction that Design lies beneath them,' Mr. Newman 
 considers the doctrine of an intelligent Creator justified. Adding now 
 the conclusions drawn from the order of the universe, he avers that ' we 
 have testimony adapted to the cultivated judgment that there is a 
 Boundless, Eternal, Unchangeable, Designing Mind, not without whom 
 this system of things coheres : and this Mind we call God ' (p. 34.) 
 
 6. Sense of Goodness. Mr. Newman next arrives at the conception 
 of the goodness of God. ' God is too great to be moved by petty 
 passions ; he cannot have pleasure in our misery.' We ' attribute to 
 nim boundlessness of every kind of which we can conceive,' and a pure, 
 final, and consolatory idea of God's goodness Mr. Newman expresses 
 in these words : — ' All the possible perfectness of mans spirit must be a 
 mere faint shadow of the divine perfection' (p. 41.) 
 
FBANCIS WLLLIAM NEWMAN. 
 
 The conscience competent to decide religious questions 
 
 < 7. The sense of Wisdom differs from Goodness in this, that ' Good- 
 ness is seen in the choice of ends, Wisdom in the direction of the 
 means.' The antagonist Divine wisdom has to overcome consists of 
 human will, which Mr. Newman regards as independent. 
 
 8. The sense of Reverence is that which follows the discernment of 
 a mighty and inscrutable Being in the Universe. ' Reverence is the 
 beginning of true religion. He who reverences God is a religious 
 man, and whatever his other defects, is an accepted worshipper.' The 
 source of reverence Mr. Newman seems to place in the perception that 
 the great power who presides over Nature must needs possess Moral 
 qualities similar to our own, though every way more perfect. It is this 
 feature that raises what was Paganism into Rational Religion. In such a 
 portraiture of God as this, so consonant to the moral sense, commend- 
 ing him to the affections by its sweetness and to the intellect by its 
 purity, how gentle and yet how effectual is the refutation of the 
 gloomy picture of the avenging Deity whom our popular theology 
 preaches to us ! 
 
 4 The most decisive moral effects produced by the devotional posture 
 of the soul,' expressed by the term reverence, are explained (p. 50) to 
 I depend on consciousness that it has met the eye of God.' To ensure 
 this sentiment pure, lofty, and progressive, Mr. Newman hesitates not 
 to warn the reader that even the Bible is not to be regarded as an 
 Ideal, unless the conscience is too dull to rise above the Bible — that 
 in no case must the conscience be depressed to any standard, not even 
 to the Biblical standard (p. 62.) Mr. Newman gives this salutary 
 piece of instruction, by which the entire Christian world might largely 
 profit. ' All Christian apostles and missionaries,' says he, ' like the 
 Hebrew prophets, have always refuted Paganism by direct attacks on 
 its unmoral doctrines, and have appealed to the consciences of heathens 
 as competent to decide the controversy ' (p. 59.) ' The same boldness 
 of simple and true faith, by which the born votary of Paganism breaks 
 away ironi the errors of his national creed to follow [what he is told 
 are] the revelations of God in his soul, will also authorise and require 
 the Romanist to reject the Authority of his Church, and the Protes- 
 tant that of his Bible, whenever the one or the other inculcates upon 
 him as divine that which falls beneath the highest Ideal of his soul ' 
 (p. 57.) 
 
 This treatise on the Soul, in relation to that spiritual religion 
 which is so distasteful to the world when dispensed from the pulpits 
 by men of crude knowledge and vulgar nature, is the ' Philosophy of 
 Evangelical Piety.' Mr. Newman throws a new light on Sin — a subject 
 so treated that no new light was deemed possible ; so badly treated, 
 indeed, that no new light was felt to be wanted. When it comes to be 
 * distinctly conceived that the God of Nature is the God of our con- 
 sciences, and that all ivrong doing is frowned on by Him, the two new 
 terms, Holiness and Sin, are needed ' (p. 65.) To perceive, as even 
 old Herodotus did, * that the Gods hate and punish the desire of sin, 
 
64 THE THIAX OF THEISM. 
 
 The moral uses of religion described. 
 
 as itself a sin, is the germ of all spirituality ' (p. 66.) We get more 
 light than comes from many sermons in a single definition ; as that ol 
 Remorse, for instance, which is explained as ' the convulsion of the 
 Soul, as it consciously stands under the eye of God ' (p. 69.) 
 
 The purposes of religion, the condition of its purity and test of its' 
 perfection, are thus described—' The moral uses of religion are to«j 
 enliven man's conscience, strengthen his will, elevate his aspirations,! 
 content him with small supplies to his lower wants, rouse all his' 
 generous tendencies, and hereby ennoble him altogether ; but it cam 
 do none of these things effectually, except when it keeps him steadily;, 
 looking into the face of the Infinite and Infinitely Pure One ' (p. 70.) 
 ' Guilelessness is the whole secret of divine peace ' (p. 74.) ' A 
 conscious uprightness is obviously necessary to any spiritual peace, 
 nor does the heart need any other testimony than its own to the fact 
 of its uprightness ' (p. 89.) 
 
 Mr. Newman points out that what is popularly termed ' the total de- 
 pravity of human nature,' is more correctly the imperfection of nature. 
 ' In order to be morally perfect we should need at once infinite wisdom and 
 affections of infinite power ; and these are incommunicable prerogatives 
 of God' (p. 84.) The necessary imperfection of our constitution 
 cannot be appropriated to us as sin. This rational sense of sin does 
 not, however, degenerate into contentment with imperfection, for the 
 Soul is taught to aspire daily to higher and higher perfection. To 
 distinguish between the testimony of a Good Conscience and the 
 dangerous complacency of Self-righteousness, Mr. Newman observes, 
 that ' the moment we begin to admire ourselves, we are satisfied with 
 the state of goodness already attained, and cease (for so long) to aspire 
 after anything higher : thus the life-blood of the soul is arrested, and 
 putrefying stagnation is to be feared ' (p. 92.) 
 
 In treating of the sense of Personal Relation to God, Mr. Newman 
 no longer appeals to reason to the same extent as in the preceding 
 portions of his work. We therefore take his descriptions of this 
 phenomenon. ' The man,' says he, 'who at the same moment that he 
 adores perceives that his adoration is perceived and is accepted, has 
 already begun an intercourse with God' (p. 123.) Mr. Newman's 
 theory is, however, consistent with itself in all attractiveness of wor- 
 ship. He tells us that ' God does not act towards us (spiritually) by 
 generalisations, which may omit our individual case— his perfection 
 consists in dealing with each case by itself as if there were no other' 
 (p. 126.) 
 
 Spiritual progress Mr. Newman does not hold to consist merely in 
 suppressing some worse and lower tendency, very necessary and 
 desirable, from which a comfortable mediocrity is all that will result. 
 The moral perceptions must keep rising (p. 169) — the better part 
 which we choose must keep elevating. 
 
 The views of a future life developed in this work are new, modest, 
 and pure. The author considers that there are no arguments either 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN. 65 
 
 Mr. Newman's axiom of human thought. His answer to Byron's question. 
 
 of Scripture or of Reason appreciable by the un-spiritual consciousness 
 proving the immortality of the soul. Future existence seems not to 
 him neeessary, either to soften sorrow or animate hope. Pure love to 
 God simply requires that nearness of spirit which is obedience and 
 purity. Trustful aspiration seems to be the condition of the soul with 
 respect to eternity — and whatever assurance can be had of everlasting 
 life, comes best from the spiritual conviction that from being a child of 
 God we shall be heirs of God — of his kingdom, the kingdom of the 
 Prophets and the Messiah. ( Vide chap, v.) 
 
 In a passage, which must command the respect of philosophy, and 
 jdrich gives us the author's key to the True Religion, he observes : — 
 The immense progress of pure intellect must show every thoughtful 
 nan the impossibility (not to say wickedness) of sacrificing the 
 Intellect to the Soul, and wherever there is true Faith, there is an 
 inhesitating conviction that there cannot possibly be any real collision 
 Detween these two parts of human nature' (pp. 179, 180). ' To sacri- 
 ice Imagination and Intellect, and to sacrifice Domestic Affection, are 
 ibout on a par. It seems to be quite an axiom of thought that the 
 luman mind was meant to labour for the Useful, to contemplate the 
 Beautiful, to possess itself of the True, and to contend for the Right, 
 is well as to worship the Holy, or imitate the Bountiful One ' (p. 190). 
 
 He who attempts to render the work of another should, as far as 
 )ossible, render it in the spirit in which it is written. This I have 
 mdeavoured to do, placing myself, as well as I was able, in the 
 author's place, endeavouring to think his thoughts, and to forget that 
 nyown views differed from his. In * Childe Harold' Byron asks — 
 Foul Superstition ! howsoe'er disguised, 
 Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross, 
 For whatsoever symbol thou art prized, 
 Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss ! 
 Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross ? 
 The author of ' The Soul, her Sorrows and her Apirations,' has higher 
 )retensions to have answered this question than any other religious 
 vriter of our times whose works have come under my notice. 
 
 Religious persons have often remarked to me, ' You will find the 
 ame genial utterances of piety in the writings of many other divines 
 n Mr. Newman's.' In one sense this is true ; there are passages of 
 generous inspiration in the works of many eminent preachers, but 
 ixpressed with less explicitness, and besides, followed by a certain 
 iquivocation which leaves you in doubt whether you may trust them. 
 iVith Mr. Newman there is an unmistakableness which you feel to 
 )e at once reliable. There are no subtle texts of Scripture coming in 
 o dilute his meaning — there are no theories of divinity crushing the 
 vitality out of every generous affirmation. What he says once he 
 ays all through — not in one or two passages, but on every page. His 
 peech is constantly gentle — one tone pervades all — he sweeps away all 
 hat contradicts genial utterance. It is this wholeness, this permanence 
 »f spirit, that makes him unlike other religious writers. 
 
66 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The transmutation of attributes into entities one of the habits of Theists. 
 
 The advantage of a book of this character to all who desire the 
 rationalisation of religion is incalculable. It constitutes a standard by 
 which to try the low types of the Christian faith. Any who hold the 
 popular and degrading forms of Christianity, we may point to the 
 teachings of this book, and thus hope to elevate them. To Free- 
 thinkers it has the great value of showing us the ablest things that 
 can be urged by a man of candour and genius, and in what is excel 
 lent in such delineation we see what we have to equal or surpass, if 
 we are compelled to reject that set forth by our opponent. A book so 
 consummate as the Natural History of the Soul, is a standard, there- 
 fore, by which to try others and ourselves. And opponents learning 
 what we object to in this, will take warning and not demand our assent 
 to anything inferior. 
 
 Yet is this not a hard book to answer from our point of sight — the diffi- 
 culty is in refuting the argumentative foundation it has without 
 giving the impression that we undervalue its moral developments. 
 
 Mr. Newman sees in the Soul and the Conscience specific senses, 
 But the recurrence to us in action of our ideal of justice or duty is all 
 that we mean when we speak of Conscience. The frequent query to 
 the unjust or supine man — ' Have you no conscience ?' means, have 
 you no sense of justice or duty ? We have seen the Soul defined as 
 ' that part of our nature by which we are in contact with the Infinite.' 
 But the Soul, like the Conscience, is an attribute, not an entity. From 
 the observation of the near we pass to the contemplation of extended 
 phenomena. The illimitableness of the unknown has a deep influence 
 over us. Doubtless we desire to discover our relation, if any, to it. 
 The sense of the Infinitude around us is an extension of our Conscious- 
 ness or Soul. All reflections on nature amplify our conscious life] 
 without making consciousness an independent existence. To refer 
 each class of functions to separate moral senses is convenient and dis- 
 tinctive, but we must beware of the transmutation of these terms into. 
 entities by this specious and frequent use. From speaking of infinite 
 phenomena we come to abridge it into 'the Infinite :' the unknown 
 parts of nature come to be spoken of by Goethe as ' the Unknown.' 
 The Infinite and the Unknown, by the aid of isolation and capital 
 letters, assume the rhetorical force of personalities, and the attribute 
 insensibly glides into an Entity. It appears to me that the logical 
 force of this book upon believers lies in the unnoticed metamorphoses 
 which such leading words undergo. 
 
 The Atheist sees also with Mr. Newman, that all human knowledge 
 is bounded ; and he, too, seeks to draw the line where our knowledge 
 ends and our conjectures begin: but the 'illimitable haziness' sur-i 
 rounding our existence, of which he also is sensible, fails to enable 
 him to draw up a confession of religious belief — it indeed excites his 
 ' imagination,' but fails to guide his ' understanding.' The ' region oi 
 dimness is not without relation to his moral state,' but the relation is 
 not that which shapes itself into definite propositions. 
 
 The Infinite is open to us as well as to the Theist, and therefore the 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN. 67 
 
 New statement of the argument of Design. 
 
 * generous side ' of the nature of the moralist may he nurtured and 
 expanded by its contemplation. Every aspect of nature has its lesson 
 for reflective man. The boundlessness of the starry region impresses 
 us with the littleness of all strife. In the presence of such immensity 
 we are taught humility and love. We cannot look on Nature at 
 peace without inspiring gentleness and tranquillity. The same forms 
 of moral loveliness our author delineates with a master's hand, seem 
 equally discernible and equally to belong to the student of nature. 
 
 Mr. Newman unites a Catholic explicitness to Evangelical doctrine, 
 so opposite to the evasiveness of many rational religionists. Mr. 
 Newman does not pretend to compete with logic. He is too much of 
 the scholar to deprecate it. He concedes its great claims as the secu- 
 rity of intelligence, but he erects a system independently of it, openly, 
 respectfully, but daringly without it. 
 
 The affections of Awe, Wonder, Admiration, do not denote any 
 necessary belief in a Personal Deity (p. 49). Order, Design, Good- 
 ness, and Wisdom are the attributes of nature which are held to bring 
 in a personal Deity. But with respect to Order in the universe, we 
 do not learn from any observation that it must necessarily have an 
 external origin. Mr. Newman does not seem to discover in nature 
 proof that it has a Ruler over it. He says that if a man believe that 
 in the human mind an originating Will exists, he will believe that the 
 same species of Will has been exercised on nature. But if he discern 
 within himself no first principle of movement, he of course needs none 
 out of himself. If in his own actions he see no marks of (what others 
 call) Will, why should he see them in Nature ? (pp. 29, 30 ) This is 
 precisely the case with the Atheist. Law (which is the name given to 
 the uniformity of operations, to the calculable forces of Nature) seems 
 to him also to pervade mind. Intelligence seems no more exempt 
 from law than inorganic matter. Will is merely desire, intellectual or 
 sensuous, excited by external influence. 
 
 The Atheist therefore has little to answer : his case remains intact. 
 He knows that no opinion will finally prevail but that which is founded 
 on or coincident with logic. With respect to the argument of Design, 
 Mr. Newman fails to establish any case which affects the positiou of 
 the Atheist. The line of reasoning adopted by Paley, followed by 
 Chalmers, and illustrated by Brougham, Mr. Newman gives up as 
 untenable, and proposes a new statement of the argument. Thus : — 
 
 ' To believe in a divine architect, because I cannot otherwise under- 
 stand by what train of causation an Eye could have been made, is one 
 thing : (does the Theist any the more comprehend ?) But to believe 
 in a Designer, because I see the Eye to be suited to Light, is another 
 thing (p. 36). This latter view rests on the intuitive perceptions of 
 the Soul ; the former on the accuracy of strict logical deduction — 
 which can easily be shown to be inconclusive. Such Fitnesses as 
 meet our view on all sides bring a reasonable conviction that Design 
 lies beneath them ; and to confess this, is to confess the doctrine of an 
 iiiielligent Creator ' (p. 34). 
 
68 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 A God uncaused do explanation of a world uncaused. 
 
 But this goes no farther than to furnish a superficial, popular jus- 
 tification of the ascription of mind and personality to the power which 
 is in Nature. But to what end do we trouble at all about this matter 
 unless to get intellectual satisfaction out of it ? and this Mr. Newman's 
 argument cannot afford us. He himself says it does not in itself carry 
 us up to a First Cause.* Then how can we rely on that course of 
 reasoning which brings with it no test of its authenticity ? How, as we 
 have before remarked, can we know that the road we have set out upon 
 is the right one, if it be a road that cannot bring us to the end of our 
 journey? Mr. Newman himself alleges that ' injustice is done to the train 
 of thought which suggests Design when it is represented as a search 
 after Causes until we come to a First Cause, and there stop.' 
 
 But if this be not its purpose, of what value is it ? Mr. Newman 
 continues, in language we record verbatim, because it has become 
 memorable : — 
 
 ' As an argument, this, I confess, in itself brings me no satisfaction. 
 It is not pretended that we understand the First Cause any more than 
 the original phenomena. When we know not the character of His 
 agency, how have we accounted for anything ? or how have we even I 
 simplified the problem ? A God uncaused and existing from eternity 
 is to the full as incomprehensible as a world uncaused and existing 
 from eternity ' (p. 36). 
 
 It would not be possible to express more forcibly the difficulties 
 which the Atheist seeks to clear up. Yet upon these Mr. Newman j 
 has and professes to have no light to throw. If, therefore, we regard J 
 the position of the Atheist logically, as it should be regarded, as 
 arising in an attempt to satisfy the human understanding respecting 
 the fundamentals of Theology, Mr. Newman gives up the whole case 
 to him. 
 
 ' It is right however here,' our author observes, ' to enter a protest 
 against being thought to have an}' accurate and scientific knowledge 
 of God. We have none. Our knowledge is essentially crude, and 
 only approximate ; and to affect the rigour of human science is mere 
 delusion ' (p. 34) ; and he adds, without the fear of the philosophers 
 before his eyes, and most certainly sufficiently in defiance of them- 
 ' Syllogistic proof of an outer world will never be gained, nor yet syl- 
 logistic proof that a God exists or listens to prayer' (p. 92). And we 
 ' can no more prove that Will is not mere Desire, than I can prove 
 that it is God's influence and not my own which I feel within.' 
 
 If, however, the argument of design were established, it would have 
 no practical value unless we could discover the will of God. But here 
 again logical inference affords us no help. ' For, in material nature 
 Law alone rules, and moral considerations are. as far as we know, 
 uniformly overborne by mechanical ones' (p. 38.) Mr. Newman 
 
 * A celebrated literary divine, of the Church of England, favoured me, in 1851, with 
 answer to the ' Logic of Death,' an answer founded upon a masterly restatement of the 
 design argument. As he marked his letter ' private,' and has declined, at my request, to 
 remove the restriction, I of course cannot quote it. But these passages are equally a reply 
 to it ; and I take this occasion of saying that I wish him to accept them as such. 
 
FRANCIS WLLLIAM NEWMAN. 69 
 
 Francis Place's definition of Faith. 
 
 properly concludes, as we have before related, that ' God's moral thoughts 
 can no more be detected in the detailed actions of material objects, 
 than the affections of the watchmaker by inspecting a watch ' (p. 37). 
 Thus what is called the design argument rests upon the intuitive per- 
 ception of fitnesses, which indicate, but do not logically prove, design 
 — and thus the intellect must doubt while the soul may believe. 
 
 For Mr. Newman to represent us as being of defective nature, or as 
 suffering intellectual privation, in wanting the Religious sense, is a 
 less serious allegation than at first sight it appears ; it is not a priva- 
 tion not to see as Mr. Newman sees, unless he sees something impor- 
 tant which we cannot. ' Having knowledge, to apply it ; not having 
 knowledge, to confess your ignorance — this is true knowledge.'* 
 
 An octogenarian atheist, Mr. Francis Place, to whom I mentioned 
 Mr. Newman's accusation that we were deprived of a sense, answered, 
 'Ah, and he is right, too. Faith is another sense. There is no mistake 
 about it. Faith is that sense which enables a man to see what is not.' 
 Mr. Newman rests his entire theory of religion, not upon any 
 logieal proof, but upon the popular — and, as he calls it, instinctive — 
 belief in a self-determining Will, which, except we adopt, we cannot 
 act wisely or well (p. 122). ' If there be no such will in us, it is still 
 useful for practice to believe that there is, and the man who most 
 knows the truth is then most likely to act foolishly. This is so 
 intense a paradox as to confirm most people in their conviction that 
 : there is a self-moving will in us' (p. 112). 
 
 Is this so ? It is not clear that innumerable people do act wisely 
 and well without any practical belief in a self-moving will. The 
 i judge before he tries a case, and the jury before they hear it, have no 
 ■ will upon the subject. Both wait for evidence, and the verdict and 
 I the sentence are determined alone by evidence and by law. Those 
 1 who take this view of the human will, Mr. Newman says, ought 
 I logically to be Atheists. Atheism, therefore, erected on necessarian 
 ; ground, is a logical system. 
 
 On this subject my own feelings and convictions are in strange con- 
 I trast with those of Mr. Newman. He is able to recognise the presence 
 : of a Supreme Fvuling Mind only through the existence of Free Will. 
 . The presence of government in intelligence, of law in mind, is to him 
 t the symbol of atheism and moral anarchy. While to me Free Will 
 ; seems the synonym of chaos in nature, of disorder in ethics, of confu- 
 
 • sion in life. I see the influence men can exert on society, and that 
 I life is a calculable process. But why is it so ? There my curiosity is 
 ; baffled, and my knowledge ends. In vain I look back, hoping to 
 i unravel that mysterious destiny with which we are all so darkly 
 I bound. That is the channel through which all my consciousness 
 
 • seems to pass out into a sea of wonder, and if ever the orient light of 
 i Deity breaks in on me, it will, I think, come in that direction. The 
 1 presence of law in mind, is to me the greatest fact in nature. But no 
 
 * Confucius. 
 
70 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Naturalism not without morals. 
 
 gleam of explanation ever conies through the churches. All churches 
 unite to deny the truth or contradict it. I am afraid the explanation 
 is in the grave. 
 
 The most important objection to this theory of Necessity is that 
 Mr. Newman regards it as being fatal to morals as well as religion. 
 But morality, in its every possible development, recognises, as he 
 himself explains it (p. 25), ' both interest and duty as leading ends of 
 action;' and the necessarian is more likely to discern, calculate, and 
 follow out these ends than the man of free will, who is bound to dis- 
 regard consequences upon the principle of his assumed mental con- 
 stitution. 
 
 It is not necessary, after these results are arrived at, to debate with 
 Mr. Newman his doctrine of goodness in connection with the question 
 of the Origin of Evil, or his theory of Wisdom and Reverence, except 
 to say, with respect to the last, that we hope it may be allowed that 
 reverence for Virtue and Genius may exist in those who are not able 
 to find an object external to nature on whom to exercise that sentiment. 
 
 Involved in a struggle for life and liberty, partisans of the Atheistic 
 theory have had few opportunities of dwelling upon the discipline of 
 the affections which they seek to cherish. Whatever pertains to 
 purity and elevation of character, they value as deeply as the Theist. 
 We fully agree with what Mr. Newman so excellently says upon 
 these heads. We do not differ on these points, except as to the mode 
 of carrying them out. Even the sense of sin has with us its defined 
 place. Excess is sin, and, therefore, all deviation from intellectual or 
 physical temperance is an offence. All omissions of duty, or of love, 
 are offences ; which, if they do not involve remorse, involve contrition 
 — that contrition which is to be expressed by all possible reparation — 
 stricter watchfulness and contingent amendment. 
 
 What sense of personal relation to God can any one have whose 
 understanding is baffled in every instance in which comprehension of 
 the divine existence is attempted? Plainly none. Yet to under- 
 standing we must come, as we have no other protector than that 
 against the extravagance of superstition. Why religious persons 
 themselves have so often become degenerate, has been that will has 
 not purified them. And men have not seen how the improvement of 
 human nature is dependent on circumstance. 
 
 We lose little, if anything, by the theory of Pure Moralism (mere 
 Moralism Mr. Newman, I fear, would call it) : we gain little by that 
 theory of religion which he propounds. He is too farsighted not to 
 see, and too frank to withhold the admission of the fact, 'that in these 
 days at least no miracles are worked for our welfare,' and there is 
 nothing God can grant us except the ideal boon that ' the Soul may 
 never break away from His love' (p. 148). Except in things spiritual, 
 Mr. Newman does not pretend that there exists any special providence 
 interfering to save us or to guide us. Atheism does not leave us more 
 without God in the world than this representation ; and it at least has 
 this merit, that it forewarns us by its absolute teachings, and thus 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN. 71 
 
 1 We mnst not buy the patience of the poor by propagating delusion.' 
 
 forearms us against despair. Mr. Newman gives this theory of fear 
 and hope of the future : — 
 
 'Among ourselves also, beyond a doubt, crime is repressed in bold 
 and wicked men, only by fear of the visible and present judge. Whe- 
 ther hell be in theory believed or disbelieved, it has no practical 
 power, except over the less hardened. But the attempt to turn 
 Religion into a system of State Police, is an impiety, which inevitably 
 defeats its own end. Nor less does it desecrate divine Hope, to apply 
 it as a means of softening the sorrows of the unspiritual. Natural 
 sympathy is far more effective for consolation than any of the con- 
 ventional topics poured forth professionally on an uncongenial mind. 
 If Hope is to comfort them in their darker, it must live with them in 
 their brighter hours ; it must gush up out of an inward fountain. I 
 know it is said, that the poor are made more patient by the notion so 
 current among them, that in another life they will get compensation 
 for the hardships which they endure in the present ; but this is to 
 buy patience by propagating delusion ' (pp. 231, 232). 
 
 We therefore find that our human lot is to wait on death with that 
 quiet resignation which flows from innocence and fortitude, and with 
 that unpresumptuous expectancy which true humility teaches. The 
 admission of Philosophical Eeligion is here the same as the teaching of 
 Atheism. 
 
 The loss which Mr. Newman represents those to sustain who have 
 no sense of personal relation to God is less than he supposes. He 
 thinks that to see in God a person is the most energetic mode of re- 
 alising our highest ideal of moral excellence, and in clearing the moral 
 sight so that the ideal may keep rising ; and other things being equal, 
 a spiritual man will hold a higher and purer morality than a mere 
 moralist (p. 157). But what he thus gains in sublimity he is in 
 danger of losing in practical usefulness. Is not the love of humanity 
 a more energetic excitement of the affections than the vague ideal of 
 Deity, which has no hold upon the understanding? Nothing so 
 tends to clear the moral sight as a fraternal yet resolute vindication of 
 the Bight among living men ; and we are sure that our ideal of excel- 
 lence will always keep rising, as it will grow with our experience and 
 expand with our knowledge — and hence will become a pure enthusiasm 
 overspreading the whole of life. If the ideal we are to take for our 
 guide be gathered from humanity, the Atheist and the Theist stand 
 on the same level, and derive their inspiration of perfection from the 
 same source ; and in the respect in which the Theist affects to elevate 
 his ideal to the skies, he loses in definiteness and verity what he gains 
 by such abstract exaltation. To tell us that the ideal which is to 
 purify us must be imaginary and abstract, is surely not defensible. 
 What is infinite is beside mortals. A very few words spent in distin- 
 guishing for adoption a leading moral principle will furnish a man 
 with a guide which will determine his character, employ his life to 
 realise, and conduct him to indefinite nobleness through the infinite 
 steps of the diversified realisations whidi prolonged years afford- 
 
72 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The duty of approval as well as censure. 
 
 How can the affections manifest themselves, or prove their genuine- 
 ness, except by service of our species ? We may distrust all spirituality 
 which refuses this proof of its worth. Service and endurance are the 
 two attributes of cultivated and refined moralism — service, by which 
 love is proved, endurance, by which it is tried. 
 
 In lieu of creeds we have the love of Humanity and the study of 
 Nature. We rely on the cultivation of intelligence and the efforts of 
 industry — our security is in the integrity of intention and the 
 kindness of endeavour. True pleasure is in the reverence we 
 offer, consolation is in the help we render to inferior natures. 
 Laborare est orare — work is worship. 
 
 Many who comprehend no medium between independence of 1 
 opinion and rudeness of retort, will be at a loss to account for the 
 approval of the ' Soul ' expressed in the early part of this review. 
 With many any agreement whatever is considered as a coincidence 
 throughout. To consult the temper of such readers would condemn 
 a reviewer to wholesale hostility to all to whom he was opposed. J 
 These people would leave to no critic the merit of discrimination. 
 Not to distinguish and acknowledge an honourable, able, and manly 
 opponent from the disingenuous, mediocre, and cowardly tribe who 
 daily assault us, is to deserve condemnation for ever to the lowest j 
 order of opposition. As respects the Crown, I am accustomed to urge ; 
 that we have no right to invoke public opinion upon its injustice, j 
 unless we are prompt to acknowledge what is generous in tendency, i 
 which now and then it betrays. So with controversy — as I hate ! 
 keenly and heartily what I think erroneous, I endeavour to preserve I 
 my right to enter the distinctest protest against it that I am able to 
 put on record, by preserving the temper which shall make the fairest 
 acknowledgments to opponents — of that sincerity which I have no ; 
 right to question, and of that ability which it were want of capacity 
 not to see, want of culture not to feel, want of candour not to own. 
 
JOHN FOSTER. 73 
 
 Agitation of society on the introduction of gas. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 JOHN FOST £B. 
 
 It was a dreadful time when gas lighting was first put in practice. 
 We wonder how our forefathers got through it. We can but faintly 
 recall their terrors. We can, however, profoundly honour their 
 courage : it is all that is left for us to do. What mad head, what 
 hare-brain, what reckless incendiary, first proposed to light the streets 
 with gas! We have heard of the anxieties and dire exigencies of those 
 * evil times' from one who looks back on that period, as having sur- 
 vived the scientific ' Eeign of Terror.' Consternation seized every mind 
 when the first gas-pipe appeared in the streets. Whence came the Satanic 
 invention ? From some French Revolutionist meditating the termi- 
 nation of society, or from some Atheist precipitating the end of the 
 world ? It must be from one or the other. There was no doubt of 
 it : no other supposition could be entertained. The plan comprised 
 laying down a stream of liquid fire throughout the city. The town 
 was to be undermined with it. Conservative gentlemen and quiet 
 ladies stood aghast. A hundred thousand streams of flame intro- 
 duced into our streets ! What less could be expected than a universal 
 conflagration ? ' What !' exclaimed the newspapers — ' open currents 
 of fire in every house ? Who can answer for the thoughtlessness of 
 children — for the recklessness of servants — for acts of forgetfulness 
 and insanity ! Never, in the history of the world, was such a facile 
 and universal instrument of destruction ever proposed to be put at 
 the mercy of the ignorant and vicious.' Yet gas was to be introduced 
 into mill and church, shop and theatre, cottage and court, oil 
 merchants' premises, paper-makers', and banks. All parts of society 
 were struck at once. Should the fatal delusion spread, high and low, 
 professions and piety, churches and stocks, would undergo one im- 
 molation. The very subject was inflammable. Men's imaginations 
 were excited. They were consumed by fear before the fire began. 
 Then those who could fled to the barges on the Thames. Every 
 vessel was converted into a lodging-house. Those forced to remain 
 in the city carried water-tubs into garrets. Elderly ladies slept on 
 fire-proof bedsteads. Towns were deserted by the rich. All who 
 could travel went to live near the sea. Sailors were envied above all 
 men, and looked upon as the future Noahs who would survive the 
 world burnt up. Not alone the weak, but the strong, yielded to the 
 terror. Learning as well as ignorance was alarmed. Sir Walter 
 Scott came out. He took the chair at public meetings to denounce 
 the impending igneous anarchy. It was the privilege of terror to warn 
 if it could not save. Nor were the resources of religion wanting to 
 swell the chorus of consternation. The first explosion — and many 
 happened in making the first experiments with gas — sounded like a 
 10 
 
74 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The incitors of the French Revolution were Theists, not Atheists. 
 
 convulsion of nature, or the first trump of the Archangel. The end 
 of the world was come. The first of the Seven Vials was gas ! The 
 secret was discovered. The world was about to be burnt up. The 
 Dr. Cummings of that day turned up the mystical 666, and the hour! 
 was iixed to a minute ! 
 
 All this seems very absurd now, because science speedily settledj 
 the question by quiet demonstration. But in the world of 
 Theology this dreadful pother is for ever kept up by priests, who 
 alarm the unthinking and unwary by predicting what calamities must 
 happen if the light of reason should once be universally introduced. 
 Let the world bear up as well as it can, reason, like gas, will come to! 
 prevail, and humanity will see its way clearer than by the ' dim re- 
 ligious' light diffused by pulpits. Moral and intellectual revolutions 
 are not so rapid in their proofs as scientific changes, but the day of 
 proof will come, and Experience, the great teacher, will triumph. 
 The candour of history every day confutes the clerical prophets, and 
 the still small voice of argument restores the public confidence in 
 the truth. 
 
 Everybody has been told that the excesses of the French Revolution 
 were brought about by the Atheistic actors in it. It may be worth 
 while noting, by the way, that these excesses were moderation itself 
 compared with the ordinary course of despotisms which pervade the 
 continent to this day, and whose tyrannous bloodshed, with equal 
 reason, might be ascribed to the Christian actors and Christian 
 Emperors who, by the ' grace of God,' move therein. But the point 
 to be regarded is, that Rousseau, Voltaire, Robespierre, and Paine — 
 forerunners, actors, legislatorial and literary assistants of the French 
 Revolution — were believers in God, were authors of more original 
 arguments on the side of Theism, and even of Christianity, than the 
 whole of the Christian priesthood of that period. He who listens, 
 much to English preachers, will not listen long before he hears them 
 adduce and rely upon — for the defence of their theistical principles — 
 the very arguments of Voltaire, Rousseau, Robespierre, Paine, and 
 others, in the same breath or same discourse in which these authors 
 are described as Atheists, and defamed as men. 
 
 The first noticeable argument which any Christian minister pro- 
 duced after these remarkable thinkers had passed away — and the only 
 one which has lived in a distinct form in literature — is one by John 
 Foster. A necromancer in the use of words, Foster seized upon an 
 illegitimate principle, that of the knowledge of God, and concealing! 
 the fallacy under a subtily-woven veil of rhetoric, argued that the 
 sceptic must know all things who declared as unproven the cardinal 
 hypothesis of Theism — that a man must have infinite information who 
 denied the existence of Deity. A superficial proposition so plausible, 
 stated with exhaustive art, could not fail to win the suffrage of the 
 large number who hold that general prepossession is the prescience 
 of truth. Foster's argument is constantly reproduced. The Church- 
 man accepts the Dissenter's invention, and the Unitarian acquiesces in 
 
JOHN FOSTER. 75 
 
 The patent fallacy of the Fosterian argument. 
 
 ithe orthodox logic. The Rev. H. W. Crosskey quoted it in his 
 'Defence of Religion.' Mr. Pearson parades it in his 'Prize Essay,' 
 rewarded by the Evangelical Alliance; but on its first production it 
 crossed the Tweed, and Chalmers elaborated it with ponderous and im- 
 posing eloquence. We quote Foster's argument as given by Pearson : — 
 
 ' The wonder then turns on the great process by which a man 
 could grow to the immense intelligence which can know that there is 
 no God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment ! 
 This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God 
 is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this 
 moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there may 
 ibe in some place manifestations of a Deity, by which even he would 
 'be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the 
 universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not 
 himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, 
 that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of 
 all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which 
 ihe wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty 
 assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be 
 God. If he does not know everything that has been done in the 
 immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by 
 a God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes all other 
 divine existence by being Deity himself, he cannot know that the 
 Being, whose existence he rejects, does not exist. But he must know 
 that he does not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion 
 for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection and acts 
 accordingly.' 
 
 Two points are to be noticed. Foster puts a strict, an arbitrary, 
 and an absolute sense upon the word ' denial.' Next, that he intro- 
 duces a false element into the argument, that of personal knowledge, 
 which is forbidden to the Atheist when he introduces it into reasoning. 
 A single remark will show the fallacy of this assumption. It is quite 
 true that we do not ' know' that God does not exist : it is also true 
 that no Theist knows that he does exist. 
 
 If I ask a Theist the question, Have you any actual knowledge through 
 the senses that God exists ? He will probably tell me that I am both 
 ignorant and presumptuous. He will remind me that ' no man hath 
 seen God at any time.' He will tell me that the existence of Deity is 
 not a fact of the senses — that it is not a matter of knowledge, but a 
 matter of revelation or an argument from analogy — a logical inference 
 — or an intuition — or a feeling — or a question of probability when 
 we reason inductively from causes to effects — or a ' necessity of the 
 intellect' when speculation tires on the wing, and thought has ex- 
 hausted its utmost force. If, therefore, the Theist is without the 
 knowledge that God does exist, why should Foster demand of the 
 Atheist the knowledge that God does not exist ? If the Theist refuses 
 the test of eyesight for his affirmation, why does he demand it of the 
 Atheist for his 'denial?' If the Theist may use argument, why may 
 
76 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Foster's argument refuted by inversion. 
 
 not the Atheist ? If the Theist may reason, and can reason only on 
 the evidence of the intellect, why do Foster, Chalmers, and all divines 
 demand from the Atheist evidence of the senses ? 
 
 The case fairly stated stands thus : — 
 
 The Theist says : all things considered — all present argument 
 weighed — it is clear to me that God exists. 
 
 The Atheist says : all things considered — all present argument 
 weighed — it appears to me that the infinite secret is beyond our 
 finite powers to penetrate. 
 
 Foster cannot be said to recognise this fact. He refutes our position 
 by evading it : and those who do not know, or do not care to discern 
 what it is, assume a question settled which indeed is not truly touched. 
 The proper reply to Foster is in his own words. By what rule or by 
 what presumption does the Theist declare that there is a God ? The 
 terms of our interrogation may take Foster's forms : — 
 
 The wonder turns on the great process by which a man could grow to 
 the immense intelligence which can hwiv that there is a God. What 
 powers, what lights are requisite for this attainment ! This intelligence 
 involves the very attributes of Divinity, which must therefore be pos- 
 sessed by the Theist while they are pretended to be sought. For unless 
 this man is omnipresent — unless he is at this moment in everyplace in 
 the universe, he cannot know but there may be, in some place, manifes- 
 tations of Nature independent of Deity, by which even lie would be over- 
 powered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the 
 one that he does not know may be the Eternal Source of all Life. If he 
 is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know that 
 God is so — that which is so may be the Eternal and Independent 
 Element which animates Nature. If the Theist is not in absolute 
 possession of all the propositions which constitute universal truth, the 
 one which he wants may be, that Nature is the Primordial and Sole 
 Existence. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he 
 perceives to exist, that cause may be Nature. If he does not know 
 everything that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, 
 some things may have been done by Nature. Thus, unless the Theist 
 knows all things — that is, precludes all other independent existence 
 by being the infinite existence himself, he does not know that the 
 Nature whose supremacy he rejects, does not self-subsist, and act on 
 its own eternal essence. The Theist must know that it does not do 
 so, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion for the temerity 
 with which he firmly avows his rejection and acts accordingly. 
 
 Thus it may be shown that the most celebrated argument in favour 
 of Theism is clear and strong against it. 
 
 Atheism strictly, and without priestly associations of moral guilti- 
 ness, is the dispassionate inquiry into the problem of nature and des- 
 tiny, seeking the solution which Theology assumes to have found. 
 Atheism is reason putting questions to theology. This Fosterian 
 answer proposes to satisfy the understanding. It does no such thing. 
 It fills the ears with verbiage, and mocks inquiry by solemn artistic 
 evasions. 
 
THOMAS PEAHSON. 77 
 
 The lottery theory of prize essays exposed. 
 
 Theology, considered as the logic of inferences, may have other 
 rarguments which will satisfy the understanding. Foster's is not such a 
 one. Whoever finds such arguments will know them by this test : — They 
 will be those with which he feels he can dare the judgment of others 
 in a fair field of discussion. How many priests have found such ? 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THOMAS PEARSON. 
 
 Prize Essays are not thought much of by the public. Their failure 
 is almost proverbial ; nor until the system on which they are produced 
 is changed are they likely to attain intrinsic reputation. We have 
 seen £1,800 paid for one of the Burnett Prize Essays, the one entitled 
 ' Christian Theism.' It was refuted in two columns of the Athenceum 
 the week of its publication. The plan of its origin was this : — It was 
 made known that £1,800 were to be awarded for the best essay upon 
 a given question. Few thinkers would become competitors, except 
 such as were so poor as to be lured by the prospect of the prize. A 
 man, whose property placed him above the necessity of seeking such 
 a sum, would not be likely to engage in a laborious competition where 
 the result was a lottery. A man whose talents could bring him equal 
 remuneration by legitimate employment, would not turn aside for this 
 chance work ; and a man of commanding talent, calculated to produce 
 a celebrated book, such as a great prize essay is designed to be, can 
 generally find some certain occupation for his powers. The competi- 
 tors, therefore, for the prize would probably be needy and second-rate 
 men. Some colour of likelihood is lent to this theory, by the fact that 
 prize essay productions are commonly second-rate in character. Let 
 us have regard for a moment to the condition of the competitors 
 actually at work. No book likely to live, of the dimensions of the 
 Burnett Essay, could be produced in less than a year. Two years 
 would be well spent upon it. Say it could be written in one year. 
 The year's work of a literary man of considerable talent would be 
 worth £500; if a man of conspicuous talent, at least £1,000. Each 
 competitor, therefore, must be prepared to risk £500 or £1,000 in 
 qualifying himself to take part in the competition for the prize. Very 
 lew literary men could or would do this. The essays, therefore, would 
 be produced in the cheap and accidental way, as opportunity offered, 
 or means afforded. An honest book, the result of adequate preparation, 
 leisure, and labour, is rarely produced as a prize essay. All who offer 
 prizes proceed upon the supposition that ambition to be distinguished 
 will lead somebody to put themselves to great expense in order to 
 become competitors, which is an appeal to vanity rather than to genius ; 
 or the offerers of prizes assume that books of merit can be produced 
 at random, or ideas shaken up in a dice-box fashion. The prize essay 
 plan at present followed is a species of intellectual lottery. There 
 
78 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 A new plan of prize essays proposed. 
 
 will generally be people attracted by the proposed reward, and some 
 who, for the sake of seeming good to be done, will join in these 
 contests at considerable cost to themselves, and many serviceable books 
 have been produced in this way ; but the theory on which the prize 
 is proposed, certainly does not include a reasonable chance of obtain- 
 ing the highest results. 
 
 The £100 given by the Evangelical Alliance for their essay on 
 ' Infidelity,' would not pay for the works the author professed to 
 consult, or was bound to consult. When an adequate sum is proposed 
 — £1,800, as in the case of the Burnett Essay — some such plan as the 
 following would afford a prospect of an effective book being pro- 
 duced : — 
 
 1. Let an invitation be given to all qualified persons willing to join 
 in the competition, to send in their names with such particulars as 
 would enable a committee to select twelve persons from them, who 
 should be considered conditional competitors. 
 
 2. The twelve persons so selected should then be invited to send in 
 a programme of the proposed work, each person to receive £50 for the 
 programme he furnished, which would enable a week or fortnight's 
 real work to be bestowed upon it. 
 
 3. The author of the programme likely, in the opinion of the com- 
 mittee, to produce the ablest book, to be commissioned forthwith to 
 write it, ample time being given him to write it in, ensured the 
 remaining £1,200, and left free to write for the public, in place of two 
 or three capricious umpires. 
 
 In this way able men might be reached, and the chance element, so 
 fatal to prize essays, be eliminated, and the pecuniary condition of 
 originating a book of ability, contemplated in the theory of a prize, be 
 really furnished. Some such arrangement would convert the prize 
 essay plan into an honest experiment, instead of being an intellectual 
 gambling speculation, inflicting loss of time and disappointment on all 
 seduced into it, and beating in the dark for a man of genius. 
 
 When a competition for designs in art is proposed, only the prelimi- 
 nary sketch, or statuette, is requested, and the author of the design 
 most approved has a commission to execute it. Only the design (and 
 estimate in some cases) is asked for gratuitously, and these ought to 
 be paid for where funds permitted ; but no one is asked to execute his 
 design in stone or marble, upon the chance of its being the best. Yet 
 this is done with respect to books — the competitor is asked to design 
 and finish his work, with all chances save one against its being unac- 
 cepted. 
 
 This volume is intended to include, in addition to original papers, 
 such revised papers as have been subjects of comment in pulpits, or 
 subjects of published replies ; because in many cases criticisms extant 
 in volumes that may long live, refer to outsides or tracts ' out of 
 print.' Of revised papers in reply to works of pretension, written 
 against Atheistical and kindred views, we may include one upon the 
 Pearson Prize Essay. We have given reasons why a prize essay is 
 
THOMAS PEARSON. 79 
 
 Evangelical ministers enter into a controversy after a century of protests against it. 
 
 not to be regarded as necessarily the highest in ability ; but an essay 
 put forward with the approval of the Evangelical Alliance, numbering 
 one knows not how many thousand ministers of different sects, may be 
 regarded as an accredited type of the Evangelical mind. Its history 
 is as instructive as curious. The appearance of the essay is a land- 
 mark in the progress of criticism ; it is a triumph of sceptical logic to 
 have influenced orthodoxy in the way and to the extent this essay 
 gives indications. 
 
 "When the Pearson 'Prize Essay of the Evangelical Alliance on 
 Infidelity' appeared, it was published at 10s. 6d., and we suggested 
 that such a price placed it out of the reach of persons for whom 
 it professed to be designed — observing, that in the cases of workmen 
 of small wages, unless such persons could afford to put by 6d. or Is. 
 weekly, to invest in this half-guinea essay, they could only be con- 
 verted quarterly or half-yearly. There appeared to the Alliance 
 some force in the suggestion, and it has been avowedly acted 
 upon, as it appears from the preface of a ' People's Edition,' 
 which has been issued at Is. 6d., and in considerable quantities 
 at Is. Mr. Farmer himself subscribed for 1000 copies. We have 
 been the cause of several hundred copies being sold. Both in 
 articles and lectures we have advised the purchase of the book. 
 Our first object was to fulfil the duty we owe to the truth — the duty 
 of studying both sides. Another object was to show that our profes- 
 sion of esteem for debate has been real. The conflict of opinion we 
 hold to be a source of light. The Evangelical Ministry have entered 
 the lists of Discussion, and, taking us at our word, were entitled to 
 our attention. After a century of disparagement of debate, they join 
 in it — a testimony to the legitimacy of discussion that will have 
 weight with the public. The Evangelical world sees discussion to 
 have moral value, or they would not adopt it. 
 
 We may illustratively quote a brief passage from the ' Introduction ' 
 to the People's Edition, by Mr. Jordan, of Enstone, for the history of 
 this book is curious, and deserves to be better known. Mr. Jordan 
 says : — ' A critic in the Reasoner observes respecting it : — " We might 
 describe this Essay as a book of relevant quotations, to which, how- 
 ever, as such, we attach considerable merit. The author has gathered 
 an anti-Freethinking bouquet, but the string that ties it is his own 
 
 Mr. Pearson (whose name is new to us) reviews an extensive 
 
 field of inquiry, in a semi-genial spirit, and with an evident disposition 
 to do justice to the subjects of his criticisms. What he has read he 
 writes about with more impartiality than we are accustomed to in Evan- 
 gelical animadversion ; but what he takes from report he judges like 
 
 his brethren We trust that the Evangelical Alliance will oblige our 
 
 working readers with a cheap edition." ' Mr. Jordan continues — ' This is 
 high commendation, indeed, for what can be more so than to propound, 
 that a work is composed in a spirit of unbiassed feeling, impartiality, and 
 truthfulness ? Such an admission, joined with the desire for an edition that 
 the working man can possess himself of, gives every hope and assu- 
 
80 THE TE1AL OF THEISM, 
 
 The circle of Freethought -miters disclosed by Mr. Pearson. 
 
 ranee that it will be received and read by him in the same spirit of; 
 candour in which it was written. This is all that truth asks — free 
 and fair discussion. Britons were never so appealed to in vain.' 
 
 Do we really read these words — ' Free and fair discussion, free and 
 fair inquiry ?' Why, this is the ancient, the actual Freethinking 
 formula, and 'Britons' are appealed to to carry it out. We could! 
 say no more. Let the reader bear witness how often we have been 
 abused for saying less. 
 
 We had yet another reason for commending the work to circulation, 
 which we now avow. Hundreds of thousands of pulpit-taught people 
 exist, who believe that Freethought has no names on its side except] 
 Voltaire, Paine, and Owen. Hardly another name is mentioned to 
 them, and all with ribald or disrespectful associations. Judge their 
 wonder, then, to find Mr. Pearson industriously parading the most 
 illustrious names of literature and science on the side of Infidelity. 
 He explores the continent — he exhibits the grand class of German I 
 thinkers ; he crosses the Atlantic, and quotes the magical names of the 
 New World as partizans and expounders of Anti-Christian opinion.' 
 The uninformed believer reads all this with wonder, astonishment,; 
 and instruction. And not only does Mr. Pearson quote names hitherto 
 unknown to the Evangelical world — he does better yet ; he quotes 
 their ideas, and we will do him the justice to say, that he quotes them 
 with considerable fairness. Thus he brings high and suggestive, and 
 previously unknown thoughts, before the Dissenting churches. The 
 young Theist, who expects a miserable parade of a few well-abused 
 names, finds a galaxy of names of honour, and which the world 
 honours ; the young Christian who expected to hear, as he has been 
 told to expect, ribald words of blatancy and blasphemy, and French 
 Revolutions, pour from tipsy lips, is amazed to find poets, philoso- 
 phers, and men of pure morals and acknowledged genius, discourse 
 noble and deep thoughts. Instead of the carnal mind at enmity with 
 God, he finds lofty efforts to solve the mysteries of existence and 
 problems of duty : he finds sentiments so graceful and moving, that 
 Mr. Pearson's condemnation of them seems to the Christian, as it will 
 to others, to be singularly feeble beside them. Take an instance — men 
 are deterred from exalting and trusting morality, faith in Christ being 
 declared the sole qualification for heavenly acceptance. Mr. Pearson 
 encourages this false sentiment, and in doing so tells us Coleridge's 
 4 Ancient Mariner ' went much too far, when he said — 
 
 ' He prayeth well who loveth well 
 Both man and bird and beast; 
 He prayeth best who loveth best 
 All things both great and small: 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all.' 
 
 This noble sentiment of Coleridge's, in which the pathos is equal to 
 the purity of the thought, is not * going too far.' On the contrary, 
 
THOMAS PEABSON. 81 
 
 The disappearance of ' vulgar and ignorant Infidelity ' admitted. 
 
 the farther a man goes in this direction the better— the better for 
 mercy, for progress, and for love. 'But,' continues Mr. Pearson, 
 * Mr. Emerson and his school go much farther — " As soon as the man 
 is at one with God, he will not beg, he will then see prayer in all 
 action. The prayer of the farmer, kneeling in his field to weed it ; 
 the prayer of the rower, bending with the stroke of the oar, are true 
 prayers, heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends." Mr. 
 Theodore Parker,' continues Mr. Pearson ' discourses in a simi- 
 lar way. Speaking of what he calls the happy condition of the 
 religious man, he tells us that his " religion demands no particular 
 actions, forms, or modes of thought ; the man's ploughing is as holy 
 as his prayer ; his daily bread, as the smoke of his sacrifice ; his home, 
 sacred as his temple ; his work-day and his Sabbath are alike God's 
 days ; his priest is the holy spirit within him." And,' adds Mr. 
 Pearson, ' if Mr. Carlyle does not mean to countenance this Pantheistic 
 dogma, why, in " The Modern Worker," does he so frequently talk 
 
 thus : — " Work is of a religious nature All true work is sacred ; 
 
 in all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of 
 divineness. Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven; 
 sweat of the brow, and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the 
 heart ; which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all 
 sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroisms, martyrdoms — up to that 
 agony and bloody sweat, which all men have called divine! O! 
 brother, if this is not worship, then I say the more pity for worship ; 
 for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky." ' If 
 these sentiments are wrong, we deem it more consonant to the moral 
 sense, and more useful to society, to err with Emerson, and Carlyle, 
 and Parker, than to be in the right with Mr. Pearson, or the Evan- 
 gelical Alliance, and so will thousands who read the sentiments so 
 thoughtlessly condemned. 
 
 The moral tone of Theistical thinkers of the orthodox class is well 
 illustrated by this representative book, which entitles it in this place 
 to special attention. 
 
 A committee of ministers and gentlemen, among whom are the Earl 
 of Cavan and Rear- Admiral Harcourt, issued a prospectus of a People's 
 Edition of this Essay. We quote two remarkable passages from it. The 
 italics are our own : — The disciples of Infidelity have gathered up the 
 experience of their conquered predecessors in this painful battle, and 
 under a new and plausible terminology, and with unceasing enterprise, 
 energy, and tact, are sowing the old and virulent Atheistic poison broad- 
 cast throughout the land. The cheap press is one of their strongholds ; 
 Voltaire, Rousseau, Mirabeau, Strauss, Hegel, Parker, Combe, and 
 others of the same stamp, are now the earliest and cheapest hand- 
 books recommended by the itinerant Infidel lecturer, and eageriy 
 purchased, read, and mentally mastered, by the masses of our working 
 men and women. Vulgar and ignorant Infidelity has almost disappeared : 
 but its place is supplied by various shades of metaphysical Atheism, 
 thoroughly fortified by the study of some or all of the authors 
 
 11 
 
 <?t>G-77 
 
82 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Classification of Atheistical and Sceptical objections to Christianity. 
 
 already mentioned, and garnished by the subtleties of a modern apostle 
 of what is artfully called Secularism. To meet this state of things it 
 has been proposed to publish an edition of Mr. Pearson's work on Infi- 
 delity at such a price as would place it within the reach of the 
 
 humblest artizan Able treatises have, from time to time. 
 
 appeared, devoted to certain portions of the Infidel controversy, such 
 as Atheism, Deism, Socialism, etc. Some few authors have described 
 the whole field of discussion, but have contented themselves with an 
 accurate picture, doing little or nothing to expose and refute the 
 enemy in detail ; others have attempted this task, but have fought the 
 battle on a platform of pure reason or metaphysics : others, again, 
 Tiave used the Word of God, but have used it deceitfully, and mixed it 
 with tradition or human authority, as the Romanist and Unitarian 
 writers ; but here we have an author whose stand-point is catholic 
 and evangelical, and who not only thoroughly investigates and 
 exhausts the subject, but whose weapons throughout the entire conflict 
 are the principles contained in the Word of God, used by an enlight- 
 ened and accomplished Christian philosopher. Mr. Pearson gives a 
 full-sized view of each phase or system of Infidelity, from its own 
 recognised winters, generally in their own words ; and the thoughtful 
 working man will at once pay deference to him, not only as a thorough 
 master of his subject, but as a candid controversialist.'* 
 
 This passage expresses precisely the truth, and very curious truth 
 it is, coming from such a quarter. Mr. Pearson makes so comprehen- 
 sive a sketch of Freethinking opinions, that his work is no less instruc- 
 tive to Atheists than to Theists. We had long desired a brief, 
 readable, and reliable summary of Freethought principles — an intelli- 
 gent classification of the various schools of Freethinkers, which might 
 be put into the hands of a new inquirer to inform him and direct him. 
 We had neither time nor means to attempt it. The books lie wide 
 apart, and are expensive to collect together. The thoughtful Evangeli- 
 cal Alliance offered a prize to have this done for us, and Mr. Pearson has 
 very creditably accomplished the task.. His classification comprises: — 
 
 I. Atheism ; or the denial of the Divine Existence. 
 II. Pantheism ; or the denial of the Divine Personality. 
 
 III. Naturalism ; or the denial of the Divine Providential Government. 
 
 IV. Spiritualism ; or the denial of the Bible Redemption. 
 V. Indifferentism ; or the denial of Man's Responsibility. 
 
 VI. Formalism; or the denial of the Power of Godliness. 
 
 The title of this book, ' Infidelity,' is an offence in logic, because it 
 is made to include Atheism, which is larger than Infidelity. To 
 Mr. Pearson, however, belongs the praise of discrimination. 
 Though belonging to the feeble and fearful school of Evangelical 
 thinkers, he admits an intellectual force in the objections of Rationalists, 
 which his predecessors have denied. 
 
 Whoever represents Freethought with fairness, or tolerable fair- 
 
 * As a striking illustration, we beg the reader to peruse the critique (p. 12), from Mr- 
 Holyoake's Reasoner.—Note by the author of the Prospectus. 
 
THOMAS PEARSON. 83 
 
 Theists ignorant of the eminent objectors to their views. 
 
 ness, must serve it. Mr. Pearson has done this, and so far has served 
 Freethought ;* and we are bound to own that we have a higher 
 esteem for the gentlemen of the Evangelical Alliance, who have 
 publicly put their hand and seal to representations of Freethought, so 
 much more impartial and argumentative than any with which the 
 world has before been favoured from orthodox opponents. If any fail 
 to understand this statement, we bid him compare Mr. Pearson's 
 Prize Essay with Watson's ' Apology for the Bible,' or other equally 
 infamous books, popular with the Evangelical world fifty years ago. 
 
 This Essay is an agreeable hand-book of Freethought, calculated 
 to be of public service. An incredible number of Christians exist 
 everywhere, who know nothing of sceptical principles or writers 
 (by sceptic is always to be understood one who is sceptical of theology, 
 not of morality, honour, duty, and truth.) The sceptic had no 
 machinery adequate to reach the Christians ; and could he reach them, 
 they would, probably, distrust his word. It would be in vain he should 
 tell them, as Mr. Pearson tells them, of the array of men of genius, 
 esteemed throughout the republic of literature, standing more or less on 
 the sceptic's side. His word, on such unrecognised facts, would scarcely be 
 credited. Judge, then, his gratification at finding the Evangelical 
 Alliance supplying the information, and carrying it, free of cost to us, 
 into every* nook and corner of the land. They give a prize to the 
 author of the unexpected statement ; they guarantee its correctness ; 
 reduce its price to meet the sceptic's convenience, and circulate it with 
 marvellous ardour. Messrs. Partridge and Oakey issue 20,000 copies 
 of the work, and in language that deserves to be preserved, they thus 
 invoke the aid of all good Christian people : — 
 
 1 1 . Transmit immediately your recommendation of the scheme. We 
 are anxious to publish a large list of recommendations. 
 
 1 2. Clergymen and ministers will greatly help by pulpit announce- 
 ment and recommendation, wherever they feel at liberty to do so. 
 
 ' 3. Presbyteries, Deacons' Courts, Class Meetings, or Congregations 
 might purchase in quantities of from ten to a hundred, according to 
 their numbers and means of distribution ; and individual Christians, 
 by the outlay of twenty shillings, might materially assist in this im- 
 portant work. The same benevolent friend who purchased 1,000 
 copies of Wylie's "Essay on the Papacy," for gratuitous distribution, 
 has also purchased 1,000 copies of the 10s. 6d. edition of this Essay, 
 for a similar wise and benevolent purpose. Surely it is not too much 
 to expect that wherever a Synod or Deacon's Court receives this gift 
 in the person of its pastor, it will emulate the example of the giver, by 
 the purchase and distribution of at least fifty or one hundred copies of 
 this shilling edition throughout their respective congregations. 
 
 ' 4. The Committees of Benevolent, Tract, and Book Societies may 
 
 * While reading the original proof of this article, we received the Edinburgh Daily Press 
 containing this notice, which we were very sorry to read : — ' The Rev. Thomas Pearson, of 
 the United Presbyterian Church, Eyemouth (author of the Prize Essay on Infidelity), 
 died on Thursday evening at Rothesay, whither he had repaired some weeks ago for the 
 benefit of his health.' 
 
64 THE TBIAX OF THEISM. 
 
 Argumentative and speculative minds, It is admitted, are attracted by scepticism. 
 
 well assist in this distribution ; and members of such Committees will 
 help us by suggesting this course. 
 
 '5. Sunday-schools will, perhaps, be the most legitimate and') 
 effective field for this distribution, especially those in manufacturing' 
 districts. The infidel father can often be reached through the little| 
 Sunday-school child, and the elder scholars should be urged to pur-} 
 chase and read for themselves. Ministers, Superintendents, and{ 
 Teachers can greatly help us. 
 
 * 6. Manufacturers, and those who employ large numbers of artisans,) 
 should purchase large quantities for gratuitous distribution. Clergy- 1 
 men and Ministers can help us by suggesting this. One hundred! 
 copies can be had for five pounds ; one thousand for fifty pounds, and! 
 so on. 
 
 ' 7. Public Headings of this Essay (the large edition) to working I 
 men, might be got up in connection with Christian churches, with a 
 view to counteract the efforts of itinerant infidel lecturers ; and at 
 these readings the shilling edition might be sold to the audience, who 
 could then follow the reader, and thus obtain improvement as well as 
 instruction. 
 
 4 8. Christians generally, who wish to make a cheap and valuable 
 present to the careless and sceptical with whom they are brought into 
 contact, should keep a supply of these Essays in their houses, or at 
 their place of business. Clergymen and Ministers can help us by 
 suggesting this. Christians in business often feel a difficulty (from 
 want of time and other causes) in speaking to their business ac- 
 quaintances upon religious topics. There could be no difficulty in 
 presenting this volume to the most fastidious, and who can tell the 
 result of distributing only one hundred copies in twelve months ?' 
 
 The friends of Freethought quite agreed (of course on different 
 grounds) with Messrs. Partridge and Oakey. A complete pamphlet, 
 of sixteen pages, was next devoted to the prospectus of the new 
 people's edition, and all this was done expressly ' under the authority | 
 of the Evangelical Alliance.' The ' benevolent friend ' who subscribed 
 for 1,000 copies at 10s. 6d., also subscribed for 1,000 of the shilling 
 edition. This is Mr. Thomas Farmer, of Gunnersbury, a Wesleyan 
 gentleman. The Religious Tract Society took 2,000. Even the Rev. 
 John Jordan, Vicar of Enstone, Oxfordshire (the church is commonly 
 more astute), was drawn into specially commending the project. He 
 remarks : — ' It is one of the fearful influences of Infidelity to attract 
 and enchain argumentative and speculative minds with a show of reason 
 and an appearance of hope ; and thus to give them a kind of educa- 
 tion, which may best be described as rationalistic. This is the case 
 not merely in the manufacturing districts, where the sharp conflict of 
 many and acute minds sharpens minds, and confirms them in their 
 ill-founded and unsubstantial logic, but even in the agricultural dis- 
 tricts ; and, however much some may be disposed to think that a work 
 so learned and logical as Mr. Pearson's, would be either unsuited or 
 unacceptable to what are called the uneducated classes (but are not 
 uncultivated), it is just the very kind of work adapted to them.' 
 
THOMAS PEABSOK. 85 
 
 The wonderful trumpeting of Dr. CampbelL 
 
 The tone of this is gentlemanly toward the ' uneducated but not 
 incultivated.' Dr. Campbell, of the British Banner (now of the 
 -British Standard), who does nothing by halves, has his say on this 
 i subject. As a bellows-blower, the worthy Doctor has no equal. 
 I Listen to this tremendous blast blown into the Evangelical organ : — 
 Messrs. Partridge, Oakey, and Co., have conceived the noble project 
 )f issuing the Prize Essay at a price cheap beyond example. They 
 i nave brought it out in a handsome form, in good type, sufficiently 
 arge even for persons advanced in years, and sell it at the price of 
 bne shilling. One shilling for considerably upwards of 300 large 
 {pages of solid letter-press! This surpasses everything of the kind 
 heretofore attempted. The publishers contemplate issuing a flood of 
 |ao less than 100,000 copies ! All honour to brave hearts ! This is a 
 ; conception worthy of the book, of the cause, of the country, and the 
 age. The project, we perceive, is taking a deep hold on the hearts of 
 generous and zealous men, one of whom — Thomas Farmer, Esq., a 
 i Wesleyan gentleman of opulence, and forward to every good work — 
 l has set the noble example of subscribing for 1,000 copies! This is 
 worthy of Wesleyanism in its best days ; and the great Patriarch of 
 the community would have smiled upon his liberal son, and perhaps 
 have thanked God for the heart given him. Fifty more gentlemen 
 nutating the example of Mr. Farmer, will carry the project to the top 
 of the hill ; and its path will afterwards be easy. We find ministers 
 of various communities, and of the highest influence, hailing the 
 project as one of great promise. We also see other gentlemen sub- 
 scribing for their 100 or 200 copies. We scarcely know how men of 
 means can better lay out a portion of their Master's money than by 
 joining in this great Christian enterprise.' 
 
 We think so too. And that we have thought so, we may appeal to 
 Partridge and Oakey's subscription list. Alderman Heywood, of 
 Manchester, is among the subscribers. Mr. E. A. Scholey, of Walsall, 
 is another name known to us. In every part of the country the work 
 has been circulated by Freethinking booksellers. We personally advised 
 Mr. Councillor Cooke, of Bradford, the principal newsagent there, to 
 take a quantity. He did so, and his name appears in Messrs. Part- 
 ridge and Oakey's List (May, 1854), printed the ' Rev. W. Cooke, 
 Bradford.' Here is an old friend with a new face. We sent down to 
 congratulate our Reverend colleague on his ordination by those cele- 
 brated Paternoster Row divines — Partridge and Oakey. 
 
 The Rev. J. A. James says the book ' ought to sell by myriads.' 
 Dr. Urwick, of Dublin, is of opinion that 'The noble project of 
 Messrs. Partridge, Oakey, and Co., to issue an edition of Pearson's 
 book on Infidelity at one shilling* a copy, deserves every support from 
 the friends of Revelation and of man. The essay itself is comprehen- 
 sive and masterly of its kind. If it can be got into the hands of the 
 masses, of which the review of it in the Reasoner affords good 
 
 * The price for single copies ia is. 6d. 
 
86 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Why controversial dialogue so commonly fails. 
 
 promise, there is little doubt that, under God's blessing, it will aid in 
 counterworking the scepticism which has of late years been spreading 
 so fearfully among them.' 
 
 We re-quote our own words, as printed by Messrs. Partridge and 
 Oakey in their prospectus, and referred to by the Rev. John Jordan 
 and Dr. Urwick, in order to show that we in no way misled these 
 gentlemen : — ' We might describe this Essay as a book of relevant 
 quotations ; to which, however, as such we attach considerable merit. 
 The author has gathered an anti-freethinking bouquet, but the string 
 that ties it is his own. Less harsh in invective than Robert Hall, less 
 denunciatory than Angell James, less scornful than Vaughan, less 
 contemptuous than Rogers, Mr. Pearson (whose name is new to us) 
 reviews an extensive field of inquiry in a semi-genial spirit, and with 
 an evident disposition to do justice to the subjects of his criticisms.' 
 
 We remain of the same opinion still : and we justify our opinion, and 
 the interest we take in the circulation of the book, by examining some 
 of its representations. 
 
 Mr. Pearson undeceives the Christian reader, who has been 
 taught to believe that none but the demented or the wicked stand on 
 the sceptical side. Freethought and Christianism, Mr. Pearson 
 admits, are more equally matched. On page 3 he says : — ' There are 
 giants in these days, both in one encampment and in the other' — from 
 which we learn that Freethought is not espoused by the weak alone.* 
 We will first take the dark side of Mr. Pearson's book ; we mean 
 the repulsive side of Evangelical imputation. Professor Garbett has 
 been pleased to say — 'Nothing can be more contemptible than the 
 argumentative resources of modern Infidelity.' Mr. Pearson adds, 
 1 This witness is true' (p. 173). One is disposed to think that the 
 Evangelical Alliance had little serious work on hand when they 
 offered 100 guineas for a refutation of the most contemptible class of 
 arguments, and they must be considered to have set Mr. Pearson an 
 •easy task to answer them. 
 
 The public are much agreed as to the general inefficiency of re- 
 futations in dialogue, chiefly owing to the author of the dialogue draw- 
 ing upon his own invention for the arguments of his opponents, and 
 commonly producing exactly those which his opponent never did 
 employ, never would employ, and would reject the moment he noticed 
 them. It requires not only a master in one department in thought, 
 but a master among men, to devise commanding dialogue. Shakspere 
 may speak for the sceptic. He, as W. J. Birch has shown, f not only 
 discerned the most opposite aspects of character, but had sounded 
 notable schools of philosophy. In the memorable soliloquy of Hamlet 
 he has stated the case of the sceptic as only one who has felt scepticism 
 
 * In all our extracts from this Prize Essay we observe, once for all, that the quotations 
 are given verbatim, or with Mr. Pearson's qualifications abridged, or implied. To give 
 all in full would be to quote a great part of the entire volume. But the integrity of 
 the quotations are vouched to be neither strained nor garbled. 
 
 t Philosophy and Religion of Shakspere. 
 
THOMAS PEARSON. 87 
 
 The clerical definition of ' Infidelity.' The reply of Atheism to Mr. Pearson. 
 
 could. Advocates who have not this manysidedness, should seek to 
 compass by art what is denied to their ubiquity of capacity. This 
 may be done by letting the opponent side be an actual statement by a 
 competent and accredited representative. For this purpose a most 
 unquestionable one is at hand, this Evangelical Alliance. By its impu- 
 tations no less than its admissions, are the deficiencies of Theism confessed, 
 and the strength of sceptical objections (negative and affirmative) sug- 
 gested. The major imputation of this writer is branded upon his title- 
 page — ' Infidelity.' A Christian who uses this term by habit, and without 
 malignity, will tell you that he uses it merely to describe a certain 
 negation of what he regards as Christian truth. In this arbitrary 
 sense the term is unobjectionable. When a man thus using it tells 
 me that he means no harm by the term Infidelity, I reply, then 
 why not use a term which expresses none ? If the term is intended 
 to express no harm, there can be no harm in using another. 
 The objection to Mr. Prize -Pearson is that, while he professes the 
 charity which thinketh no evil, he places foremost on a title-page the 
 language which most means it. Infidelity is used by the churches to 
 denote organised wickedness — a systematic treachery to truth — a 
 badness of heart justifying itself by appearances of philosophy. 
 There needs no refutation of an essay bearing a name of this import 
 on its front. Infidelity, instead of being the first word of the book, 
 should be its last — and a just logician would have made it so. Unproved 
 it is a libel — established it is a sentence. That Mr. Pearson used 
 it in the sense indicated, by the imputations cited will be seen : — ' The 
 reluctance to think of God as a living person, holy, just, and good, and 
 with whom we have to do, is greater than the incapacity. It is in the 
 delirium of self- adoration, in the swellings of a pride-intoxicated heart, 
 
 that men break loose from a sense of responsibility No one can 
 
 I read the rhapsodies of such a man as Emerson, without perceiving that 
 : the state of the heart — a heart puffed up with the delusive notion of 
 its own divinity — lies at the bottom of his unbelief (p. 175). 
 
 This is so unfair and so offensive, so arrogant and so weak, that 
 i persons of cultivated judgments turn from it with aversion. We have 
 j just as much right to describe Mr. Pearson's contempt for nature and 
 i reason in the same language as he has employed to express our rejec- 
 i tion of what we regard as Christian error. Take a second instance : 
 
 ' For a man to renounce the affirmative proposition that God is — 
 
 a proposition so well substantiated, and for which there is an intellec- 
 I tual necessity — indicates very plainly the leanings of the heart * 
 i (p. 174). 
 
 All this is very poor, and suggests the thought, that a Christian, 
 ( confident of his own truth, would rather suspect his own capacity to 
 ■ explain it, than impute its want of cogency to demoralisation of the 
 I heart. Our accredited author charges Atheists with a ' strong deter- 
 ; mination to withstand everything in the shape of reasonable evidence ' 
 (p. 173). Again, if we do not assent, it is suggested to be owing to 
 the 'cavils of a strongly prejudiced unbelief (p. 173). Further, it is 
 
88 THE TEIAL OP THEISM. 
 
 Examples of the offensiveness of Theistical imputations. 
 
 said, ' man can befool himself who does not believe, and it is suggested 
 that he does (p. 173). In all forms of unbelief, it is reiterated, 'the 
 will has much to do with it ' (p. 173). This perseverance of imputa- 
 tion denotes, not only poorness of argument, but a cause in a vicious 
 state. Divines are always pleading, in excuse of their failures, the 
 obstinacy of the will, thereby concealing from others, and hiding from 
 themselves, the defects of their logic. In science, no professor 
 presumes to charge the dissent of his audience to their perversity. He 
 suspects himself— he amends his arguments — he re-states his case — he 
 multiplies his facts, and carries conviction by force of proof. In a 
 university of intellect, no great teacher accounts for his non-success 
 by accusing his students of badness of heart. Augustus de Morgan, 
 with royal confidence in scientific truth, will declare that the deficiency 
 of the pupil is to be traced to the deficiency of the teacher ; but the 
 theological college has no manly suspicion of its want of competency, 
 or of its poverty of proof. Thus the imputations of which we have 
 quoted samples — official, accredited, and current at this hour — are not 
 more unfair and offensive to us than they are a fatal reproach to the 
 cause which employs them. Divinity will always drivel, while 
 thousands of young preachers are trained in theological colleges 
 without either true confidence or intellectual daring, and are taught 
 and suffered to go forth to the world with superficial power, and 
 encouraged to vindicate their inaptness by outrages upon the honesty 
 and sincerity of others. Opposition to ' Christian Theism' is con- 
 firmed by this discovery, and it is a fact entitled to weight. 
 
 High is the tone, and contemptuous the glance, with which 
 orthodoxy comports itself towards Theism. All know with what 
 presumption it parades the conclusiveness of its Theism. Listen to 
 it in its pulpits, and it will tell you that its proofs are complete, and 
 scepticism is unpardonable. When resident in Gloucester, I was sup- 
 plied with volumes in which a celebrated divine undertook to de- 
 monstrate the existence of God. Judging from the tone in which our 
 belief is condemned, you would think every preacher was a theological, 
 Euclid, but orthodoxy in modern controversy has learned to abate 
 these extravagant pretensions. Mr. Pearson adopts the remark of 
 Dr. Arnold, that ' entire satisfaction to the intellect is, and can be ob- 
 tained by neither' believer nor unbeliever (p. 174). This is what we 
 have said, and the clergy have till lately denied. Quoting ' Smith's 
 Eelations of Faith and Philosophy' (p. 13), Mr. Pearson tells us ' that 
 it is a mere assumption to assert, that personality is in its nature finite 
 — since it is the finiteness of man's attributes, and that alone, which 
 gives the finiteness to his personality' (p. 175). This is but 
 another way of giving up the argument. For if an Infinite Being 
 may be a Person, why may not Nature be the Person which originates 
 all phenomena? Our authority remarks: — 'The argument from' 
 design is one of great power, and though it does not of itself lead us 
 to the High and Holy One, it points us very clearly thither. But the 
 ground is by no means free from difficulties' (p. 173). 
 
THOMAS PEARSON. 89 
 
 Legibility of the signature of Heaven admitted to be essential to belief. 
 
 The position taken in the work entitled ' Paley Kefuted' is, that 
 the design argument does not lead to God. We differ as to the 
 ' clearness' of the ' pointing' thereto. Mr. Pearson thinks the amount 
 of clear evidence immensely overbalances the difficulties — but he ad- 
 mits there are ' difficulties.' We think them insuperable. Again we 
 may ask, how can a man tell that an argument points to Deity, unless 
 he has discovered Deity? How can you tell what a finger-post 
 points to, unless you have been to see ? ' The personality of the 
 Divine Being,' says Mr. Pearson, ' does not admit, however, of strict 
 demonstration.' (p. 174). There is, therefore, room for doubt and 
 difference of opinion here. ' But the doctrine of the divine pro- 
 vidential government does not admit of demonstrative certainty 
 
 The evidence is sufficient to justify our faith, but it is not irresistible' 
 (p. 176). It has been said to be irresistible to all rightly-constituted 
 minds. Only obstinacy of will would reject it, so overpowering was 
 it declared to be. ' The evidence that attests the truth of Christianity 
 
 is not, however, irresistible. No man is warranted to expect it 
 
 to be so' (p. 176). We never did expect it was. But we always have 
 been abused for declaring that it was insufficient to coerce conviction. 
 We are now quietly told ' no man ought to expect it.' ' It could 
 never be a man's duty to believe in a revelation claiming to itself the 
 authority of heaven, unless that revelation bore, legibly on its front, 
 heaven's signature, or was in some way attended with heaven's 
 evidencing power' (p. 176). This would seem to justify us who do 
 not see in the Bible either this signature or this power. That cannot 
 be the signature of heaven which is so enigmatical that a hundred 
 sects read it differently — and miracles, the consternation of the vulgar, 
 cannot be the evidence of heaven. Origen is cited by our author as 
 saying that ' in the difficulties of Bible revelation there are stimulants 
 to faith, and occasions for unbelief (p. 177). ' Occasions for un- 
 belief!' Then it can no longer be said that a criminal and cavilling 
 unbelief makes difficulties in the Bible. The cause of doubts is there 
 — it is put there. 
 
 To follow this work farther would demand more space than the 
 present plan of this volume leaves at our disposal, and would take us 
 out of our record, which restricts us to the trial of Theistical wit- 
 : nesses. The incidental allusions to Christianism which we have ven- 
 l tured to notice for the purpose of elucidating the intellectual defects 
 : of the Evangelical mind, serve to throw light upon the temper with 
 < which Atheism, however pure and honest, is regarded, and on this 
 ; ground the apparent digressions may be pardoned. We therefore con- 
 : elude by a final extract (the Pearson Prize Essay abounds in similar 
 illustrations) exhibiting the extent of orthodox distrust of the power 
 of evidence. Mr. Pearson tells us that ' All moral evidence is cumu- 
 lative ; but however strong it may be, it is never irresistible. An 
 indocile reason can ward it off' (p. 173). If not in the nature of 
 moral evidence to be irresistible, then it is open to intelligent doubt, 
 and theologians ought not to be too confident. ' The heart can repel 
 12 
 
90 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Theism judged by its temper as well as its tenets. 
 
 all this proof of the personality of God (p. 175). This is the form 
 to which I have adverted, in which Mr. Pearson, and Christians in 
 general, make their apology for the incapacity of their Theism. It is 
 interjected continually. Surely a Prize Essay of proof is wasted 
 when it may be blown away by the will ! 
 
 In treating this Essay we have thought it right to describe the 
 extraordinary means employed to circulate it, which show the value 
 attached to its arguments by the Evangelical Alliance. The said 
 recital further satisfies the reader of the actuality of the reasonings to 
 which in previous places, as well as in this, and in the next chapter 
 also, we reply. We thus prevent the possibility of the suspicion 
 which attaches to so many polemics, of inventing the cases of our 
 opponents. We do not imagine their arguments, we quote them. 
 
 We are sorry to record that the Pearson Essay appears to be with- 
 drawn from circulation. We never see it advertised. Mr. Farmer 
 buys no more copies ; the Vicar of Enstone no more commends it ; 
 Dr. Campbell has laid his trumpet aside. We had hoped to see it 
 stereotyped by the Religious Tract Society. We are afraid that we 
 damaged its fortunes by praising it. There are those who say that 
 were we to very heartily recommend the Bible, it would be withdrawn 
 from circulation. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HENRY ROGERS. 
 
 In another volume the gentleman whose name appears above will ; 
 find a place and ampler consideration than is here intended. His 
 particular works, like those of Father Spencer, represent a school of 
 Theism, to which here but a passing notice is given. What they do ! 
 say is distinctive and acute, but the way in which it is said is more to 
 our present purpose. In these pages we have in view to try the spirit ! 
 of Theism as well as its arguments. By nine-tenths of Theists, 
 Atheism is judged not by what it means, which is scarcely ever j 
 studied, not by what it says, which is scarcely ever considered, but by 
 its-attitude towards its opponents — the attitude, be it remembered, of 
 a minority towards a generally insolent and vindictive majority. It 
 is, therefore, right and necessary in these pages to pass briefly in review 
 the spirit, temper, and taste of Evangelical Theists, so eminent as to 
 represent a large class, and of education sufficient to set the right 
 example, if Tightness of feeling can co-exist with their wrong and 
 deep-seated dogmas. 
 
 An example or two of Professor Rogers's confident tone of argu- 
 ment shall first be cited, especially as Mr. Pearson calls him to his 
 aid. It is from Mr. Rogers that Mr. Pearson quotes the following 
 assumed-to-be-unanswerable argument : — ' Nor do we well know what 
 multitudes, who neglect religion on account of the alleged uncertainty 
 
HENRY ROGERS. 91 
 
 The answer given formally demanded by Professor Rogers. 
 
 of its evidence, could reply, if God were to say to them, " And yet, on 
 such evidence, and that far inferior in degree, you have never hesi- 
 tated to act, when your own temporal interests were concerned. You 
 never feared to commit the bark of your worldly fortunes to that 
 fluctuating element. In many cases you believed, on the testimony of 
 others, what seemed even to contradict your own senses. Why were 
 you so much more scrupulous in relation to Me ? " ' 
 
 What could we answer Mr. Rogers ? The answer is obvious. In 
 human affairs, when we act on partial evidence, it is either from caprice 
 or necessity. When from caprice it is a fault — when from necessity it 
 is a misfortune. In the case of God it is a tribute to him to pause. 
 Where so many incompetent sects, in narrow knowledge and distracted 
 voices — affluent in imputation, and bitter in tone — each claims to have 
 discovered God, and to know his will, it is humility to hesitate, and 
 reverence to doubt. 
 
 But the intellectual confidence of this writer can only be accounted 
 for on his own theory of rational direction. He confesses to following 
 two guides, one of which cannot hear and the other cannot see. In 
 the Edinburgh Review, No. 182, in an article on 'Reason and Faith: 
 their Claims and Conflicts,' he Bunyanises thus : — ' Reason and Faith 
 are twin-born beings — the one, in form and feature the image of manly 
 beauty — the other, of feminine grace and gentleness ; but to each of 
 whom, alas ! was allotted a sad privation. While the bright eyes of 
 Reason are full of piercing and restless intelligence, his ear is closed to 
 sound ; and while Faith has an ear of exquisite delicacy, on her 
 sightless orbs, as she lifts them towards heaven, the sunbeam plays in 
 vain. Hand in hand the brother and sister, in all mutual love, pursue 
 their way, through a world on which, like ours, day breaks and night 
 falls alternate ; by day the eyes of Reason are the guide of Faith, and 
 "by night the ear of Faith is the guide of Reason. As is wont with 
 those who labour under these privations respectively, Reason is apt to be 
 eager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will 
 not permit him readily to apprehend ; while Faith, gentle and docile, 
 is ever willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and wisdom 
 can effectually reach her.' 
 
 Now it happens that Faith being only able to hear — being ' sightless,' 
 takes every sound for that of the truth. Buddhist, Pagan, Catholic, 
 Protestant, Ranter utterances, are to her credulous ears equally divine. 
 Faith has believed in them all. Nothing, therefore, can more urgently 
 admonish us of the necessity of keeping Reason ever vigilant to scru- 
 tinise the reports of Faith. In the Night of human experience Faith, 
 which always walks in darkness, may find its way about, and have 
 acuter powers of hearing ; but she wanders she knows not where, and 
 hears she knows not what. Reason, who is not deaf, except in Mr. 
 Rogers's allegory, can both hear as well as see, and can afford by 
 night or day the only reliable direction ; and when the darkness is 
 quite impenetrable, it is safer to bivouac until morning. 
 
 We shall have to cite the testimony borne by the press against 
 
92 THE TBIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Greyson Letters as cited by the Saturday Review. 
 
 certain attributes of Theistical writers, and against modern Theistical 
 efforts, and shall, therefore, give the estimate of Professor Rogers 
 made by the Saturday Review — a wilful journal truly, but conducted 
 by gentlemen as high in social station as Professor Rogers, and of 
 higher competence to speak in the name of classic Theism. While j 
 doing justice to the ability of Mr. Rogers, they thus speak of his last j 
 work, ' Selections from the Correspondence of R. E. H. Greyson, i 
 Esq.' (Mr. Greyson being Mr. Rogers) : — 
 
 ' A bad book is always a bad thing ; but a weak defence of a good ! 
 cause is a misfortune, and it is a double misfortune if it combines bad , 
 
 temper and bad taste with logical deficiency Mr. Greyson's argu- : 
 
 ments are all dilemmas, and most of the machinery is comic. The ] 
 misfortune is that the dilemmas are, for the most part, one-horned. 
 Mr. Greyson gets into an argument with a gentleman who con- j 
 tends that the command given to Adam in the Garden of Eden was I 
 " unmoral." Mr. Greyson replies that any commands given to a 
 person in such circumstances must necessarily be so, and he illustrates 
 his thesis as follows : — 
 
 1 " I remember hearing of an Irish lecturer,* who supposed these com- 
 mands addressed by an angel to an Irish Adam. The answers were j 
 given, I was told, in a truly Irish manner ; yet I think very naturally. 
 As I did not hear the lecturer myself, I cannot precisely report the 
 Irish Adam's answers, nor can I imitate the true Paradisaic brogue ; i 
 but I believe they would very reasonably run something like this : — 
 
 ' " Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." 
 
 ' " Arrah, thin, your honour; I never as much as heard of any other 
 at all at all." 
 
 ' " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," &c. 
 
 ' " Why, thin, plase your honour's glory, I cannot say I ever felt 
 the laste taste of a temptation in life for that same. Do ye think I'd i 
 be afther making a brute baste of myself ? " 
 
 ' " Thou shalt not take the name," &c. 
 
 ' "And wouldn't it be mighty quare if I did, your honour?" 
 
 ' " Thou shalt honour," &c. 
 
 ' " By the powers, did ye never know that my father and mother 
 are not yet born ? and how thin would I dishonour them? " 
 
 ' " Thou shalt not commit adultery." 
 
 ' " Sure it would be sthrange if I committed adultery with my own 
 wife ; for sorra another woman do I see here ; and she's enough, any I 
 way." (N.B. — Too much, in one sense, Adam soon found her).' 
 
 ' If this is not grossly and monstrously profane,' remarks the 
 Saturday Review, ' words have no meaning. When we think how 
 the Commandments were given, and what is meant, or usually 
 held to be meant, in the Old Testament by "angels," there is 
 something astounding in the fact that a well-meaning and able ' 
 man, writing in defence of Christianity against gainsayers, should 
 
 * Mr. Rogers says that he did not himself hear this « Irish lecturer.' We doubt if any : 
 one ever did. 
 
HENRY B0GEES. 
 
 Four lines only of Positivism in a volume of Theism. 
 
 think that he really advanced his cause by making a man say 
 I Arrah," " Your honour's glory," " sorra," and " By the powers," 
 to his Maker. Such rubbish might perhaps not be out of place 
 in the police reports of some obscure country newspaper ; but it 
 is ominous to find that a man should think its employment service- 
 able to Christianity Much might be said upon the precedents of 
 
 Voltaire and Pascal, but their example does not apply to books like Mr. 
 Greyson's " Letters." They were men with unrivalled powers of ridi- 
 cule, but we must descend below Paine, and probably below Richard 
 Carlile, before we can find a parallel on the infidel side of the controversy 
 to such ribaldry as this. Voltaire might, from his position, say much 
 in defence of " La Pucelle," or Pascal, from his, on behalf of the " Pro- 
 vincial Letters;" but how can any man suppose that he either 
 advances his argument, humiliates his antagonist, enlivens his book, 
 or answers any other purpose than that of degrading himself, by 
 writing " thin''' for " then," " quare" (and in italics, too) for " queer," 
 and " sthrange" for "strange," in a conversation between Adam and his 
 Maker ? This is not an isolated instance, but a fair example of Mr. 
 Greyson's wit. Here is another specimen : — " It is hard to say which" 
 (Balaam or his ass), "on this occasion, was the ass — the ass or the ass's 
 master ; or, rather, it is easy, for it is very certain that Balaam was 
 far the greater ass of the two." Paradise, however, is the particular 
 object of this gentleman's wit. Here is a specimen of quite a long 
 passage about it : — " One wonders what would have been the condition 
 of the world if little Eve had eaten, and Adam had not ; if he had 
 politely handed her ladyship to the side door in the wall of Paradise ; 
 told her that ' separate maintenance' would be her lot on the other 
 side, ' amongst the thorns and thistles,' and so fairly turned the key 
 upon her ? " It would be intelligible, though strange, that a man 
 wishing to attack the authority of the Bible, should suppose that he 
 had made it ridiculous by such silly flippancy as this ; but Mr. 
 Greyson has not even the poor excuse which intentional profanity 
 would supply. He thinks this a sort of friendly familiarity, which 
 shows on what good terms he stands with Christianity. If you mean 
 to insult a man, it is conceivable that you should spit in his face ; but 
 what should we think of such a proceeding taken as a mark of 
 intimacy ? Deplorable as this kind of folly is, we do not know that 
 the tone of savage and bitter contempt which the author expresses for 
 those whose difficulties he does not happen to feel is not even more 
 offensive. There is a hectoring, bullying tone in all that he says 
 which excites the strongest prejudice against the opinions he wishes to 
 inculcate. 
 
 ' What Atheism is, we know well enough, and we quite appreciate 
 the objections to it ; but Mr. Greyson leaves us entirely in the dark 
 as to what he means by Christianity. In one place, indeed, he devotes 
 just four-and-a-half lines to the subject. You must, it appears, either 
 be an Atheist, or believe, " under some or other modifications," " the 
 supernatural narratives of the New Testament, and these doctrines at 
 
94 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Professor Newman's reply to the • Eclipse of Faith.' 
 
 l eas t — the pre-existence of Christ, the union of two natures in Him, I 
 and the atonement for sin by his death." You may therefore throw J 
 overboard two of the three creeds, you may fall under the anathema | 
 of all the most ancient and numerous Christian bodies, you may! 
 deny the Trinity, you may be an Antinomian, a Nestorian, or all 
 member of the Greek Church — you may go a certain distance in 1 
 denying Biblical inspiration, and amongst other things you may dis- I 
 believe the whole of the Old Testament — but there Mr. Greysonil 
 draws the line. Go in any direction one step beyond it, and the! 
 utmost orthodoxy will not save you. Extend to a single chapter of 1 
 St. Matthew the scepticism which you may freely indulge as to every | 
 book from Genesis to Malachi, and though you have an unshaken « 
 belief in all the articles of faith which a vast majority of Christians I 
 consider vital and fundamental, you are farther from the truth than.;! 
 most Unitarians ; for between them and Atheism there is a standing j 
 ground, and between you and Atheism there is none. Mr. Greyson's 1 
 dilemma really is little more than this — You must either be an J 
 Atheist or something else ; and such a discovery hardly gives him the i] 
 right to vilify and ridicule all those from whom he diners.' * 
 
 A case has recently occurred in which a poor, honest, but wilful I 
 man, one Thomas Pooley, of Liskeard, in Cornwall, has been sen- 1 
 tenced, by Mr. Justice Coleridge, to one year and nine months' im- a 
 prisonment for having written words, alleged to be blasphemous, on I 
 a field gate belonging to the Rev. Paul Bush, of Duloe, and of reply- jj 
 ing under irritation in a similar strain to a policeman, after he was in 
 custody, and of jesting upon the Biblical cure of the potatoe rot. If; 
 an unlettered labourer deserves twenty-one months for these offences, i 
 Professor Rogers, enjoying all the advantages of education and pro- 
 fessional position, deserves twenty-one years for the above 'grossly and 
 monstrously profane words.' 
 
 The book of most note of Professor Rogers is the 'Eclipse ofj 
 Faith.' A few words from Professor Newman's 'Reply' to it will 1 
 serve to show the spirit in which the purest Theists are attacked] 
 when they overstep the narrowness of Evangelical orthodoxy. If the] 
 author of ' The Soul, her Sorrows and her Aspirations,' escape not, jj 
 what may not the Atheist expect? Mr. Newman saysf: — j 
 'The second title of the book is, "A Visit to a Religious Sceptic;"] 
 this is, a Mr. Harrington, who is his principal talker. Into his mouth j 
 the author puts all the free and easy language which, for some reason j 
 or other, he is unwilling to say in his own name. I think this 
 exceedingly unjust to genuine and honest men. I am acquainted with ! 
 several decided sceptics, and two avowed Atheists. I know them to 
 have read my book on the Soul, and they do not agree with it : but:j 
 they behave to me with modesty, respect, and kindness. The very 
 opposite tone pervading this book, I feel to come, not from any actual 
 Mr. Harrington, but from the Christian (?) controversialist behind 
 
 * Saturday Review, August 22, 1857. t Phases of Faith ; late edition, pp. 179, 180. ' 
 
HENRY ROGERS. 95 
 
 Morality as a fixed certainty held by Atheists and Theists. 
 
 him. I am willing to meet a sincere sceptic, and teach him or learn 
 from him. All sincere and conscientious men can teach us something : 
 God forbid that I should feel towards such either pride or unkindness : 
 indeed, I find that true sceptics do not scoff at the sincere, but only at 
 the hypocritical. And as this dialogue is fundamentally fictitious, I 
 do not see what else but the author's own heart can have suggested 
 the profane insults which abound in it, and against which I protest as 
 a slanderous representation of honest sceptics. After all, why must 
 this author step in to reinforce their argument ? are they not generally 
 acute enough to conduct it without a Christian's aid ? and why must 
 I fight against a sham adversary ? It suffices for me to combat 
 honest and real hearts, from whom I do not shrink : but I confess, I 
 do shrink with a most painful repugnance from one who, by discarding 
 his personality, thinks to get free from moral responsibility.' 
 
 We shall present one other passage from Mr. Newman's pen, 
 furnishing further light by which to judge modern Theism as ex- 
 pressed by its representative Evangelical advocate, Professor Rogers, 
 and because the passage also indicates the ethical ground held by the 
 writer of these pages. In the passage we now proceed to quote, Pro- 
 fessor Newman makes reference to the original appearance of the 
 paper on the Soul, which the reader has seen in a revised form in a 
 previous chapter of this work. We value the recognition of the 
 principle and expression of it made by Mr. Newman, whose lightest 
 word of approval is praise. ' I proceed,' says Mr. Newman,* ' to the 
 second topic, — viz., the danger, or rather the certainty, that my 
 principles will force the sceptical Mr. Harrington to become an 
 ! Atheist. Now this prospect does not terrify me ; since I think 
 j it might be an improvement to Mr. Harrington ; a first step 
 J towards truth. I hold Morality as my religious basis ; and on it I 
 j build, that God is essentially moral. A serious Atheist, like Mr. G. J. 
 |l Holyoake, holds Morality, as I do, to be a fixed certainty, but doubts 
 | whether there is any personal God. But Mr. Harrington is unsettled 
 on both points. With him Morality has no fixedness — indeed he is 
 insolent with me because I treat it as an immovable foundation, which 
 I will not allow to be tampered with by any pretence of miracle ; and 
 he is equally uncertain whether there is any good God. Thus of my 
 two principles the real Atheist Mr. Holyoake holds one, and the more 
 fundamental ; while Mr. Harrington holds neither. Mr. Holyoake 
 has lectured on and against my book on the Soul, and has behaved 
 with fairness, courtesy, and generosity. He has not garbled nor 
 ridiculed me : he leaves it to one who calls himself Christian, to scoff 
 at sentiments which I have learned from Christianity.' 
 
 * Phases of Faith ; late edition, pp. 191, 192. 
 
96 THE TEIAL OP THEISM. 
 
 Silence in controversy does not give consent. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SANDAES J. CHEW. 
 
 A long time ago, the Rev. Sandars J. Chew, who has ceased to 
 officiate as a Dissenting Minister, or to use the prefix of Reverend, 
 published a series of tracts, entitled ' Mr. Holyoake Refuted in his own 
 Words.' They opened by remarks of some fairness and not ill-feeling. 
 Very soon, however, Mr. Chew suffered his pen to degenerate into 
 mere imputation and revilings, and, since that time, except these tracts, 
 I have not read, and do not care to read, what he has written. These; 
 tracts I promised to reply to in his own town — Leicester; but thei 
 halls of Leicester, being in the hands of religious people, have been 
 constantly refused. So, after waiting years in vain for the opportu 
 nity of fulfilling my promise, I subjoin below as much as it is worth 
 while saying in reference to what Mr. Chew has written. 
 
 It is one of the penalties of actively opposing popular error and 
 interests, that he who does so must be content to incur misapprehension, 
 and live under misrepresentation, often flagrant and injurious. A 
 critic in the Christian News, otherwise able and fair (the allusion is 
 not to Samuel Hirst, B.A., who is neither fair nor able), has assumed 
 that the allegations and contradictions manufactured in the Grant and 
 Chew school were well founded, because unnoticed. In so able a 
 literary journal as Tait, a critic has done the same. Not one imputa 
 tion in twelve made by the Rev. Brewin Grant has any foundation in 
 truth. And because passed by, it seems that some persons assume 
 their truth. There is very little of the judicial spirit in religious 
 criticism. Very good men will come to a decision after reading one 
 side, and never ask for the other. While this custom continues, it is 
 put in the power of any man who chooses to calumniate actively, to 
 get believed. There is no remedy for this except by abandoning all 
 exposition, and devoting all your time to the intolerable egotism of J 
 personal justification. That I have not quite made up my mind to 
 this, is evident from the little here offered in reply to Mr. Chew after 
 a silence of years, and that little is conceded solely in obedience to a 
 promise to notice his tracts some time. 
 
 The professed object of Mr. Chew's book is to show 'Whether 
 or not the present writer is worthy of public confidence' (p. 3). 
 It may be useful to remark, that we do not ask for confidence as 
 publicists — but for attention for our views. Our object is not to' 
 set up ourselves, but our principles. We labour to bring about 
 that state of public intelligence in which ideas will rule, not per- 
 sons. Just men, we hope, will be ever reverenced; but princi- 
 ples will govern. Leadership will no longer be based upon autho- 
 rity, but upon service. Usefulness will be the sole influence, and 
 some small share of usefulness is the limit of our ambition. 
 
SANDARS J. CHEW. 97 
 
 Several very common misconceptions exposed. 
 
 Is the existence of Deity a question of probability ? It is admitted 
 that (so far back as Oracle of Reason, vol. i., p. 186) we explained 
 that the question of the existence of Deity was one of relative ' pro- 
 bability' — but that in the Townley Debate, ' certainty' was demanded. 
 Now, in that debate certainty was not demanded per se, but, as a 
 relative issue, it was held that the object of man's earnest attempt to 
 solve the problem of Deity was to attain to ' certainty,' and that if 
 the Rev. Mr. Townley had no ' certainty' to offer, the orbit of his 
 theology lay in the same plane as our own reasonings — that theo- 
 logians had given up their long-proclaimed pretensions to ' certainty' 
 — that they accept our own theory of probability, and in that case we 
 had better rest in our probability than in theirs — since Nature is a 
 more probable Supreme Existence than the Deity of hypothetical 
 theology (vide Beasoner, No. 343, pp. 444, 445). Mr. Chew is good 
 enough to say, that when we adhere to early opinions ' he alike ap- 
 proves of the logic and the honesty' (p. 6). On this point our opinions 
 have never changed. Theologians are themselves now abandoning 
 their dogmatic pretension of certainty, and scolding us for regarding 
 them as having maintained it. 
 
 Non-denial of Theism is not neutrality. Mr. Holyoake is ' an 
 Atheist — a Theist — and not an Atheist nor a Theist,' are three pro- 
 positions Mr. Chew affirms; but his proof is very defective. He 
 seeks to prove the writer a Theist, because in the process of the 
 argument entitled ' Paley Refuted' he assumed the existence of Deity 
 — Mr. Chew forgetting that the book was written to show that the 
 author did not admit it. The other proofs given by Mr. Chew are 
 cases in which we describe or state religious argument in the language 
 of religious men, without obtruding every time our dissent from their 
 Theism, which however is nowhere pretended to be accepted. Mr. 
 Chew seeks to prove that a man is not an Atheist nor a Theist if he do 
 not deny the existence of Deity — yet to deny would strictly imply 
 that certainty of knowledge is attainable with respect to Deity, which 
 would be inconsistent with the teaching that the question is one of 
 probability. Because it is said that nothing can be known as to the 
 existence of Deity, that does not exclude the logical possibility of dis- 
 belief, which is the side we take. 
 
 Mr. Chew has not found in our writings what he considers ' many 
 strong reasons for Atheism.' He does not notice our permanent con- 
 viction that there are ' many strong reasons for Atheism' in the exhi- 
 bition of the weakness of the reasons for Theism. Take the instance 
 of the argument from Pain and Power. ' The existence of misery and 
 pain is proof positive that there is no God.' This Mr. Chew cites 
 (p. 7) as an absolute assertion, withholding the context expressed, that 
 the reference is to ' a God of boundless power and goodness' — the ar- 
 gument which Origen Bacheler called the strongest in favour of 
 Atheism. Because there are misery and pain in Nature, Mr. Chew 
 says Ave ought to hold that Nature does not exist. Whereas all we 
 need hold is, that Nature does not exist with the attributes of Infinite 
 13 
 
98 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The folly of construing agreement on some points as coincidence on all. 
 
 Tenderness — wishing pain non-existent, and possessed of Infinite 
 power to abolish it. 
 
 The supposed reply by Mr. Chew to ' Paley Refuted,' is the most 
 transparent failure that has been submitted to the public. The 
 position taken is that Paley's argument breaks down as an argument 
 from experience, because it professes to establish that Deity is a per- 
 son, who, as a person, must be organised — and we have no experience 
 of an unorganised person. Mr. Chew himself says, ' It is quite true 
 that we have no such experience' (p. 21). Then the answer to Paley 
 remains perfectly valid. Mr. Chew says we assume that an unorgan- 
 ised person cannot exist. We assume no such thing. We only 
 assume that we have no experience that such a person does exist, and 
 that is the point in question. If you say an unorganised person may 
 exist, why may not Nature be that existence, and the Pantheist be 
 right ? 
 
 If there is one thing more than another, which is an offence against 
 truth, against good sense, and good taste, it is that of assuming that a 
 writer, who agrees with you in one point, does so in all. This fault 
 has tended very much to keep up antagonism among opponents. It 
 is a candid and honourable thing in a man to admit all the truth he 
 can on the side of his opponent — but, if the consequence of this frank- 
 ness is to be, that the same person is to be charged with adopting all 
 the views of his opponent, and to be dragged over as a wholesale 
 authority on the opposite side, this frankness of partial admissions 
 will be of rare occurrence.* 
 
 In 1852, Mr. Ebenezer Syme drew our attention to an article on 
 the ' Genius and Writings of Descartes,' in the January number of the 
 Edinburgh Review, as containing a sentence which might stand as a 
 motto for us. Upon examining it, its relevance to us induced its 
 adoption. The passage was this : ' Upon points on which philosophers 
 know nothing, philosophers should say nothing. That is a beautiful 
 school of philosophy, which teaches men to say of most things : " It 
 may be so, and it may be otherwise. It is a point on which I only 
 know that I do not know."' Afterwards we published a paper 
 showing the application of this ' rule' of reasoning to our own teach- 
 ings, but Mr. Chew asserts, that we represented the reviewer as; 
 approving of our principles. Mr. Chew calls it ' a bold and glaring, 
 misrepresentation' (p. 69) ; ' a wilful perversion' (p. 73) ; ' a passage 
 dishonestly wrested' (p. 70) ; and intimates that ' charity can do no 
 more than listen to the best defence we can give' (p. 73). We will; 
 not detain charity long — the ' defence' is an unqualified denial. We 
 never pretended, directly nor indirectly, that the Edinburgh Review 
 approved our opinions. We said, our views, ' as respects the rule of 
 belief and avowal of opinion relating to a future life, and Beings in- 
 dependent of nature, has been strikingly expressed and approved by 
 an authority adverse to us.' The plain meaning of this is, that the 
 
 * Vide Reasoner, vol. xv., p. 309, in reference to the Rev. Brooke Herford. 
 
SANDAR8 J. CHEW. 99 
 
 Theistical censures founded on partial quotations from their adversaries. 
 
 * rule of belief and avowal of opinion which we followed had been 
 approved by one, not of our way of thinking, but by one adverse to 
 us.' A second time in the same short article, we distinguished that 
 the reviewers were far from approving our opinions, in these words : — 
 
 I IWe use it [the motto] as indicating, in the language of eminent op- 
 
 j ponents, the value of that teaching which we labour to enforce.' 
 
 | The purport of the motto we took, is applause of teaching only that on 
 
 | which the teachers know something — viz., the things of observation and 
 
 experience ; and we said 'the propriety of this species of teaching has 
 
 been incidentally acknowledged in an unexpected quarter.' It was in 
 
 i no way pretended that our views were adopted only, that our ' species 
 
 of teaching' was approved. 
 
 The moral judgments Mr. Chew expresses are instructive as 
 j warnings. The editor of the Leader, in answering an objection by 
 | Mr. Grant, said, ' that I certainly had written loyal tributes of appre- 
 ' ciation of many ministers with whom I had debated.' ]\Ir. Chew adds, 
 
 * I have also paid tributes of dis- appreciation and efts-respect, showing 
 ! that I can at one time be courteous, at another rude' (p. 61) ; but 
 j this is to forbid all discrimination, and oblige you to praise everything, 
 \ or object to everything 5 which can only bring about a feeble or an 
 : offensive state of mind. In Mr. Chew's criticisms the worst construc- 
 1 tion is put upon all things. Whatever fault we may have, I trust we 
 
 shall never get confirmed in this. In a public letter in reply to Mr. 
 Chew, I pointed out the harshness of judgment and injustice of con- 
 struction to which he had recourse, and I admitted frankly that we 
 j made no pretension to perfection. We aimed at fairness, and suc- 
 ceeded, perhaps, as often as our opponents. This Mr. Chew 
 designates crymg peccavi. But if this offensive construction is to be 
 put upon those admissions which every candid person, not infallible, 
 will have to make on reviewing the controversies of ten years, you put 
 barriers in the way of frankness and friendly feeling, and turn contro- 
 versy into mere fencing. For my part, notwithstanding Mr. Chew's 
 disparaging opinion of myself, I will not hesitate to admit that his per- 
 formance is carefully, and, in literary respects, creditably executed. 
 He has often quoted with painstaking fairness, and frequently com- 
 mented with acuteness, and some of his pages I have perused with 
 profit. I do not despise his opinion, yet I will not solicit his more 
 favourable judgment ; but I put it to his conscience whether, if he had 
 looked into my pages to find what was usefully intended, with half as 
 much eagerness as he has to find fault, he would not have had to 
 render a different verdict ? I put it to his intelligence whether, 
 if he had brought forward, half as carefully, all the opposite instances 
 of studied fairness and public admissions made by our adversaries of 
 our forbearance to them, strewed up and down our works, which he 
 has shut his eyes against and kept back, whether the public would 
 not come to a very different conclusion to that which his one-sided 
 tracts bespeak ? 
 
 
100 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The tone of modern journalism negative and iconoclastic. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ROBERT ANCHOR THOMPSON AND JOHN TULLOCH. 
 
 The two Prize volumes on Theism, by which these authors are best 
 known, have been reviewed in conjunction by the Athenceum, whose 
 able paper we intend to quote, in proof of an assertion made in a previous 
 chapter, that the chief book of the two, ' Christian Theism,' was re- 
 futed by the leading literary journal in the week of its appearance. 
 The Rev. Dr. Tulloch's book bears the title of ' Theism : the Witness 
 of Reason and Nature to an All-wise and Beneficent Creator.' The 
 Rev. Robert Anchor Thompson, M.A., entitles his work ' Christian 
 Theism : the Testimony of Reason and Revelation to the Existence and 
 Character of the Supreme Being.' It is because the review, which we 
 purpose to introduce, is inseparable without loss of force, that we con- 
 join the names of both authors at the head of this chapter. 
 
 A significant form of critical progress is now manifested in the 
 altered tone of newspapers touching Christianity. The rule is to 
 ignore theology as a dangerous topic, and honest treatment of it as 
 perilous. It is considered that the only safe thing is to say nothing. 
 But this ' saying nothing' is a good sign. Formerly a newspaper 
 could always recommend itself by saying something on religious 
 topics, and the coarser it was said the better. Now, the timid dis- 
 cretion of omission is universally recognised as the better part of 
 newspaper valour. The result of this is, that the sects have to make 
 shift without newspaper advocacy, and the sceptic gets off without 
 newspaper abuse. Another curious fact in journalism is this. No 
 religious book ever meets with essential approval in the higher class 
 newspapers or reviews. Critics have grown so fastidious that nothing 
 suits them. What they want you never can tell ; all you are sure of' 
 is, that they do not want what they get. We need not reply to any- 
 body. We have only to look in the journals and find it already done. 
 The Spectator refutes Archbishop Whately ; the Athenceum replies to 
 the Burnett Prize Essays; the Times answers both Church and 
 Dissenters. An abler Sceptical serial might be extracted weekly 
 from the press, than Freethinkers have yet had the means to 
 create themselves. All this shows the deep unrest of the highest 
 minds on the question of religion. The critic of the day does not tell 
 you what religion he wishes — but he shows his dissatisfaction on the 
 subject by confuting every religion put before him. The whole tone 
 of journalism is negative and iconoclastic. 
 
 The argument of both the Burnett Essays is that of Design ; they 
 trace a mind in nature, they endeavour to classify the characteristics 
 of its working, and thus they essay to reach — first, a proof of the 
 divine existence ; and, next, an indication of the divine attributes. Of 
 
ROBERT ANCHOR THOMPSON AND JOHN TULLOCH. 101 
 
 The judgment of the Westminster Review on the Bridgewater Treatises. 
 
 the Bridgewater Treatises, which embody this argument, a writer in 
 the Westminster Review of 1855, remarks: — 'With regard to these, 
 we believe we are but speaking the general impression in saying that, 
 so far as their specific purpose was concerned, they were a failure. 
 | They did not win a single convert from the negative to the afnrm- 
 i ative. They did not, by a hair's breadth, approach the solution of the 
 I awful difficulties environing the theme, for a single mind and heart 
 I on which these difficulties were weighing. They did not confirm, in 
 i a single soul already resting therein, the living faith, the loving trust 
 1 in a Father- God. We question whether, by their logical weaknesses 
 i and their meagreness of conclusion, they did not suggest in many a 
 mind doubts and perplexities that might have been otherwise escaped. 
 ! Yet it is doubtful if greater ability on the whole could have been 
 | brought to bear upon their several subjects ; and as scientific ex- 
 positions, one or two of them will probably live as standards in Eng- 
 ; lish literature.' 
 
 This is the judgment of a Review, which may be regarded as 
 
 writing on the side of independent philosophy rather than religion. 
 
 j The Daily Scotsman may however be taken as representing the jour- 
 
 | nalistic view of a nation, famous for theological criticism of the most 
 
 intense and orthodox quality. The Rev. John H. McMahon, M.A., 
 
 lately published a literal translation of the ' Metaphysics of Aristotle.' 
 
 The Scotsman at once passed upon his performance the salient 
 
 ' criticism we shall here cite : — 
 
 ' Our suspicions were aroused by the first paragraph of his preface, 
 : and they were only confirmed by a perusal of the volume. In that 
 I first paragraph, after a variety of absurdly mixed metaphors, he 
 I reminds" the student of what he is only going to attend to for the 
 i first time — namely, that in this treatise of Aristotle he will " find an 
 ; able Review of the Greek Philosophy ; a Refutation, most complete 
 i and elaborate, of Scepticism ; a Demonstration, a priori and a pos- 
 i teriori, of God's existence ; an Examination into the relation of Meta- 
 I physics to the other Sciences ; an Overthrow of the Ideal Hypothesis 
 i of Plato, as well as of the Theory of Pythagoras ; an Elucidation of 
 I the nature of the Infinite ; and an investigation into Truth, in relation 
 l to man's faculties for the attainment of it." This translator under- 
 l takes more for Aristotle than Aristotle has undertaken for himself, 
 ; and that, too, regardless of the failure of all the rmilosophers since 
 . Aristotle to do much of what Aristotle is there said to have done. A 
 • I complete refutation of scepticism" will never be given so long as, in 
 i this state of being, the wisest can but " see through a glass darkly." 
 ! Hitherto the custom has been for the dogmatist to step up to the 
 sceptic standing in his " calm though obscure region," serenely but 
 resolutely declaring " I doubt ; I am sure of nothing," and stamp his 
 dogmatic foot, shake his eloquent fists, and call out in a loud voice, 
 " I believe ! I believe ! I am confident of a great deal, and in par- 
 ticular that you are quite wrong, and a great fool, if not worse ; " 
 and this sort of utterance, when printed in a big volume, and called 
 
102 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Scotsman on Dr. Beattie's ' dead cats.' 
 
 by some suitable name, is understood to be a polite refutation of 
 scepticism. Dr. Reid, the dogmatist, stepped up to David Hume, the 
 sceptic, in this way ; and although the Doctor was neither very rude 
 nor vehement, but showed good common sense, yet he told the sceptic 
 nothing new — nothing which the sceptic had not only known but 
 printed in those books of his, which are oftener abused than read. 
 Dr. Beattie, again, who had not much common sense to show, and led 
 the anti-philosophic mob, armed himself for his encounter with Hume 
 with a quantity of dead cats, the smell of which ruffled the temper of 
 the " good David" a little, and has stuck to the philosophical charac- 
 ter of Beattie ever since. Kant and Sir William Hamilton, the truly 
 great thinkers who have met Hume on philosophical ground, in the 
 main agree with him, and are ready to declare, in concert with him 
 and Socrates and the Delphic oracle of old, " All that we know is, 
 nothing can be known." That is, of course, apart from special reve- 
 lation. To talk of a "complete refutation of scepticism" is conclusive 
 as to the talker's speculative capacity, even were it unaccompanied by 
 an averment of another accomplished impossibility, an elucidation of 
 the nature of the Infinite. However, this elucidation was evidently 
 claimed for Aristotle in forgetfulness of what Aristotle had written, 
 and of a foot-note in which the translator says : — " It must be ac- 
 knowledged that upon the whole Aristotle does not express himself on 
 the subject of the Infinite as fully or as determinately as we might 
 have expected. His definition of it is almost entirely made up of 
 negations." In the preceding note he says : — " The subject of the 
 Infinite is most important. The best modern author on this point is 
 the late Sir William Hamilton, in his review of Cousin's doctrine of 
 the Infinito-absolute." Now this praise of Sir William Hamilton 
 (which, however, is well deserved) is remarkable on the same page 
 with this censure of Aristotle ; for Sir William's account of the 
 Infinite is not " almost," but altogether made up of negations. His 
 doctrine amounts to this : that all we can ever know about the In- 
 finite is that it is not the Finite ; in other words, that our knowledge 
 of it must be negative, and never by any possibility can be positive. 
 A young gentleman of the name of Calderwood, whose book is re- 
 ferred to in this foot-note, modestly thought that he could enlighten 
 Sir William on the subject of the Infinite ; and it is guessed by those 
 who have tried to read his book that he aspires to a positive know- 
 ledge of the Infinite. But even a positive knowledge is not an 
 " elucidation of the nature ; " and to " expect" such an " elucidation" 
 diminished our expectations very considerably in reference to this 
 worthy translator of Aristotle.' * 
 
 We could not pretend to speak with anything like the authority of 
 this, the first of Scotch newspapers, and few Freethought writers 
 could speak more forcibly, and no defender of the great sceptics of the 
 past could speak more usefully or more generously. 
 
 * Supplement to the Daily Scotsman, Oct. 30, 1857. 
 
ROBERT ANCHOR THOMPSON AND JOHN TULLOCH. 103 
 
 The Athenaeum's refutation of the Thompson and Tnlloch Prize Essays. 
 
 A gentlemanly tone pervades ' Christian Theism,' to which we must 
 
 now advert. It is a manifest improvement in tone upon the Prize Essay 
 
 of the Evangelical Alliance. The spirit of ' Christian Theism,' indeed 
 
 ! the very title, is fairer than the volume on ' Infidelity' which we have 
 
 j noticed. ' Christian Theism' is a competent but not a great book. If an 
 
 ; evidence of the acutest writing power which £1,800 can elicit on the 
 
 j side of theology, these are not its ablest days. The Rev. Robert 
 
 i Anchor Thompson, the author of the aforesaid volume, following in 
 
 j the scornful footsteps of Tillotson, gives it as his opinion that the 
 
 rejection of Theism is founded on manifest fatuity. If, however, it 
 
 be true that all opposing theories are so irretrievably absurd, what 
 
 j necessity is there to give £1,800 to refute them? Why, if we saw a 
 
 given class of views in the same light, we would refute them for half 
 
 the money. We now give the perfectly gratuitous refutation of the 
 
 Athenceum to which we have referred : — 
 
 ' Our readers scarcely need being reminded as to the nature of the 
 Burnett Prize Treatises. Our pages contained for a long time reiter- 
 ated announcements that literary men were invited to send to Aber- 
 deen by the 1st of January, 1854, essays on the " existence of a Being, 
 all-powerful, wise, and good," with a special regard to the obviation of 
 difficulties respecting the wisdom and goodness of the Deity — and 
 this, in the first place, from considerations independent of written 
 Revelation — and in the second place, from such Revelation. By the 
 stipulated day two hundred and eight Treatises were sent in; and on 
 the 20th of January, 1855, the appointed judges — Prof. Baden Powell, 
 Mr. Henry Rogers, and Mr. Isaac Taylor — assigned the first premium 
 of £1,800 to Mr. Thompson, a clergyman of the Church of England ; 
 and the second of £600 to Dr. Tulloch, Principal of St. Andrews. 
 The works thus distinguished are now published under the titles in- 
 dicated above. Mr. Burnett's design was one of the best intention. 
 Nothing can be wiser than to review from time to time the additions 
 made to theological knowledge, and to consider the new forms taken 
 by the objections which are sure to arise in the minds of men of 
 philosophical and sceptical turn. It is a good thing, also, that an 
 opportunity should be offered for any new Paley to put forth his 
 strength, bringing out fresh arguments for the existence of a great 
 intelligent First Cause from recent discoveries and advances of 
 physical science. Up to the present time, we fear these anticipated 
 I advantages can scarcely be said to have been realised. The former 
 I Treatises, by Principal Brown and the present Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, were of comparatively slight merit — and the present, although 
 ! in many respects able books, will tend, we apprehend, but little to 
 | advance the good intentions of the founder of the prizes. These 
 books are different in style and in merit. Neither is conclusive, 
 neither is startling. One evades, the other begs, the question. Mr, 
 Thompson treats the sceptic too frequently with something approach- 
 ing to disdain — in a way that does not seem very candid, he picks out 
 the weak points of his arguments, and overthrows them with an air 
 
104 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Mr. Thompson ' shirks,' Dr. Tulloch ' begs * it. 
 
 of triumph — lie is dogmatic and positive — and although often in- 
 tolerant to the assumptions of others, he assumes freely on his own 
 side. Dr. Tulloch, on the contrary, is an example of the Scotch 
 metaphysician ; he is certainly not so cold and lifeless as his pre- 
 decessors of the last century, but his work is precisely of the 
 same class — skilful in minute distinctions, and happy in devising 
 arguments to prove the indisputable. Mr. Thompson's work — as [ 
 we have said — evades the question. The subject of the first inquiry, 
 set before the essayists by Mr. Burnett, is stated to be "the 
 evidence that there is a Being all-powerful, wise, and good, by whom 
 everything exists." These words construed in a wide and liberal sense 
 comprehend the whole question between the Theist and the Atheist : 
 — Is there a Deity, or can the phenomena of the universe be otherwise , 
 accounted for ? The essayist, as it seems to us, was bound to answer 
 this question. Mr. Thompson shirks it : — " The nature of our inquiry 
 does not lead us to speak of the existence of the Supreme Being as a| 
 truth which can reasonably be called in question. It is a truth as 
 natural to the mind as the existence of itself or of an outward world, j 
 and cannot be represented as doubtful, but by the same [?] audacity of 
 scepticism. We are to inquire, then, how do we come by the know- j 
 ledge of him, which we believe ourselves to have, and how can we be 
 reflectively assured of its validity ?" The existence of a Deity, it will 
 be seen, is taken for granted, and doubters are branded at once as 
 audacious and unreasonable sceptics. Assuredly this was not the 
 meaning of Mr. Burnett. Certainly he would not have fixed a prefa- 
 tory stigma upon those whose ignorance or mental peculiarities lead 
 them into the position of doubters. His object was to satisfy the 
 minds of such persons — to address them in kind words of soberness 
 and wisdom, which should have the effect of leading them into what he 
 would esteem a better state of thought. Mr. Thompson, it will be 
 seen, at once takes for granted the very point that may be in dispute, 
 and denounces all who differ from him. Having done this — and con- 
 sequently repelled from the consideration of his book the persons whom 
 it was desired to benefit — he proceeds to inquire into the evidence. 
 And the evidence, let it be remarked, of what ? The evidence of a 
 truth — our conviction of which, he tells us, is not dependent upon the 
 arguments of natural theology, the conclusions of reason, or the assu- 
 rances of revelation — but is innate and spontaneous, as clear to the 
 mind as the existence of itself or of the outer world. This, we must 
 think, is a very erroneous mode of treating the matter. Inquiry 
 pronounced needless — the thing in question is declared indisputable- 
 doubters are sentenced as audacious sceptics — but Mr. Burnett has 
 offered a prize, and therefore we will inquire. A book written on 
 such a system should have been rejected by the judges as standing 
 outside the pale of competition. 
 
 ' Dr. Tulloch begs the question. He builds upon the old argument 
 from design, but presents it in a new form, which he expresses 
 syllogistically as follows : — 
 
ROBERT ANCHOR THOMPSON AND JOHN TULLOCH. 105 
 
 Is the separate existence of mind necessarily evident ? 
 
 ' Order universally proves Mind ; 
 
 ' The works of Nature discover Order ; 
 
 4 The works of Nature prove Mind. 
 
 "Mind," as he elsewhere expresses himself, "is everywhere the only 
 valid explanation of order — its necessary correlate." Dr. Tulloch 
 thinks that, in presenting the familiar Paley argument in this new 
 form, he gets rid of exceptions which have been formerly taken in 
 consequence of the use of ambiguous words. We greatly doubt 
 whether this will be the case. " Order" and " Mind" are terms which 
 may occasion as much dispute as any of the others which have been 
 previously employed. Proceeding to consider the doctrine of causation, 
 Dr. Tulloch concludes " a cause" to be, not simply " an antecedent," 
 but " a power" — an efficient agent, and, therefore, a being possessed of 
 a rational will. Building on this position, he traces the Order of 
 Cause and Effect, and, consequently, the presence of an Intelligent 
 Agent, throughout all Nature. The universe in all its arrangements 
 — the heavens, earth, and man, with all the faculties of his intellectual 
 and moral being — present innumerable evidences of the Order which 
 is sought after, and force home upon the inquirer the conviction of 
 the existence of an intelligent designer, with a power which to ordinary 
 inquirers is irresistible. But this argument depends on the assumed 
 existence of mind as a substance apart from matter. But this is not 
 to be assumed. The sceptic denies it, and it must be proved. Dr. 
 Tulloch quietly begs the reader to grant him the very point at issue. 
 He says : — " That it is so distinct has been assumed in the whole 
 course of our preliminary reasoning, and quite warrantably so. For, 
 to say the least, mind is as much entitled, apart from proof, to be held 
 a distinct reality as matter. Nay, of the two, there cannot be any 
 doubt to the genuine thinker which is the real, primary, and con- 
 stitutive element of knowledge : and for the materialist, therefore, to 
 demand a proof of the separate existence of mind, and for the philo- 
 sopher or theologian to grant him the validity of this demand, is 
 simply among the absurdities which have sprung out of the degrada- 
 tion both of philosophy and theology. The right of question, the 
 burden of proof, lies plainly all the other way ; matter per se, nature 
 independently of mind, being, according to our whole reasoning, as 
 well as according to all true philosophy, the simply inconceivable and 
 inexplicable." Whether this assumption be right or wrong we do not 
 mean to inquire ; we only notice the circumstance that Dr. Tulloch 
 has been paid for proving that which he has not proved.'* 
 
 * Athenceum No. 1448 July 28, 1855. 
 
 14 
 
106 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 History of the Townley debate. Finesse of Mr. Townley. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HENRY TOWNLEY. 
 
 The incidental discussion in 1852, with the Rev. Henry Townley, 
 occasioned a publicity in London to Theistic views, unexpected and 
 influential. The debate itself is chiefly noticeable in these pages fromi 
 the light it throws on the platform trial of Theism, and the tactics of 
 theistical defendants of the mildest school. 
 
 At the discussions with Mr. John Bowes, Mr. David King (notj 
 noticed in this work) and the Rev. Mr. Townley, those gentlemen - 
 came prepared with written speeches. The avocations of their op 
 ponent did not permit that preparation, and as in no case was he ap 
 prised that separate publication of the debate was intended, no such 
 precaution was available to him, had he thought it worth while to 
 take it. 
 
 At considerable inconvenience to himself he read over such MS. 
 report as Mr. Bowes sent him of his own speeches, in which he sup 
 plied no omissions of the reporter's, but simply connected the dis 
 jointed parts. Mr. Bowes afterwards advertised this discussion as 
 1 revised by both speakers,' which gave the public to understand more 
 than was true — because the publication was not of his opponent's 
 devising, nor did he know whether what was being presented in the 
 report as his, happened to be the parts related to the portions retained 
 of Mr. Bowes's speeches. 
 
 Remembering that many were misled by Mr. Bowes's publication, 
 caused the writer hereof to decline being a party to Mr. King's. Mr, 
 King, however, went to the press, and nearly twelve months afterwards 
 I found a copy of his published report in Manchester. That was the 
 first time of becoming aware of its appearance. 
 
 Unwilling to disoblige Mr. Townley, who had been on the whole 
 friendly in his manner, I consented to look over the report. He sent 
 to the Reasoner office my part of it only, and even this part circum- 
 stances prevented me ever seeing. 
 
 At the discussion with Mr. Townley several reporters were observed 
 and on the second night I asked what journals they represented, sup- 
 posing that they came on behalf of newspapers — but the person 
 questioned did not satisfy me. My being asked to ' revise,' was the 
 first information I had that the publication of my impromptu remarks 
 was resolved upon. Had I been at first informed that that was the 
 intention, I should not have held the debate at that time, nor on that 
 subject. When Mr. Townley called upon me I told him my dislike to 
 a merely negative topic ; but he would take no other, and had he then 
 betrayed to me his purpose of publishing the debate, and diffusing it 
 among the religious press, as a discussion by which Atheistical prin- 
 
HENRY TOWNLET. 107 
 
 On the right of reporting and separately publishing debates. 
 
 ciples were to be judged, I should have refused altogether the 
 question : — ' Is there sufficient proof of the Existence of God ?' the 
 negative being a position which the public always have misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 Unconscious of Mr. Townley's intentions, the subject was accepted, 
 and the whole debate regarded merely as an opportunity of indirectly 
 explaining to new hearers ethical aspects of the question. Mr. 
 Townley advertised the debate independently of the committee of ar- 
 rangement. The number of religious persons present could not be 
 accounted for. There was some foregone conclusion in the matter on 
 Mr. Townley's part. 
 
 Newspapers and periodicals have the right of custom to publish a 
 report of a public discussion, but no person has a moral right (nor 
 possibly any legal one) to publish in a book, for separate sale, any 
 discussion without authority. Mr. Townley may plead that as I 
 ultimately consented to ' revise,' I did in fact consent to the step he 
 has taken. True, I made no protest against this step. I acquiesced, 
 but did not think the proceeding less irregular on that account. Had 
 I demurred after the debate, it would have been said I was unwilling 
 to trust my case before the public. It was, therefore, I acquiesced; 
 but I submit I ought to have been consulted beforehand, not merely 
 solicited afterwards, when the solicitation was too late to afford inde- 
 pendent decision. Mr. Townley having published at his own risk, 
 was free to dispose of the proceeds till his expenses were paid, 
 and even his risks covered ; but if any surplus above these demands 
 arose, a moiety only was his. 
 
 He had the book prefaced by his friend Dr. Bennett, and added 
 laborious notes to his own speeches — in fact, as the reviewer in the 
 Bradford Observer remarks, Mr. Townley speaks twice to my once ; 
 and thus he turns what the public understand to be a joint and equal 
 debate, into a party book. All the proceeds of such book, therefore, 
 ought not to be devoted to the circulation of the book itself, which is 
 to serve one party at the expense of another. 
 
 In the report itself there are errors that slight general knowledge 
 on the reporter's part would have enabled him to correct or cancel. 
 I quoted K. W. Mackay, author of the ' Progress of the Intellect.' 
 The sentiment is put down to ' Guizot,' who could not possibly have 
 been the author of it. Dry den's lines ascribed in the report to ' Carlile ' 
 are not at all likely to have been his, while the name of the writer in 
 the Times (' Carolus'), whom I connected with the quotation, was very 
 different in sound. These names must have been guessed ; and, if one 
 part of the report is suppository, why was not something intelligible 
 supposed for me in other instances ? 
 
 The longest speech in the report ascribed to me is utterly un- 
 intelligible. Were it not that my name is prefixed to it, I should 
 hardly know it again. Now the commonest newspaper report of a 
 speech always presents something readable, but this it is not possible 
 to make out. Why I think it an imperfect report is, that the 
 
108 THE TBIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The province of the reporter. What a report should be. 
 
 audience showed, during its delivery, that it was on the whole under- 
 stood, whereas to readers of this report it is an enigma. The only- 
 critics who have assumed to understand the report in general are 
 persons who were either present at the debate, or had other means of 
 knowing my opinions. Passages which I read are not rendered with- 
 out errors. It is plain, therefore, that, on the whole, I was some- 
 thing more intelligible in the debate than in the report. 
 
 The usual course when a report is sent to the press is for the 
 reporter to take care that what is sent is readable, and, if he has parts 
 unreadable, to omit them. A reporter who should send into a news- 
 paper office a report in the state in which my part of the debate is 
 printed, would be dismissed. If a speaker does not revise his own 
 speeches he has no right to expect accuracy, but he has a right to ex- 
 pect that the negligences of the reporter shall not be placed to his 
 account. In this report there are some negations gratuitously put 
 down to me, flatly contradicting my meaning ; but of these I do not 
 complain. A reporter's discretion could not be expected to be ex- 
 ercised on the argument. But for the general sense he was responsible. 
 There is no reason to think that intentional variations have been 
 made ; but very unprofessional carelessness has been committed. An 
 ordinary report gives the reader as fair a notion of what was said as 
 the hearer received. This report fails to do this. 
 
 This report is not said to be untrustworthy because it contains 
 many inaccuracies or omissions, but because it contains more dis- 
 jointed and utterly unintelligible passages than would be found in the 
 commonest newspaper report of the same debate. It is also untrust- 
 worthy in other senses. 1. Because it is prejudiced by the preface. 
 2. Because the subject was a forced one, and one that misrepresents us. 
 
 Touching the argument in the report of this discussion, several 
 critics have pronounced Mr. Townley's case made out. jSTone seem 
 to notice that I did not profess to argue against Mr. Townley. He 
 insisted on discussing a subject which I did not care about, and I 
 pursued the course which, in like cases, I have pursued with others. 
 As he would take a subject of no interest to me, I concluded he had 
 not my improvement in view, but some end of his own to answer, and 
 I left him to answer it as he pleased. Very distinctly he was told, on 
 the first night, that to prove that something existed was, in my opinion, 
 nothing to the purpose. That one aspect of the design argument 
 made the fact of something existing ' distinct from nature ' plausible, 
 but a contrary fact was much more plausible. His argument did not 
 lead to an Absolute and Supreme Being, and in no way touched the 
 vital question of a Special Providence ; and as his argument brought 
 with it neither certainty nor relevance, it was beside the question 
 which interested us. Still he went round and round his barren 
 proposition. He even used the phrase ' a Being distinct from 
 nature ' — which every Christian understands to mean a Supreme 
 Being — in the sense of a mere entity ; and seeing this, I occupied my 
 time, as my first speech gave Mr. Townley fair warning that I should, 
 
HBNRT TOWNLEY. 109 
 
 Mr. Townley missed the point of his own proposition. 
 
 in establishing our sympathy with more positive and practical 
 questions. 
 
 The question for debate was, 'Is there sufficient proof of the 
 existence of a God — that is, of a Being distinct from Nature ?' This 
 question Mr. Townley deserted at the outset, and betook himself to 
 proving that something existed. But ' something' is not necessarily 
 4 God' The argument of analogy, which he followed, only makes 
 probable the existence of a Great Man, not Deity. If Mr. Townley's 
 position is really recognised by the orthodox, then theology has turned 
 round — has given up its pretensions to certainty as to the existence of 
 God, and accepts our theory of probability ; and if that is all, we had 
 better rest in our own probability than theirs, for Nature — infinite, 
 eternal, self-existent, and material — is a more magnificent truth than 
 that of ' something ' abstract, barren, relative, and limited, beyond 
 nature, and which degrades Nature from a Supreme Existence into a 
 mere Instrument 
 
 One advantage taken of my concession in debating Mr. Townley's 
 proposition is, that he placed on the cover of the book the 
 words ' Atheistic Discussion,' and advertised it under this desig- 
 nation. It occasioned some surprise that Mr. Townley should 
 seek to force upon us an opprobrious name which we disown unless 
 accompanied by a definition clearing the term from moral guilti- 
 ness. Again, his advertisement of the debate in a religious Magazine 
 has these two opinions of his own party appended : — 
 
 ' We have seldom seen such utter trash as the infidel disputant 
 dignifies with the name of reasoning. It is not the being of a God 
 he wishes to get rid of, but the responsibility of man.' — Edinburgh 
 Witness. 
 
 ' There is nothing like an argument at all in Mr. Holyoake's flimsy 
 attempt, by glib talking, to mystify the public ear. We have looked 
 with great care at every sentence uttered by him, and we cannot find 
 anything bordering on a single logical showing in defence of his deity, 
 which he calls Nature. The utter feebleness of Atheism is only 
 equalled by its insolent pretence.' — Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 The question that here arises is — does Mir. Townley believe these 
 criticisms ? If so, what was the meaning of his apparent civility 
 to the end of the discussion ? If he does not believe these allegations, 
 on what ground does he offer them to the public to believe ? 
 
 The propriety of my objection, expressed to Mr. Townley, to 
 discuss the question of the existence of Deity, in the then temper 
 of the religious world, is further established in a very marked manner 
 bv the Rev. Dr. Bennett in his ' Preface ' to the discussion.* That 
 f Preface ' occupies but twenty-four lines, long primer ; yet in it three 
 times the rev. writer represents me as bringing ' arguments against 
 God,' though to argue 'against God' was never in my thoughts. 
 I scarcely argued against Mr. Townley's inconclusive representations 
 
 * Published at 2s. Four editions have since appeared at two prices, at Is. and at 6d., hut 
 omitting Dr. Bennett's preface and Mr. Townley's notes. 
 
110 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Bennett's fiction of ' arguments against God.' 
 
 of Deity. How can I, unable but not unwilling to apprehend the in- 1 
 scrutable secret of God's existence, be said to argue against Him ? Yetl 
 three times does the Eev. Dr. Bennett describe my part of the bookl 
 as the bringing of ' arguments against God.' Ko sooner does the eyeH 
 of the devout Christian fall on these words, than his mind is poisoned) 
 against my case on the threshold of the book. Mr. Townley appears J 
 by implication, as some divine old gentleman, and myself as somej 
 reckless and sanguinary adventurer — a Moloch and Mephistopheles| 
 combined ; or worse, some Satanic Proudhon, likely, as the Rev. J. J 
 A. James has elsewhere suggested, to promote an Anglo- Gallicianjj 
 massacre in London ; for what wickedness is there the Christian does I 
 not believe possible of one who brings ' arguments against God ?' 
 
 It may be that Dr. Bennett was hardly sensible of the injustice I 
 thus done to us — but it is an injustice nevertheless. We count onf 
 these things, however, for some time to come, and do not think it] 
 worth while to complain. That we are not in haste to notice them at 
 all, is somewhat evident from the fact that we sufTered this report to 
 be circulated for four months, and a second edition to be advertised, 
 before addressing the public on the subject. 
 
 The object of reciting these particulars is to show the reader that 
 the evidence on the Atheistical side is not fairly or fully before the 
 court of public criticism. The Rev. Mr. Townley's suavity was un- 
 bounded. From him, if from any one, frankness and fairness were to 
 be expected. The substance of the narrative now placed before the 
 reader was made public five years ago, but the reverend gentleman 
 offered no explanation, nor did his committee, under whose notice the 
 above facts doubtless came. In May last I received from Mr. Townley i 
 a volume, entitled 'The Sceptic Saved, or Memorials of [his 
 brother] Dr. Townley.' I at once wrote to say 'that I knew not] 
 in what spirit to acknowledge it until he had given some expression 
 of opinion as to the statements (here cited) which he had so long left 
 unnoticed.' Mr. Townley replied, and on the second day after sent me 
 the date (which he had omitted) to place upon his letter. This pre- 
 caution looked as though our correspondence was meant to reach the 
 public. My answer was this : — 
 
 ' The papers I transmitted you set forth that you insisted on debating 
 a question to which I was averse, for which you had provided and I had 
 not. That you had specially prepared written speeches to deliver, and 
 invited the religious party to hear your display, giving me no intimation 
 of your intentions, that I might be equally prepared for the occasion. 
 That you provided to publish the debate without my knowledge, 
 brought your own reporters to that end, and did publish crude and 
 most unreporter-like versions of my speeches without my consent. 
 The report was untrustworthy, and its publication arbitrary. That 
 you procured the Rev. Dr. Bennett to preface your report by remarks 
 prejudicing the side of your opponent, and added notes to my speeches 
 attempting the refutation you omitted to make in yours. The report 
 became property to some one. Its price, 2s. the first edition, and four 
 
 
HENRY TOWNLEY. Ill 
 
 St. Paul improved by the Rev. Dr. Campbell. 
 
 cheap editions, must or ought to have produced a palpable surplus. 
 Some time ago I was asked to buy the plates, etc. — to buy the copy- 
 right of a debate to which I had a joint right. I ask what your view 
 of these transactions is, and you reply by offering me £1. If a con- 
 verted person may act thus, what is the good of being converted ? 
 The unregenerate cannot, it seems to me, be more wrong.' 
 
 What Mr. Townley had to say for himself can only be gathered 
 from the above conjecturally. He made no answer to the above letter. 
 He was asked to consent to the publication of his letters, but he has 
 never given it, and they are of necessity withheld here. 
 
 After the discussion with this Rev. Gentleman, the Rev. Dr. 
 Campbell wrote in the Christian Witness this notable passage : — ' Mr. 
 Townley appears to have quite charmed Mr. Holyoake, who through- 
 out manifested for him the utmost respect, and even took occasion, 
 more than once, to pay a cordial tribute to his candour and polite- 
 ness. There was rather too much of this to our taste. Compliments 
 from antagonists are generally suspicious. We mean no disrespect ; 
 but, we think had the gripe of our friend, Mr. Townley, possessed a 
 little more of the boa constrictor, perhaps more justice would have been 
 done to the cause, and fewer compliments would have been distributed 
 by the advocate of Atheism.' What a loss to the world it was that 
 St. Paul had not Dr. Campbell at his elbow when he penned his 
 famous chapter on Charity ! Let us try Dr. Campbell by the Pauline 
 standard of charity in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. We will 
 make the additions Dr. Campbell would have suggested : — 
 I ' Charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity envieth not ; charity 
 ■' vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up;' l it has the gripe of a boa 
 constrictor, .' 
 
 It ' Doth riot behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not 
 easily provoked;' it ' gripes like a boa constrictor? 
 
 ' It rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth,' and in ' the 
 gripe of a boa constrictor.'' 
 
 It ' Beareth all things, it believeth all things, it endureth all things ;' 
 and i itgripeth like a boa constrictor.' 
 
 ' Charity,' the apostle adds, ' never faileth ,•' * charity,' says Dr. 
 Campbell, ' crushes like a serpent.' The evangelist of the New Testa- 
 ment says the holy spirit descended in the form of a dove; the 
 evangelist of the Banner tells us it descends in the form of a boa 
 constrictor. Is the Campbelline an improvement on the Pauline 
 scripture ? 
 
112 THE TRIAL OP THEISM. 
 
 Belief without reason. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SOPHIA DOBSON COLLET. 
 
 Cosmism, of which we have spoken in a previous chapter, is a search 
 after the truths of nature, in order to act thern out in life. With the 
 priest-led world (as Mr. Dickens says in his story of 'The Boots'*) 
 'it's always either Yesterday or else To-morrow, and never To- 
 day.' It would be all the better if the art of living to-day were 
 more impressed upon society. The Cosmist stands on the side of 
 Uluminism.f He makes clearness the criterion of truth. He is opposed 
 to the mysteries of faith, and to the assumption that truth is revealed 
 from without. Yet to borrow a phrase of Dr. Kahnis', he holds that 
 ' opinion should not break in upon phenomena, like a thunderbolt 
 from a clear sky, but should be able to point out and bring to light' 
 the grounds of its judgments. For some time to come the public 
 may care very little whether we are clear or obscure ; but since some, 
 having claims on our best attention, wish explanations on some 
 points, the present writer attempts to render them. 
 
 Reared myself a Bible-Theist, I believed because I was exhorted to 
 do so, before I was able to question the reasons upon which the ex- 
 hortation was founded, or measure the knowledge of those who gave 
 it. The authority they used was the Bible, and the awe with which 
 they regarded, and the prominence they gave to the menaces of 
 eternal perdition on unbelievers, suppressed inquiry and terrified 
 doubt. My Atheism may be held on insufficient reasons, but my 
 Bible-Theism was held without any, worthy to be called free and 
 rational. Where one pre-given conclusion must be come to under the 
 coercion of perdition, reason is a needless and dangerous operation. 
 My advisers, though not of the church, were of the school which 
 exclaims : — 
 
 'Brothers! spare reasoning; — men have settled long 
 
 That ye are out of date, and they are wise; 
 Use their own weapons; let your words be strong, 
 Your cry be loud, till each scared boaster flies; 
 
 Thus the Apostles tamed the pagan breast, 
 
 They argued not, but preached; and conscience did the rest. '% 
 
 And, as a priest-formed conscience starts quickest at ideal terrors, 
 logic was not needed to alarm me. God was to me a Fear. Of his 
 being a God of Love, in the human sense of that term, the idea never 
 occurred to me, and was never suggested by my teachers. To trust 
 
 * The only story Mr. Dickens is understood to have contrihuted to ' Holly Tree Inn.' 
 t ' niuminism,' the name which, in Germany, stands for the whole of that philosophy 
 which, under so many forms in Europe, has comhatted against the church and for hu- 
 manity, ever seeking the clear in thought as the safe in life. 
 % Dr. J. H. Newman — ' Severity.' Lyra Apostolica, 
 
SOPHIA DOBSON COLLET. 113 
 
 The Lord's Prayer as supplemented by Leigh Hunt. 
 
 God, in that sense which casteth out anxiety, was a feeling utterly 
 unknown to me. The only trust in God which I knew was a mingled 
 feeling of awe, terror, and hope. He was to me a judge who had ever 
 on his lips a dread sentence, and whose leniency could only be ob- 
 tained by abject faith, by an undefined submission of the spirit, and a 
 confessed consciousness of natural guilt — perpetual, oppressive, pain- 
 ful, and humiliating. 
 
 In the Lord's Prayer I was, indeed, taught to say ' Our Father who 
 art in heaven ;' but I was never able to conceive of him other than as 
 the Father spoken of by Solomon, who held a rod in his hand, and 
 under the conviction that it was best not to spare it. Such was the 
 God of Orthodox Dissenting Theology, in which I had the misfortune 
 to be reared, in which I originally believed, but in which I have, 
 since 1841, ceased to believe, and in which I have no wish to believe 
 again. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, in the most courageous of his many valuable works, 
 puts the Lord's Prayer as it is to be read by those who do not ignore 
 one half of the second gospel while they pretend to believe and accept 
 allot both : — ' Now the New Testament bids us call God father, yet tells 
 us, or seems to tell us, that if His children disobey Him, He will 
 everlastingly burn them ; will take them as a father might take his 
 children in a room with a fire in it, and hold them in the fire for ever. 
 The thing is so absurd as well as monstrous, that one is astonished 
 how anybody, even out of a good intention, could ever have threatened 
 it. But place it side by side with the paternal benevolence — inter- 
 weave it with one of the child's loving and trusting speeches to the 
 father — the Lord's Prayer, for instance — and see how it looks then : 
 Our Father which art in heaven, and which eternally burnest the 
 children who disobey thee, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, 
 where we shall be as happy as we shall know the others to be frantic 
 with misery. Thy will be done on earth, where thou biddest every- 
 body to have pity, as it is in heaven, where thy saints behold Dives 
 burning and have no pity. '* 
 
 Man's relation to Deity, as conceived by Mazzini as that of the 
 source of the highest inspiration of duty — the relation to Deity as 
 described by Professor Newman as one of aspiration, reverence, and 
 instruction, is quite a different matter ; but the relation of man to the 
 God of Christianism is an essentially penal relation, one which can 
 neither nurture the affections nor morals. 
 
 Had I been taught to conceive of Deity as either of the writers 
 just named conceive of Him, I think it likely that I should never 
 have ceased to hold Theism as true ; and if it were not misleading to 
 one's self to covet opinion, I could even wish to be able to share their 
 convictions. But having once well parted from my early belief, I am 
 free to inquire and resolute to know, and I seek for evidence which 
 will not only satisfy my present judgment, but evidence with which I 
 
 * Leigh Hunt's ' Religion of the Heart.' 
 15 
 
114 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Atheism does not imply universal Scepticism. 
 
 can defy the judgment of others. He who can supply me with this 
 can command me. 
 
 We frequently meet with, in the writings of Theists, passages which 
 express Netheisni.* To us such passages are irreconcileable with the 
 Theism of the writers, but to them such passages are in harmony with 
 their general views. In their thoughts the reconcilement hidden from 
 us is apparent. It would be gratuitous folly to charge such persons 
 with having changed their opinions, because, on some points, we find 
 them expressing others. Such instances of incidental agreement are no 
 proofs of vital coincidence — they only show, what all should be glad 
 to discover, that there is some common truth between opposing 
 thinkers. The moment certain criticised passages the present writer 
 has penned are viewed in this light, their supposed Theism vanishes. 
 
 An author is not always stating formal propositions. If his main 
 business is the enforcement of some leading idea, he hastens on his 
 way by ellipsis, and employs phrases of two interpretations, provided 
 one of them in some salient way illustrates the matter in hand. But 
 after him cometh the one-eyed critic, picking up all the latent, 
 secondary, and unused meanings, which may possibly be found in his 
 leading terms, and charges him with being the author of a theory of 
 which he never dreamed, and of advocating the very opinions to 
 which he is opposed. 
 
 Several critics have said that ' the last remnant of my religious be- 
 lief was swept away by the imprisonment of a friend on account of his 
 heresy,' because I used the expression that his persecution was ' the 
 cradle of my doubts, and the grave of my religion,' and this has been 
 interpreted into a confession of very premature Atheism ; the in- 
 terpreter overlooking the early part of the same sentence, in which I 
 said I had ceased to be 'a believer in the humanising tendency of 
 Christianity.' At this point I had merely given up Christianism, not 
 Theism, and the language I employed said this clearly, and said no 
 more. 
 
 Miss Collet begins a very eloquent passage with the anxious 
 question, ' Is universal scepticism to supersede the worship of ages ?' 
 The question is old and vague, and the fear implied groundless. 
 Atheism does not imply universal scepticism ; but merely the scepti- 
 cism of Theism. We all know that new ideas are ever super- 
 seding the old. The worship of pagan ages was overthrown by 
 Christianity. The worship of Catholic ages was overthrown by 
 Protestantism. The ' belief,' and ' balm,' and ' blessedness ' of one 
 period are at the mercy of new truths, which never fail to carry 
 humanity cheerily on the path of progress. There is as much timidity 
 
 * ' Atheism expresses, not the denial, but the absence of God— i.e., the absence of Him 
 from our knowledge— or the absence of belief in God. Netheism, on the other hand, is the 
 proper term for the negation of God— i.e., the denial or disbelief of His existence. He 
 who knows not God — who knows not, that is to say, whether or not God exist— may rightly 
 be called an Atheist. He, on the other hand, who maintains that God does not exist, is, 
 properly speaking, a Netheist. The distinction may be briefly expressed as that between 
 privation and negation— between non-belief and disbelief.'— L. H. H. 
 
SOPHIA DOBSON COLLET. 115 
 
 Possible or desirable views of Deity quite distinct from ascertained realities. 
 
 in holding by old consolations as there is false conservatism in clinging 
 to old errors. 
 
 In the Glasgow Discussion a passage (in which I see nothing to 
 alter, and which certainly explains itself) ended with words to this 
 effect : — If Nature, or the All, be conscious and moral, in this rela- 
 tive and ethical sense (not in the metaphysical or theological sense), 
 Secularists ' might be considered religious. For if Secularism does 
 not proceed upon the knowledge of a God Actual, it moves [in the 
 ethical sense described] towards a God Possible.' 
 
 Certainly, I never shared that notion of Atheism so positive and 
 dogmatic, as to declare that no other hypothesis of the universe 
 is possible to be entertained. The ideas of the Infinite and the Uni- 
 versal can never be, or at least have never been, so sharply defined 
 and permanently conceived, as to warrant us in declaring Theism, 
 under any form, to be impossible. The difficulties of an absolute 
 judgment here will be best understood by those who have passed from 
 ' the fresh and blooming territory of life' to labour in 'the dark and 
 misty land of abstractions.' So vast a subject as the Universe, with 
 its countless aspects, perplexes the wisest, and defies the acutest, 
 to bring its entire phenomena within the limits of one unassailable 
 definition. An undogmatic Atheism, which I alone espouse, is one of 
 Neutrality. In hours of meditation I confront with awe the great 
 Mystery. I cannot utter the secret of Nature. Theism affects to 
 explain it, but it never explains itself. 
 
 When pure Theists, as Mazzini and Professor Newman, explain 
 their fine conception of God as the Deity of duty, or of moral aspira- 
 tion, the imagination, borne on the golden wings of a reverence 
 untinged by terror, soars into the radiant light of a possible God. 
 But the Possible is not the Actual. Hope is not proof. Baffled 
 speculation returns again to the Secular sphere, where, at least, this 
 consolation awaits us, that we may learn how to live, though we may 
 not know what to believe of the Universe. We may frame a Human 
 Life, if not a Theological Creed. 
 
 If more is to be known, I will know it ; but I will not pretend to 
 know what is hidden, nor use terms which mean knowledge, but do 
 not impart it. My confidence is in the truth, and my content is with 
 the truth — however limited, however austere. 
 
 ' Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 
 
 Lead thou me on ! 
 Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene — one step enough for me:' 
 
 provided that step be certain and progressive. 
 
 When the Theist speaks of the Personality of Nature, he is known 
 to express a fact* of his creed. He conceives of Nature, as acting 
 under the inspiration of God. The Atheist, however, who personifies 
 Nature, merely uses the licence of the poet. It is known to be a 
 
 * Not a logical fact, but a Theo-logical fact. Very different species of facts these. 
 
116 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Personification is to be distinguished from Pantheism. 
 
 figure of speech, not a part of his theological belief. Thus Pope was 
 no Pantheist, and had not in view to express Pantheism, in penning 
 those lines, the most brilliant expression of Pantheism extant, com- 
 mencing — 
 
 ' All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.' 
 
 On one occasion I have said, ' Nature peoples space with glittering 
 worlds, and fills land and sea with joyous life' — that from it 'we learn 
 wisdom, order, and government.' On another occasion I remarked 
 that ' light is given to us proportioned to our wants,' and that ' to 
 reduce to practice what we know is the only means of attaining to a 
 higher elevation.' These forms of expression Miss Collet has concluded 
 to imply that Nature must be capable of 'purposing, willing, loving, 
 and sustaining ;' and, as the exercise of these qualities imply con- 
 sciousness, that I virtually concede consciousness to Nature. This 
 conclusion is a logical invention, not a legitimate inference. It is a 
 conclusion from the literal interpretation of figurative expressions. 
 To one interpreting terms thus arbitrarily, I should re-write the pas- 
 sages, which merely amount to this : — ' Space is peopled with glitter- 
 ing planets. Land and sea are filled with joyous life. From the 
 study of some of the operations of Nature we can learn wisdom, order, 
 and government. In some respects light may be said to be pro- 
 portioned to our wants. The practice of what we know reveals to us 
 new realities and possibilities, and becomes the stepping-stones to 
 higher elevation.' All these phenomena of life and experience are 
 manifestations of Nature the material, the inscrutable, the inex- 
 plicable. At the bottom of all these — is there conscious action ? That 
 is the question and the secret — and that secret is not asserted — it is 
 sought. 
 
 In another passage an assertion of Pantheism has been found, from 
 which I had carefully excluded it. It would almost seem that meanings 
 creep back again into my passages when my attention is turned from 
 them. This is an instance : — I had said, ' One man believes God to be 
 an abstract principle distinct from Nature — such I cannot understand. 
 Another by God means Design — the mechanical God of Paley (or the 
 artificer of William Howit), which philosophy itself has exploded. 
 Others mean by God Light, or Life, or Law, or Love, or Truth. I 
 believe in Light, and Life, and Law, and Love, and Truth ; but I 
 think it misleading to call either " God." ' ' Yet,' exclaims one who 
 is competent to weigh words, and candid to interpret them, ' what are 
 Life and Love, when predicated of the Universe, but the attributes of 
 a Pervading Consciousness ?'* And this question is addressed to me, 
 after I had just declared that I could call neither Life nor Love Deity 
 — since to do so would be ' misleading ' — that is, that it would be pre- 
 dicating them of the Universe.' 
 
 The same commentator next asks, ' Can he be justly called a 
 
 * Miss Collet's ' G. J. Holyoake and Modern Atheism,' p. 33. 
 
SOPHIA DOBSON COLLET. 117 
 
 Bio-Cosmism does not necessarily imply Pantheism- 
 Materialist who believes in Nature's Life? Is he an Atheist who 
 believes in Nature's Love ?' Yet I have expressly explained, when I 
 used the phrase Bio-Cosmism in reply to Mr. Maccall, that I employed 
 it in the limited sense of signifying Life in the Universe, not Life of 
 the Universe ; which is precisely the unascertained point which the 
 Pantheist assumes and the Atheist seeks. 
 
 The Christian Reformer magazine, the Christian Weekly News, and 
 other papers, have referred to Miss Collet's work as a satisfactory per- 
 formance in criticising my opinions. Here let me notice that she her- 
 self says, ' It is the chief charge I have to bring against Mr. Holyoake's 
 theological consistency, that he has left this point [the point just 
 
 examined] in obscurity I think he is bound either to add a 
 
 distinct acknowledgment of Nature's consciousness or to give an 
 
 equally distinct explanation of the sense in which he attributes 
 life, purpose, and love to the Universe, without supposing it to 
 be aware that it lives, purposes, and loves.' All this is exactly 
 what I have not done. It is this attributment against which I have 
 guarded. 
 
 In order to make as clear as possible any meaning we may have to 
 express, we present it in various lights, congruous but diverse. In 
 return for this trouble we are charged with inconsistency by some 
 writer, who, looking at the explanation of to-day, exclaims, ' Why, 
 ten years ago you explained this matter in a different way ;' and 
 another, of more ancient memory, adds, ' Eighteen years since you 
 used one word which you omit now.' Miss Collet is a critic of a very 
 different description. She studies the spirit of what is said, and only 
 errs when she misconceives it. 
 
 Our authoress has a theory of prayer, apart from physical efficiency, 
 upon which she asks my opinion. I do not believe it, and do not 
 dispute it. She says in a very happy phrase, ' Do you desire a 
 physical good ? you then must offer up a physical prayer.' This is a 
 perfect Secular formula, and there is nothing practical to discuss after 
 this is conceded. 
 
 In passing from Miss Collet's book my regret is lest, in having to 
 object to some of its conclusions, I should lead the reader to suppose 
 that I fail to appreciate its generous spirit and its fine ability. It is 
 one of the most instructive professedly critical books, devoted to 
 modern views of Atheism, which has been written. ' The Argument 
 of Materialism ' is particularly worthy the attention of readers. To 
 many passages belongs the high praise, that they express essential 
 thought, and express it so well that they will not need to be written 
 again. 
 
118 THE TB1AX OP THEISM. 
 
 The principles of science independent of theological creeds. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE TWO PROVIDENCES. . 
 
 Science is the available Providence of Man. Absolute spiritual 
 dependency in human affairs may involve material destruction. A 
 general Providence is neutral in human affairs. Special Pro- 
 vidence, if it ever acted, sleeps now. Science is the only Providence 
 that acts. As there are two Christs in the New Testament, Christ 
 the Gentle and Christ the Austere ; so there are two Providences in 
 theology, one who acts by general laws, and one who interposes in 
 special cases. General Providence is the discovery of Philosophy. 
 Special Providence is the ancient conception of superstition. This 
 Special Providence, which has been by far the greatest power in popu- 
 lar religion, is rapidly retreating before the march of Science. 
 
 By science is understood those systems of rules and reasons for 
 them, which direct the systematic operations of men. Science, in its 
 broadest sense, includes art, which is its practical application. Science 
 represents the available source of help to man, ever augmenting in 
 proportion to his perspicacity, study, courage, and industry. We do 
 not confound science with nature. Nature is the storehouse of riches, 
 but when its spontaneous treasures are exhausted science enables us to 
 renew them and to augment them. It is the well-devised method of 
 using nature. It is in this sense that Science is the Providence of Man. 
 It is not pretended that Science is a perfect dependence ; on the 
 contrary, it is admitted to be narrow and but partially developed ; 
 but though it should be represented as a limited dependence, we must 
 not overlook the fact that it is the only special dependence that man 
 has ; and however infantine now, it is an ever-growing power. 
 
 The Theologian of this day will tell us that he, too, appreciates 
 science ; but between his estimate and that of the Cosmist there is a 
 very marked difference. He places more dependence and a higher 
 value upon it : the Theist regards it as inoperative without the Divine 
 blessing ; the Cosmist, on the contrary, considers its agency indepen- 
 dent of every form of theological faith. If the natural philosopher 
 judiciously compounds his chemicals he obtains a true result, whether 
 he believes that the elements he experiments upon are self-existent or 
 created. The arithmetician, whose divisor and dividend are both 
 correct, is in a fair way of obtaining an exact quotient, although the 
 calculator disbelieves all the Thirty-nine Articles. If a Mechanics' I 
 Institution is built after the working rules of Cubitt or Peto, it will I 
 stand as firmly as a church built by Pugin. The Crystal Palace, 
 erected after the manner of Fox and Henderson, will not fall, though 
 it be opened on a Sunday. The principles of science are independent 
 of every theological creed. The laws of nature are not suspended by 
 Collects or Conventicles ; the same sun shines equally on the Theist 
 and the Atheist. 
 
THE TWO PBOVIDENCES. 119 
 
 Oxford, the regicide, arrested by Providence. 
 
 The late Sidney Smith, the same who was Canon of St. Paul's, put 
 on record this remarkable passage : — ' The doctrine of the immediate 
 and perpetual interference of Divine providence is not true. If two 
 men travel the same road, the one to rob, the other to relieve a fellow- 
 creature who is starving, will any but the most fanatic contend that 
 they do not both run the same chance of falling over a stone and 
 breaking their legs ? And is it not matter of fact, that the robber 
 often returns safe, and the just man sustains the injury ? The man 
 who places religion upon a false basis is the greatest enemy to religion. 
 If victory is always to the just and good, how is the fortune of impious 
 conquerors to be accounted for ? Why do they erect dynasties and 
 found families which last for centuries ? The reflecting mind whom 
 you have instructed in this manner, and for present effect only, 
 naturally comes upon you hereafter with difiiculties of this sort, and he 
 finds that he has been deceived.' If, however, the impious tyrant 
 succeeds, and bad men prosper, as we notice to be the case every day, we 
 cannot ascribe this to Providence without discouraging all that virtue, 
 which is built upon trust in Providence. If, then, the despot and the 
 knave accomplish their end by a vigorous use of material appliances, 
 it is clear that natural resources are independent of any form of 
 religious faith, and the patriot and the honest man may hope to succeed 
 by equal or greater vigour, whatever may be his speculative opinions. 
 If it is contended that Providence does not interfere in human affairs 
 in any way superseding human exertion, but nevertheless he does 
 interfere — we ask, in what way does he interfere ? at what instigation, 
 and under what circumstances, does the operation commence ? In one 
 of those few metropolitan pulpits where sacredness of pretension does 
 not protect any statement from searching inquiry, I once heard a 
 distinguished metropolitan preacher* examine the statement made, I 
 believe, by Judge Parke, that the arm of Oxford — the man who, about 
 that time, attempted to shoot Her Majesty — had been diverted by 
 Providence. The preacher said : — ' Had the statement been made in the 
 pulpit it might have passed ; but being made in a law-court, where 
 the speaker was supposed to confine himself to facts and to evidence, 
 it was calculated to arouse curiosity ; and he (the preacher) had care- 
 fully looked into the evidence given on the trial, but had not found 
 any witness who deposed to the interference of Providence.' Did 
 Providence bend the pistol barrel ? Did Providence rust the lock, or 
 damp the powder, or play false with the percussion cap ? Did he 
 palsy the arm of the would-be regicide, or cause a tremor of body, or 
 a misgiving of mind, or a dimness of sight, that prevented the needful 
 steadiness of aim ? Did he cause the ground under the foot of the 
 criminal to give way ? Were the horses at that moment startled, and 
 the royal party jerked out of the line of danger ? Was the coach- 
 man forewarned of the approaching catastrophe ? Did a presenti- 
 ment seize the guards, so that timely precautions were adopted ? 
 What gunmaker, chemist, geologist, physician, or metaphysician, 
 
 * W. J. Fox, M.P., then of South Place Chapel, Finshnry. 
 
120 THE TRIAL OP THEISM. 
 
 The Providence of science admitted by the London Quarterly Review. 
 
 veterinary surgeon, or bystander, detected any such interposition, and 
 deposed to the fact ? If none, the judge departed from legal custom, 
 in making his declaration, and we must look to human contingencies 
 alone to account for the fortunate result. 
 
 Scientific pursuits once authorised, scientific habits come to be cul- 
 tivated; facts assume a guiding importance. The thinker acquires 
 confidence and courage in the resources of science ; he perceives the 
 predominance of reason, and he learns to trust it throughout. He 
 respects reason while it agrees with theological dogmas, and he respects 
 it equally when it does not. If reason or science come into collision 
 with Scripture, Scripture has to give way. The Theist makes the 
 Bible the judge of reason ; the Eationalist makes reason the judge of 
 the Bible, and thus gives reason the preference over faith. Of the 
 two Providences of which we hear from the pulpits — the Providence 
 of nature and the Providence of man — the Providence of nature 
 acts by general and not by special laws — he is practically the 
 God of this world, and not God in this world. The Providence man 
 needs, the Providence the old theologies gave him, was a personal 
 Providence, an available help. Such a Providence is science. Now 
 what advantage has this view ? The answer is echoed from every 
 corner of life. Who is not weary of the perpetual appeals to the God 
 of Battles in the presence of the defeat of the most righteous causes ? 
 How is it that liberty is in chains all over Europe, if God be still 
 interposing in human affairs ? If the olden doctrine were true, if our 
 brother's blood still cried to God from the ground, the patriot would 
 be released from the dungeon, and the tyrant would descend from the 
 throne he has polluted ; if it were true, Poland would be a nation 
 again, Mazzini would rule in Italy, and Napoleon III. would be again 
 in exile. 
 
 When we first used the phrase c Science is the providence of man,' it 
 was counted a daring and an impious formula, but important Christian 
 organs have since partially adopted it. The London Quarterly Revieiv 
 in its article on ' Secularism : its Logic and Appeals,' has this remark- 
 able passage : — ' Science does much for man , . . It furnishes man 
 
 directly with means for promoting his material well-being. Science, 
 rightly applied, enables us to take care of our health, to ward off" 
 danger, and, not unfrequently, is instrumental in rescuing us from 
 peril when involved in it. Every miner who carries with him a 
 Davy's safety-lamp into the atmosphere of fire-damp where he 
 labours ; every life-boat that makes its way, like an angel of mercy, 
 to the sinking ship, and rescues the crew from a watery grave ; every 
 railway passenger that carries in his pocket a life-insurance ticket ; 
 all such expedients as these are illustrations of the truth, that in 
 science there is a providence for man. It was not left to our Secu- 
 larists to discover this, nor is it a principle peculiar to their teaching. 
 Every sick person who has sent for a physician, every householder 
 who has taken the precaution to guard his dAvelling against the< 
 lightning's stroke, has, in the sense of science supplying us with) 
 
THE TWO PROVIDENCES. 121 
 
 Sidney Smith on the dangerous doctrine of a Special Providence. 
 
 means for securing material well-being, acted on the belief, that in 
 science there is a Providence.' 
 
 ' Not left for us to discover this !' Certainly the originators of the 
 doctrine Avere those always charged by the Church with standing on 
 the Freethinking side. It was left to them to discover it, and to us 
 to say it. 
 
 There is hardly any feature in theology so seductive as the doctrine 
 of a special Providence. All popular theological success depends 
 upon telling all orders of people that there is One in heaven who 
 cares for them, that every prayer will be answered, that every hair of 
 their heads is numbered, that not a sparrow falls to the ground with- 
 out their heavenly Father's knowledge, and are not they worth more 
 than many sparrows ? Have we not everywhere the amazing se- 
 duction of this doctrine, teaching in every part of the land this kind of 
 spiritual dependence ? But if this dependence be ideal, where are 
 the consolations of religion ? What help has the Theist which 
 the Atheist has not also ? In the hour of danger one has no ad- 
 vantage oyer the other. Yet theologians very generally maintain the 
 delusion in their congregations, though obliged to abandon it in 
 controversy. 
 
 By science is meant those methodised agencies which are at our 
 command — that systematised knowledge which enables us to use the 
 powers of nature for human benefit. Spiritual dependency implies 
 application to heaven by prayer, expecting that help will thus come to 
 us. The Bev. Newman Hall, at a late meeting of Congregational dis- 
 senters, declared that 'the efficacy of prayer was a fundamental 
 principle of Indepedency.' Whoever holds that Providence interferes 
 in human affairs, discourages human exertion. Hear what this doctrine 
 of the efficacy of prayer amounts to in the language of the Bev. 
 Sidney Smith : ' A belief that Providence interferes in all little 
 actions, refers all merit and de-merit to bad and good fortune, and 
 causes the successful man to be always considered as a good man, and 
 the unhappy man as an object of divine vengeance. It furnishes 
 ignorant and designing men with power which is sure to be abused. 
 The cry of " a judgment ! a judgment ! " it is always easy to make, but 
 not easy to resist. It encourages the grossest superstition; for if 
 I Deity rewards and punishes on every slight occasion, it is quite im- 
 possible but that such a helpless being as man will set himself to 
 .work and discover the intentions of heaven in the appearances of 
 outward nature, and to apply all the phenomena of thunder and 
 lightning, and wind, and every striking appearance to the regulation of 
 his own conduct; just as the poor Methodist, when he rode into 
 Piccadilly in a thunder-storm, imagined that all the uproar of the 
 elements was a hint to him not to preach hi Mr. Bomaine's chapel. 
 I This doctrine of theocracy must place an excessive power in the 
 hands of the clergy. It applies so instantly and so tremendously to 
 men's hopes and fears, that it must make the priest omnipotent over 
 the people, as it always has done where it has been established. It 
 16 
 
122 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Shakspere's remarkable denial of the doctrine of Special Providence. 
 
 has [mark these words] a great tendency to check human exertion 
 and to prevent the employment of those secondary means of effecting 
 an object which are at our disposal.' 
 
 Some of the solemnest words of the New Testament assure the 
 humble believer that our heavenly Father watches over us, his 
 creatures — an ever-present help in time of need. The deepest, the 
 most personal consolation of Christianity consists in that fact ; and 
 yet if that doctrine of divine interference be not true, those con- 
 solations are no consolations at all. It is useless to hold that Provi- 
 dence does not interpose in the little actions of life — which little 
 actions, remember, make up the sum of existence of the mass of man- 
 kind — for if Heaven do not vouchsafe special care for us in little 
 things, we cannot be wrong in telling mankind to take care of them- 
 selves. Now it is not needful to contend that prayer never had any 
 efficacy — it may have been the source of material advantage once, but 
 the question is, will it bring material aid now ? It is in vain that the 
 miner descends into the earth with a prayer on his lips unless he 
 carries a Davy lamp in his hand. A ship-load of clergymen would 
 be in danger of perishing if you sutler the Amazon once to take fire. 
 During the prevalence of a pestilence an hospital is of more value 
 than a college of theologians. When the cholera visitation is near, 
 the Physician, and not the Priest, is our best dependence ; and those 
 whom medical aid cannot save must inevitably die. Is it not, there- 
 for, merciful to say, that science is the Providence of life ? W. J. Birch, 
 in his ' Philosophy and Religion of Shakspere,' recites an impressive 
 passage between Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret. Queen 
 Elizabeth, in her maternal anxiety for the welfare of her children, 
 finds consolation in depending upon God, and exclaims : — 
 
 ' Wilt thou, God, fly from such gentle lambs, 
 And throw them in the entrails of the wolf? 
 When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?' 
 
 To this eloquent and passionate appeal, Margaret from her larger ex- 
 perience answers in words which crush all hope, and to which there 
 is no answer, 'God has done it' — 
 
 ' When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.' 
 
 This is, no doubt, at first sight a sad and desolating discovery to those 
 who have been cradled in supernatural dependency ; but how much 
 more desolating is the delusion when the discovery of it first breaks 
 upon us over the grave ! Does any one ask what benefits would flow 
 from the true doctrine ? Why the place of the Religious Tract 
 Society might be supplied by a Scientific Tract Society : it would be 
 well with us were our Churches and Chapels converted into Temples 
 of Science. One would think that he who is said to be the God of 
 Nature could not be displeased that his creatures, even on the Sab- 
 bath-day, should be made acquainted with the works of nature. 
 Prayers quite as holy might ascend from the Laboratory as ever 
 
THE TWO PROVIDENCES. 123 
 
 Homer's description of the lame-footed daughters of prayer. 
 
 ; ascended from the Vestry. To make men wise and liberal, which is the 
 ! tendency of all science, would surely be as sweet a tribute to the skies 
 as to make them — as they often now are made — sour and exclusive by 
 i clerical ministration. We learn to judge from experience, and choose 
 1 between Prayer and Science. The whole science of political economy 
 tis a scientific protest against the popular trust in Providence. The fact 
 'of a million of our Irish brethren lately perishing of famine, has ex- 
 ploded for ever the popular belief of Englishmen, that where God 
 sends mouths he also sends meat. Of old there was a sublime de- 
 pendence of the aged on Providence. How sweet was the trust of the 
 young man who remembered his Creator in the days of his youth, 
 that it might be well with him in the land ! But how have our Poor- 
 houses bitterly dissipated this delusion ! Every church is now con- 
 nected with an Assurance Office ; and the whole race of Actuaries are 
 , ictive opponents of trust in Providence. Mr Xeison does more to 
 discountenance it in a single month than Dr. Cumming will be able to 
 undo in his whole life. The estimate of Prayer among men of business 
 answers to the description of it given in Pope's Homer. Prayer, 
 which should precede us in order to save us, can only scream after the 
 mischief is over : 
 
 1 Prayers are Jove's daughters, of celestial race, 
 Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face; 
 With humble mien and with dejected eyes, 
 Constant they follow where injustice flies; 
 Injustice swift, erect, and unconfined, 
 Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind.' 
 
 The advantage of this doctrine is the advantage of being undeceived. 
 Does any man say that the doctrine of providential interference is an 
 agreeable one, and that he prefers to believe it ? To such I have no 
 message. Those who reason so are looking for comfort, and not for 
 truth. He who on stepping into a leaky vessel that could not 
 weather the storm, would rather not be told that inconvenient truth, 
 is not a person entitled to be saved. But in the great voyage of life, 
 if the theological vessel of special interposition will not keep out the 
 .water of danger, we say rather, let us know the truth, that we may 
 seek the vessel of science that may do it. To speak what we suppose 
 to be the truth in self-protection is not blasphemy — it is merely 
 (honest warning; it is not ' portentous heroism,' * but prudence. But 
 it is said we are without God in the world ; but remember if it be so, 
 '(that it is not our fault. We would rather that the old theories were 
 fftrue, and that light could be had in darkness and help in the hour of 
 • danger. It better comports with human feebleness and harsh destiny 
 ''that it should be so. But if the doctrine be not true, surely it is bet- 
 ter that we know it. Could the doctrine of divine aid be reduced to 
 intelligible conditions, religion would be reinstated in its ancien 
 influence. For a reasonable certainty and an unfailing trust, men 
 
 * A phrase of John Foster's. 
 
124 THE TRIAL, OF THEISM. 
 
 Self-trust the lesson of daily life 
 
 would fulfil any conditions possible to humanity. Faith no longer 
 supplies implicit confidence, and the practical tone of our day is im- 
 patient of that teaching which keeps the word of promise to the ear 
 and breaks it to the hope. 
 
 Could we keep before us the first sad view of life which breaks in 
 upon the working man, whether he be a white slave or a black one, 
 we should be able to see self-trust from a more advantageous 
 point. We should learn at once sternness and moderation. Do we 
 not find ourselves at once in an armed world where Might is God and 
 Poverty is fettered ? Every stick and stone, every blade of grass, 
 every bird and flower, every penniless man, woman, and child, has an 
 owner in this England of ours no less than in New Orleans. The 
 bayonet or baton bristles round every altar, at the corner of every 
 lane and every street. Effort, in its moral and energetic sense, is the 
 only study worth a moment's attention by the workman or the slave. 
 What weaknesses are mankind reduced to by the conventionalisms 
 of opinion ! Were men intellectually resolute, instead of mourning 
 when disaster comes, they would watch with relentless vigilance the 
 purport of that teaching which, however well intended, whispers in 
 the ears of childhood those fatal lessons of spiritual dependence which 
 end in all the treachery of material destruction. If Providence does 
 not interfere in human affairs, why is it not said so openly and ex- 
 plicitly ? and if once confessed, it would be a confession of the pru- 
 dence and rightfulness of a strictly secular course. It has long seemed 
 to me the most serious libel on the character of Deity to assume for 
 one moment that he interferes in human exigencies. A mountain of 
 desolating facts rises up to shame into silence the hazardous sup- 
 position. Was not the whole land convulsed with horror at the 
 fate of the Amazon, when Eliot Warburton perished ? There was 
 not a wretch in the whole country, whose slumbering humanity 
 would not have been aroused in the presence of that dismal catas- 
 trophe. Hardly a felon could have heard the story without 
 sighing for power to render aid. The noble and impatient speech of 
 Miranda to Prospero, when she saw a shipwreck of another kind, 
 leaped at once to the nation's tongue : 
 
 ' If by your art, my dearest Father, you have 
 Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them: 
 The sky it seems would pour down stinking pitch 
 But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, 
 Dashes the fire out. 0, 1 have suffer'd 
 With those that I saw suffer ! A brave vessel, 
 Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her, 
 Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock 
 Against my very heart! Poor Souls, they perished! 
 Had I been any God of power I would 
 Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er 
 It should the good ship so have swallowed, and 
 The freighting souls within her.' 
 
CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICI8M. 125 
 
 The philosopher seeks truth, the statesman utility, the Christian safety. 
 
 This is the natural thought of every onlooker under such circum- 
 stances. Nor do I see how any one, in the face of such facts, can hold 
 that there is a special providence without proclaiming it to he of 
 limited power or of limited humanity, or owning that the Divine ad- 
 ministration of this world is conducted on principles inapplicable and 
 inexplicable to humanity, and is at once beyond our criticism, and 
 therefore incapable of affording us instruction. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM. 
 
 Ancient Freethinking, busied with the necessity of self-defence — 
 combating implacable enemies, who denied it opportunity of assertion, 
 had enough to do to maintain the truth of its propositions and the 
 liberties of its defenders. In its emergency it forgot or neglected to 
 notice that the advocate has not only to assert the truth, but to 
 justify it. In the development of opinion you have three things to 
 do, according to the quality of your opponents. To the philosopher, 
 you have to prove it to he tme ; to the statesman, to be useful ; to the 
 Christian, that it is safe. This last case Freethought has somewhat 
 neglected. Satisfied of the purity of its own intentions, it has not 
 taken sufficient care to make these intentions clear to others. Man is 
 not made up of reason alone, and it does not do to trust implicitly to 
 the mere force of argument. However reasonable is the position you 
 occupy, you must take adequate care to remove that fear which will 
 prevent the force of reason from operating. It is in vain that you 
 prove a given proposition is true to a man who considers it a dan- 
 gerous thing to believe it. It will be in vain that you develop a new 
 philosophy — none will draw near to examine it who think it a crime 
 to adopt it. But once make it clear that all conscientious opinion is 
 morally innocent, and you justify inquirers on the threshold ; men 
 will begin to examine where they are persuaded that honest conviction 
 can involve no personal guilt. Logical propriety will only satisfy the 
 highest order of minds ; the ordinary believer asks, ' Will logic justify 
 me in the sight of God ?' The common orthodox conscience of the 
 country seldom judges opinion upon its intrinsic ground. Before 
 God every man is justified by sincerity alone. It is not faith but 
 sincerity which really lies at the foundation of the Christian's satis- 
 faction. The Mahomedan is quite as satisfied of his acceptance be- 
 fore God as any Evangelical Dissenter in England, or Presbyterian in 
 Scotland. The Roman Catholic has as deep and as abiding an 
 assurance of God's approbation as any Protestant, and probably the 
 Jew has fewer misgivings than any one else. It is plainly not agree- 
 ment in belief, but commonness of right intention ; which gives that 
 incommunicable peace to the conscientious, ' which passes all under- 
 standing.' 
 
 By sincerity we do not mean indifference, vagueness, or routine, or 
 
126 TITB TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Sincerity defined— not to be confounded with infallibility. 
 
 common-place feeling, or conventional assent. Sincerity implies 
 active consciousness — it implies intelligence, examination, seriousness, 
 conscientiousness, and determined conviction. A sincere man is one who 
 has looked at both sides of a question — who has given his best powers 
 to discover the truth, and who consciously adopts the conclusion to 
 which he has come, and seriously avows it for the possible good of 
 others. If any man really thought there was a better way than the 
 one he takes, he is not a sincere man in taking the one he does. For 
 sincerity means the best, and does the best it can. A sincere man 
 believes that the opinion he holds is the true one ; for if any other 
 opinion seems true to him, he is not sincere in holding the one he 
 professes. The essence of sincerity is a certain sense of duty in the 
 opinion held, the thought declared, or the course pursued. Sincerity 
 is absolute, single-minded, and necessitated. It sees but one thing, 
 and it adopts it. It sees but one course open, and it takes it. A sin- 
 cere man is one who cannot but be what he is. He is one w r ho means 
 the truth, and is faithful to what he believes to be the truth. We say 
 that God, if he exists, will accept the man who is sincere, let his falli- 
 bility be great as it may. Sincerity is the truest justification. Sincerity 
 is not infallibility. A sincere opinion is not always a right opinion. But 
 he who is sincerely in the wrong is an object, more of pity than scorn.* 
 Sincerity, whether produced by organisation, by circumstance, or con- 
 viction, is the true principle of justification — is that sentiment which 
 exonerates from moral guilt, and awakens esteem and respect in 
 others. 
 
 Weigh well this question of sincerity, because there can be no foun- 
 dation for good- will till that is settled. So long as the Theist labours 
 under the impression that all who dissent from him have corrupt 
 hearts and perverse intellects, he will distrust them or despise them. 
 So long as he believes that Atheistical errors cannot be honest, or that 
 they involve eternal punishment, he must regard such views with 
 terror. All communion with Atheists will be hypocritical, suspicious, 
 or impossible. For myself, I will not willingly listen to any man, be 
 he Apostle or be he Minister, that regards me so ; and, above all 
 things, I would desire never to embrace that religion which would 
 endow me with these terrible and hateful feelings towards my fellow- 
 men. We want to found good feelings on higher grounds than that 
 of charity. We decline to be accepted as co-workers on sufferance. 
 We want to take a recognised and free place in the work of society. 
 To this end, it is right we should show our fitness. As there must be 
 a recognition of nationalities before a common federation of nations is 
 possible, so there must be the recognition of the presumptive integrity 
 of individuals, before public intercourse with them is possible. While 
 our views are believed to be conceived in guilt, held in hypocrisy, and 
 fraught with eternal danger, we shall be regarded with suspicion, 
 
 * Lord Raglan, by not pushing on to Sebastopol after the battle of the Alma, sacrificed 
 10,000 lives. The nation pardoned his honest error. His sincere feebleness saved him 
 from being regarded as a monster. 
 
CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM. 127 
 
 Persecution inevitable among all who do not recognise the sincerity of dissent. 
 
 treated with contempt, and shunned in private and in public. The 
 doctrine which assumes moral guiltiness in difference of opinion, is 
 the soul of persecution, and wherever this doctrine is held there will 
 be persecution, whatever may be intended or said to the contrary. We 
 know, therefore, that the recognition of the possible integrity of intel- 
 ligent sceptics, is the first condition of federation, even on political 
 and neutral questions. 
 
 Some Theists will admit — as the Rev. Dr. Ackworth, President of 
 Horton College, once admitted to me in discussion in Bradford — that 
 God will not hold a man guilty, provided his rejection of Theism be 
 sincere ; but they neutralise the -value of this admission by holding, 
 as Dr. Ackworth held, that no intelligent unbeliever can be sincere. 
 Or if they allow, as the Eev. Mr. Pearson does in his Prize Essay on 
 Infidelity, that Atheism possibly may be sincere, they ascribe it to 
 some disease of the heart — to some wilful ' repression of the moral in- 
 stincts.' The point, therefore, is — Is conscientious disbelief possible ? 
 and if possible, is it healthy and justifiable ? 
 
 A man who has never been informed of any given opinions, of 
 course, would stand excused before God for not believing in them. A 
 man who is without capacity to understand any given opinion, can 
 hardly be held responsible because he has not adopted it. Absolute 
 ignorance, or hopeless dulness, absolves a man from guilt. If such do 
 not believe, it is more their misfortune than their fault. But we may 
 be told that ignoranee may be wilful, and incapacity may be the re- 
 sult of want of application. We are aware of it. Some do not care 
 I to know, and some do not care to exert themselves to understand. 
 Such we do not defend. Let us not embarrass our argument by the 
 cases of the wilful or the perverse. These we abandon. Scold them 
 as you please, and scold them if you can into action and good sense, 
 and we will rejoice in your success. Our concern is with the sincere 
 — with those who have earnestness and intelligence, but who dis- 
 I believe because they are not satisfied with the weight of evidence on 
 I the side of Theism. 
 
 That such sincere disbelief is possible, we prove in three ways : — 
 
 By the evidence of martyrdom, by the evidence of philosophy, and by 
 
 l the assumption of preachers. We owe to the courage and contumacy 
 
 i of Luther the establishment of the suspicion that difference of reli- 
 
 I gious opinion might be a matter of conviction. The noble army of 
 
 . Protestants who died on his side, wrote in their blood, on the walls of 
 
 '. Europe, the declaration that individual judgment is the attribute of 
 
 I freemen. After him the unyielding martyrs of Dissent taught the 
 
 I public, some by the purity of their lives, others by their manfulness 
 
 i in suffering, that divers forms of disagreement on religious points 
 
 : might be held with integrity, and maintained with honour. The 
 
 • sectarian prejudices and religious eccentricities of John Bunyan were 
 
 indeed calculated to bring the right of private judgment itself into 
 
 contempt, but few could doubt the sincerity of the man who never 
 
 gave way during twelve years' imprisonment. It is easy to see with 
 
128 THE TRIAL OP THEISM. 
 
 The Church confuted hy the stake and the stocks. 
 
 what dismay the friends of rational religion, who had just conquered 
 the Roman Catholic despotism of ten centuries' growth, viewed the 
 amazing vagaries of George Fox, and his utterly intractable followers. 
 The Quakers must have done more to damage Protestantism, and 
 create a reaction in favour of Catholicism, than all the followers of 
 Loyola could accomplish. Yet, when men looked on their iron reso- 
 lution and unswerving endurance, it was confessed that, if they were 
 frantically wrong, they were manfully honest. 
 
 The early churches, conceiving themselves composed of the only 
 spiritually-minded persons, naturally held that the rejection of 
 Christian doctrine arose from 'a carnal mind, which is at enmity 
 against God, (Rom. viii. 7), and, accustomed to trace all differences of 
 opinion as to the soundness of their creeds to the suggestion of the 
 devil, the early churches necessarily supposed that none but bad men 
 could question, doubt, or reject established articles of faith. A theo- 
 logical disbeliever has in no age been respected as sincere. The 
 saints have regarded honest scepticism as impossible. Even Unitarians 
 have been condemned. Sincerity, pure, brave, and faithful unto 
 death, has been counted as criminal obstinacy, or only as a worse form 
 of the disease of doubt. Hence, the Roman Catholic Church has 
 doomed the Protestant to eternal perdition, and the Protestant Church 
 has pronounced the Dissenter ' damnable.' It has cost ages of suffer- 
 ing and rivers of blood to teach 'Europe the dim possibility of the 
 religious reformer being honest. If the general truth is now admitted, 
 the facts of the- induction have been gathered at the stocks, the pillory, 
 and the stake. 
 
 When conscience, blind but brave, had done its work, there was 
 room for philosophy to demonstrate what was wanted to perfect the 
 victory over the Church — viz., to demonstrate that conviction is 
 governed by evidence, and that, since men differ naturally in capacity 
 and knowledge, belief and disbelief must vary according to a man's 
 power of conceiving the dogmas of the churches, or his opportunities 
 of investigating the grounds on which they rest. When at length this 
 was shown, it began to be perceived that belief, doubt, or disbelief, 
 might be equally honourable, where they were equally conscientious. 
 Difference of opinion being once recognised as a possible and innocent 
 phenomenon, it became the subject of classification. The rule has 
 been extended to Freethinkers, and few well-informed Theists are 
 now guilty of the rudeness of designating men by the first negligent 
 epithet which bigotry remembers, or antagonism invents. 
 
 When the proposition of belief in Theism is presented to a man, 
 his rejection of it is found to depend upon the state of his feelings, 
 knowledge, or capacity — upon the attractiveness of the subject, and 
 the weight of evidence in its favour presented to him. The clergy do 
 not admit this in words, but they do in practice, as may be seen in the 
 careful selection of their arguments, and garniture of their themes 
 when addressing different classes of people, which is a tacit admission 
 that scepticism is not altogether a matter of wickedness or wilfulness, 
 
CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM. 129 
 
 Every preacher assumes that conviction is not wilfulness. 
 
 but has somewhat of an intellectual origin. No intelligent preacher, 
 engaged in the work of conversion, would address the same sermon to 
 the Roman Catholic and the Unitarian, to the Swedenborgian and 
 the Mormonite. But if all unbelief is mere matter of personal wil- 
 fulness and deliberate caprice, this consideration is utterly superfluous. 
 If no honest and sincere intellectual differences are perceived, all 
 intellectual adaptations are mere mistakes or hypocrisies. Every wise 
 and earnest preacher assumes two things — that sectarianism is real, 
 and that the will is amenable to the law of evidence ; for if the people 
 can disbelieve, of their free-will, whatever the preacher may say, it does 
 not matter what he says. He may as well say one thing as another. 
 Without descending into metaphysical mazes, it may be shown that 
 there are clear laws of thought — plain and imperious. The healthy 
 and open eye must see all objects plainly within the sphere of its 
 vision. The perfect and listening ear cannot help but hear whatever 
 audible utterances are made near it ; and, in the same manner, the 
 sound and attentive understanding cannot help but discern the rela- 
 tionship of evidence in a proposition which is clearly stated, clearly 
 understood, and fairly proved ; and if one side of the scale of proof 
 is weighed down by facts, the judgment necessarily concludes that the 
 greater weight of truth lies there also. To use the words of Emerson 
 — if we hold up the facts of Nature in the order of nature, the mind 
 which perceives them can never go back. With the open eye we can- 
 not see what we will — we must see what is present ; with the open ear 
 we cannot, at caprice, change the sounds which are made ; nor with the 
 open understanding can we resist the evidence which is palpable. 
 Evidence is a despot, which takes captive all judgments by its own 
 force. All intellectual convictions are absolute — and what is absolute 
 is sincere, and what is absolute is inevitable, and what is inevitable is 
 not punishable. It may be erroneous, but it is not criminal ; it may 
 be a misfortune, but it is not a fault. 
 
 The next consideration is — Can theological truth vary in its im- 
 pressibility on honest and intelligent inquirers ? Can religious pro- 
 positions present different degrees of evidence to different minds ? 
 May different convictions exist among sincere persons ? We say, Yes. 
 If not, how are we to account for the different religious sects which 
 exist around us ? Are they all hypocrites ? If all are not hypo- 
 crites, which has the right to call itself sincere and others false ? If 
 sects can believe as they like, why do they not all agree together, and 
 present us with what the world would be edified to see — the spectacle 
 of a united Church subscribing to one creed, obeying one discipline, 
 and worshipping in one manner? Is not the Roman Catholic as sin- 
 cere as the Protestant, and the Unitarian as sincere as the Dissenter ? 
 If each sect declares the other to be insincere, why should the public 
 believe the word of any of them ? But if each asserts its convictions 
 to be honest, why should the same claim be disallowed the Atheist ? 
 If one sect may sincerely differ from all other sects, why may not the 
 Atheist differ from them all ? And if God only respects uniformity 
 17 
 
130 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Logical assassination one of the crimes of advocates. 
 
 of faith, only one sect can be saved. But if each sect expects to be 
 saved, it is because each sect secretly believes that God will prefer 
 earnestness to sameness, and count sincerity as the true justification — 
 which will include the Athiest as well as the Theist. 
 
 In stating the argument of the present chapter, it is of importance to 
 keep it as narrow as possible. Where the admission sought is a very 
 important one, the grounds for it ought to be wholly and entirely 
 before the judgment of the reader, that he may be able to see all and 
 test every thing, and be fully conscious of what he admits. To assault 
 an inquirer in the darkest part of his mind, where he can ill discern 
 the form or quality of the proposition which attacks him, is a species of 
 logical assassination. To take a man's judgment unawares, or to 
 silence him by confusing him, is fencing, not teaching. You may 
 win a man by a trick, but you can only hold him by the truth — 
 openly and frankly explained. 
 
 At the point at which we have arrived, many would admit that 
 sceptical sincerity is posssible, and that sincerity is not punishable 
 as such ; but they are startled by being told that if no man 
 ought to be punished on account of sincere disbelief, that the 
 sincere thief and the sincere murderer ought to go free. We 
 answer first, that they do go comparatively free ; wherever it is 
 shown that thieving and murder occur under hallucinations of there 
 being some rightfulness or necessity in it, judges mitigate the 
 punishment to mere detention. But there is another answer : thieves 
 and murderers are not sincere, and therefore we need not trouble 
 about them. 
 
 ' How do we prove murderers and thieves not to be sincere ?' 
 When we find a thief who is willing to be robbed, and a murderer 
 willing to be killed, we may conclude these gentlemen to be 
 sincere. When any man directly injures another, you can soon tell 
 whether it is sentiment run mad, or only villany exercising itself. 
 In either case, if the act is opposed to the law, the law puts it down, 
 and ought to put it down. The case here stated is that of opinion, 
 not of conduct. Opinion is to be corrected by reason, conduct by the 
 civil magistrate. If an action is wrong, let it be tried by the judge — 
 if an opinion is wrong, let it be tried by facts. Those who have 
 never thought, those who are not in earnest as to their unbelief, we 
 have not considered, and do not defend. The men of no conscience, 
 and of no serious opinions, are not included in this argument. The 
 clergy may estimate them as they please, and censure them as they 
 like. If the indifferent need defence, let them defend themselves — 
 the necessity may lead them to adopt some fixed opinions. In this 
 argument, we neither justify villains nor idlers, but the honest and 
 the earnest. If you show that opinions are inevitable in cer- 
 tain states of knowledge and understanding, you show that they 
 are innocently held. But however innocently acquired, they may 
 be erroneous in their nature, and pernicious in their influence. 
 This we admit. Our argument is not, that because a man is 
 
CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM. 131 
 
 Sincerity the pass-word at the gate of the future. 
 
 sincere, therefore lie is infallible. Very many Christians have 
 been sincere, but very few Christians have been altogether in the 
 right. We do not argue that conscience is infallible — only that it is 
 innocent. Our argument is not that Atheistical principles must be 
 right — only that they may be sincere. It is nowhere here assumed 
 that Atheistic sentiments are true — only that there is some reason 
 for them. The reason for them may not establish them, but it may 
 account for them, so far as to show that men do not necessarily come 
 by them wickedly, nor hold them from criminal intentions. 
 
 Sureness of principles depends on the balance of proof— the mind 
 is swayed by it. It is not wilfulness, nor obstinacy, nor stiff- neckedness, 
 which has been the author of these different opinions ; they have origi- 
 nated in different powers of understanding. One eminently competent to 
 state the case, says — ' When we talk of the submission of our belief, 
 we employ a metaphor which is deceptive and mischievous. Belief 
 
 cannot submit ; belief is an act of the understanding belief is 
 
 perfectly involuntary, and is determined by evidence There 
 
 is but one way in which a renunciation of belief can take place — viz., 
 by presenting a balance of proof against it : the impression of one set 
 of evidence cannot be overpowered but by the stronger impression of 
 opposite evidence, and this is all that can be meant by the submission 
 of reason : it is the exchange of one judgment of the mind for another 
 which seems better supported.'* 
 
 The Roman Catholic and the Protestant, the Baptist and the 
 Swedenborgian, the Theist and the Panthiest, has each his reasons 
 for his faith. Peculiar training, peculiar reading, special capacity, 
 and special opportunities, have determined the opinions of each. The 
 Eternal City, towards which men walk, has its gates open to all who are 
 earnest. It matters not by what road you come, nor in what dress 
 you appear — the pass-word at the gate of Truth is Sincerity. Pro- 
 vided men walk in the spirit of virtue, it matters not whether they 
 derive their inspiration from Nature, or Reason, or the Bible. It is 
 not uniformity of faith that the God of Individuality and Progress 
 would require of men, but the love of truth and well-intended con- 
 duct. If uniformity of faith is required of men, nobody will be saved ; 
 for there is not, and never was, uniformity of faith. If the true faith 
 alone can save us, we are committed to distraction, for no man 
 knoweth which the true faith is. But if we have the courage to see 
 that salvation can only come by sincerity, the universal Church of 
 Truth already exists, and the Earnest of all Creeds, in all climes, are 
 Worshippers ; and religious bigotry, and exclusiveness, and anger, 
 and terror, and strife, cease for ever among sects. 
 
 The argument of these pages, we repeat, is neutral. It does not 
 contend for the truth of Atheistical views. It merely maintains that 
 such may be held sincerely. If we ask exoneration, ourselves, from 
 blame, we at the same time exonerate the clergy from accusation. The 
 
 * James Martineau. 
 
132 THE TRIAIi OF THEISM. 
 
 Why the Christian Theist excels in imputation. 
 
 same line of argument which establishes our innocence, establishes their 
 integrity. It was these considerations which suggested to us that policy 
 which pledges us, as far as possible, to avoid the imputative word, and to 
 respect, as a matter of intellectual honesty, the good intentions of 
 others. Theists have insisted that this policy proceeds from a 
 hypocrisy which would pretend to a fairness we do not study, or from 
 a weakness which would conciliate their anger. I trust we shall ever 
 be too independent to descend to hypocrisy, and too observant of 
 justice to need to conciliate anybody's rage. 
 
 The exact communication of thought is the real difficulty of all 
 rhetoric. It is the highest effort of art to enable another to see a 
 truth as we see it, to conceive a principle as we conceive it. The 
 plainest facts are constantly misapprehended, and where the senses 
 may deceive us, language is much more likely to mislead. It requires 
 not only honesty, but capacity to be exact. The wonder is, not that 
 men misunderstand each other ; it is rather marvellous that there are 
 not more mistakes. But to put these differences of opinion down to 
 intention, upon mere conjecture, is a mark of vulgarity and blindness 
 which only infest the lowest order of life. Man, in his dishonourable 
 impatience to accuse, may refuse or neglect to discriminate ; but God, 
 we dare not doubt, will be more just. Nothing is gained by making 
 out a harsher case against any body of men than moderate truth will 
 justify. It is the custom of all, where the feelings are not chastened 
 by strong and active reason, to accuse opponents of bad designs. 
 Most partisans do this. Scientific men accuse each other. Medical 
 practitioners deny the good intentions of the innovator in the art of 
 restoring health. One discoverer calumniates another. No wonder, 
 then, that the Theist, especially in the early ages, should do what 
 so many less zealous persons do to this day. It is very difficult for 
 any man to understand that his most earnest opinions may be ill- 
 founded. He has considerably advanced in personal and intellectual 
 cultivation, who has learned that there are two sides to every question. 
 A Christian Theist is less likely than other men to see this truth, as he 
 is expressly taught that there is but one side, and that that is the side 
 on which he stands — that there is but one way to heaven, and that is 
 the way in which he walks. A scientific expounder, although he 
 will consider that his opponent is very absurd, will yet admit that 
 he may have some evidence on his side, although insufficient to justify 
 his conclusions. But a Christian will not allow that his opponent 
 has any evidence whatever on his side. The dogmatism of the 
 Christian is more dangerous and more violent than that of any philo- 
 sopher, because the Christian is taught that fearful and eternal con- 
 sequences attach to his being in the wrong. With the philosopher, 
 a disputed point is a question of truth or error ; with the Christian, a 
 question of life or death. The philosopher calculates his consequences 
 lor time ; the Christian is alarmed for eternity. No wonder, then, 
 that the Christian maintains his opinions in proportion to his terror, 
 rather than in proportion to his reason. Afraid to think, where doubt 
 
CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM. 133 
 
 Summary of the propositions here maintained. 
 
 may be death, he rarely knows, nor wants to know, what can be 
 opposed to his conclusions. Thinking, therefore, lightly of that evi- 
 dence which he has never earnestly investigated, he takes it for 
 granted that the non-believer wilfully rejects 'the truth as it is in 
 Jesus,' and boldly expresses his conviction that his opponent not only 
 errs, but errs designedly — that he is not only bad, but dangerous. 
 
 Into such frightful uncharitableness are good men betrayed, who 
 do not comprehend that conscience is not always infallible — that con- 
 viction is not always the truth — that error is not always wilful — and 
 that the most honourable zeal may become injustice unless reason 
 takes care of it. It is said of Murat, that a battle-field was his pas- 
 sion, that a charge of cavalry was his intensest form of life, that his 
 consolation was, that he never had seen a human being fall before 
 him by a blow from his hand. It was probable that, in the charges 
 he made, men may have fallen beneath his horse ; ' but,' said he ' if 
 I had slain a man with my hand, his image would have been ever pre- 
 sent to my mind, and would have pursued me to the grave.' So it is 
 with many sincere Christians. They would shrink from an act of 
 cruelty. An unjust word consciously uttered by them would be 
 a reproach to them on their dying bed. Yet they will hurl epithets 
 at whole bodies of men, which shall deprive their fellow-creatures — as 
 conscientious as themselves — of social reputation, personal esteem, 
 and civil rights. And because they have neither seen the consequences 
 with their own eyes, nor traced the wrong to their own hands, like 
 Murat, they take 'consolation.' 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing that we maintain the truth of 
 several propositions. 
 
 That conscience is an educated and active sense of right and wrong. 
 
 That a conscientious belief is a real belief, entertained because it is felt 
 to be true, and arrived at because it is seen to be useful. By conscience, 
 a Christian Theist understands a sense of right or wrong, founded 
 upon the will of God. But, as conscience existed before Christianity, 
 we take conscience to mean a man's deepest sense of right and wrong, 
 founded upon truth and nature. 
 
 That God will not punish sincerity. There is no argument needed to 
 prove this. The Churches in this day dare not assert that He will 
 condemn the truthful. Between the judgments of men and those of 
 Deity there is, therefore, harmony so far. 
 
 The argument of this chapter neither asserts nor denies the ex- 
 istence of God — it merely assumes that if God exists he is a just God, 
 in the highest human sense of justice and humanity, and will not act 
 in a manner that would outrage the purest moral sense of his creatures. 
 
 This argument takes the orthodox Theist on his own ground. 
 Supposing Deity to exist, and to finally judge the world — the ques- 
 tion is, on what principle will a man be justified who may be called 
 upon to render an account of his conduct. We answer, the true plea 
 that he has been sincere, and acted according to his convictions 
 of truth. 
 
134 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The educational influence of liberalism. 
 
 The point proved, or sought to be proved, is that no sincere 
 opinion, orthodox, sectarian, dissenting, sceptical, or atheistic, can lead 
 to eternal perdition. It may lead to injury and misery here, it may 
 be erroneous and pernicious — but if sincerely held, God will not visit 
 upon the holder any special, additional, or superadded punishment for 
 holding it. All Nature's punishments are inherent. 
 
 If a man, by following out a sincere opinion, commits an injurious 
 or illegal act, that is an affair of the magistrate. The law takes care 
 of conduct — God judges motives. God does not need to punish con- 
 duct at a tribunal like a frail and weak magistrate. Man cannot 
 make laws which will be their own punishment whenever they are 
 broken. The God of Theology can. Whoever breaks the law of God 
 or Nature, suffers for it from that moment. Nature wants no magis- 
 trate — it employs no policeman. It executes instantly, universally, and 
 eternally its own penalties on all who disregard its laws. It vindicates 
 itself against both the ignorant and the wilful. 
 
 The educational rule educed from the argument is impartial. It 
 says to each party, If you wish to convert, educate, not denounce. 
 Sincerity is intellectual, and is to be changed by reason, not by scold- 
 ing. So long ago as 1825, Lord Brougham, in his inaugural address, 
 on being installed Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow — a time 
 and a place where one would least expect such sentiments — said : — 
 
 ' The day of liberality and enlightenment is at length come, and 
 must put to sudden flight the evil spirits of tyranny and persecution 
 which haunted the long night now gone down the sky. As men will 
 no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfolded in ignorance, so will 
 they no more yield to the vile principle [still the clerical principle] of 
 judging and treating their fellow- creatures, not according to the 
 intrinsic merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and 
 involuntary coincidence of then- opinions. The Great Truth has 
 finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth, That man shall no 
 
 MORE RENDER ACCOUNT TO MAN FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER WHICH HE 
 
 has himself no control. Henceforth, nothing shall prevail upon 
 us to praise or to blame any one for that which he can no more change 
 than he can the hue of his skin, or the height of his stature. Hence- 
 forth, treating with entire respect those who conscientiously differ from 
 ourselves, the only practical effect of the difference will be, to make us 
 enlighten the ignorance on one side or the other from which it springs, 
 by instructing them, if it be theirs ; ourselves, if it be our own, to 
 the end that the only kind of unanimity may be produced which 
 is desirable among rational beings — the agreement proceeding from 
 full conviction after the freest discussion.'* 
 
 Heresy is no sin,f and the profession of disbelief is a duty on the 
 part of all who entertain it. Fetishism, Polytheism, Superstition, are 
 
 * April 6th, 1825. 
 
 t Truth can have no confirmations, except as we attain some power of detecting error. 
 Therefore, without a development of incredulity, there can be no single step towards 
 wisdom and permanent knowledge.— Professor Newman. ' The Soul'— p. 2. 4th Ed. 
 
THEISTICAE MISCONCEPTIONS. 135 
 
 Quinet's view of the self-sufficiency of humanity. 
 
 little troubled with sceptics. It is only in the lowest state of society 
 that men believe alike. Grossness is essential to credulity. As soon 
 as men begin to think, they begin to differ. Truth is a distant goal 
 with hidden paths to it, and as soon as men become intelligent enough 
 to seek the truth, they set out on different paths to find it. Their 
 difference of opinion is the only chance of making the true discovery. 
 Were they all to form one opinion, they would all go one road ; and 
 unless they were all infallible at first, and took the right road at once, 
 it is plain they might all go to destruction. Hence a relative scepti- 
 cism is the source of national safety. All progress is effected by 
 scepticism. The men who are leading us on to a better future, to 
 scientific discoveries, and to higher civilisation, are men who are 
 sceptical as to the principles now accepted as final by the uninquiring. 
 Hence judicious Doubt is the parent of Progress. As Quinet remarks : 
 ' People must awake from this dream of a thousand years, and if there 
 be salvation, seek it in themselves, in what is, and not in what was, in 
 the smallest heart that beats, rather than in the urn of Caesar, Pompey, 
 or Hildebrand.' 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THEISTICAL MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Let any one look below the mere surface of pulpit declamation, and 
 ask himself two questions : What has even Atheism, on the whole, 
 meant? What has it, on the whole, sought, even in its negative 
 and least favourable aspect ? It has, in modern times, disbelieved 
 all accounts of the origin of nature by an act of creation, and 
 of the government of nature by a Supreme Being distinct from 
 nature. It has felt these accounts to be unintelligible and misleading, 
 and has suggested that human dependence and morals, in their widest 
 sense, should be founded on a basis independent of scriptural authority; 
 and it has done this under the conviction, expressed or unexpressed, 
 that greater simplicity, unanimity, and earnestness of moral effort 
 would be the result. This is what it has meant, and this is what it 
 has sought. The main popular force of speculative argument has 
 been to show that morals ought to stand on ground independent of 
 the uncertain and ever- contested dogmas of the churches. 
 
 If we do not express a difficult topic in unexceptional terms, 
 an adversary believes it to proceed from want of will, or from want of 
 honesty. He does not know how difficult an art is that art of expres- 
 sion, which shall never be misunderstood by the ignorant, the pre- 
 judiced, or the wilful. It is the business of a sculptor to produce the 
 truth of nature in marble, and of the painter to reproduce it on can- 
 vass ; sometimes, however, both fail — and our abortions of statues in 
 our public squares, and pictures in our royal academies, are proofs of 
 
136 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Differences of opinion are seldom verbal. 
 
 this. Would you call the unskilful sculptor a hypocrite of the chisel, 
 and the disappointed painter a liar of the brush ? It is the highest etfort 
 of genius to attain to commanding truth ; and he who has the greatest 
 knowledge has the least disposition to find a criminal motive for non- 
 success. 
 
 Those who complain most of the want of clearness are often them- 
 selves most obscure, and run after their own letters to protest that 
 they have been misunderstood. It is quite forgotten by those persons 
 that language is comparatively limited — that we have almost a fixed 
 set of words, and everybody has to use them. No wonder, then, that 
 in passing through so many hands, and expressing everybody's mean- 
 ing, they come to acquire loose significations. If everybody dressed 
 in the same coat, wore the same boots and hat, the public garments 
 would be strangely stretched. So it is with terms. When fat 
 thinkers have worn certain words, the thin thinkers are lost in them 
 ever afterwards. 
 
 Those who stand on the side of Freethought have a duty to per- 
 form, as well as those who are opposed to it — and that is, to study the 
 sense in which terms are used by a special school. The Catholic and 
 Protestant jar and fight, and accuse each other because they do not 
 do this. 
 
 Many persons exclaim, Differences are merely verbal — that we 
 idly dispute about terms when intentions are the same. But if the 
 intention is the same, why should not the same terms express it ? Ask 
 the Utilitarian, the philosophical Deist, or Pantheist, to employ the 
 phrases which the Cosmist would choose. If the difference is merely 
 verbal, why should he stand upon it? — if seeming, not real, why 
 should he hesitate ? ■ Yet he will hesitate, and more — decidedly object 
 to take another's phrases for expressing his thoughts. Thus when 
 the case is put, it is discovered that no man believes what every 
 man affirms.* Then it is felt, that there is implied in these differing 
 expressions a difference of intention, as has been explained by J. S. 
 Mill. 
 
 The establishment of opinion, every thoughtful man is aware, needs 
 truth and repetition, amplification, and diversity of statement. This 
 fact was forcibly illustrated in the London discussion with the Rev. 
 Mr. Grant. On that occasion the Rev. Dr. Campbell was present : 
 he heard, he read, he commented upon, and appeared to discern the 
 qualified statements made. Yet afterwards, when writing in the 
 British Banner, upon the honourable and benevolent efforts made by 
 the congregation of Carr's Lane, Birmingham — and on the Sabbath- 
 school to which I belonged in my youth, under the pastorship of the 
 Rev. John Angell James — Dr. Campbell observed : — ' It will cer- 
 tainly occur to reflecting men, as not a little remarkable, that one of 
 the chief of living atheists should actually have issued from this 
 vast fountain of spiritual life, love, zeal, and effort for the good of 
 mankind. The case stands alone. It is certainly difficult, upon 
 
 Vide Eeasoner, No. 1, 1846. 
 

 V 1--V. V 1 1- ^ C<- T~<J—J 
 
 THEISTICAL MISCONCEPTIONS. 137 
 
 Skill of clerical chemists. 
 
 ordinary principles, to reconcile with right reason the conduct of such 
 a man, in going throughout the land, telling all with whom he meets that 
 Christianity is the master-evil of society, "the source of all the miseries 
 under which mankind are groaning ; that it is cruel, selfish, debasing ; 
 that it treads morality in the dust, and ignores the whole of the 
 social virtues — in one word, that, to drive it from the face of the 
 earth, would be to confer on mankind a boon of which it is im- 
 possible to estimate the value ; that it would go far to cure all the 
 sorrows of the community, and assimilate earth and heaven.' 
 
 Against what density of misapprehension have we to contend, when 
 this incredible rant can be put into my mouth, by one so astute as 
 the editor of the British Banner ! Christianity, I think, might be 
 usefully superseded by a more coherent and definite morality. But 
 certainly I am not guilty of the flippant infallibility which pretends 
 to distinguish Christianity as the master- evil, where so many other 
 imposing evils challenge our scrutiny. Nor do I indulge in the 
 blatant verbiage, about Christianity ' treading morality in the dust,' 
 ' mankind groaning,' ' the whole of the social virtues,' ' the boon im- 
 possible to estimate,' ' the cure of all sorrows,' and ' earth assimilated.' 
 All this dropsical oratory is the resort of the tumid declaimers, whose 
 extravagance of thought and speech is as tiresome as discreditable. 
 Exaggeration may serve to stimulate parties into rabid conflict, but 
 measured and qualified thought can alone create institutions. But if 
 Dr. Campbell can represent us so circumstantially as the opposite of 
 all we aim to be, what may we not expect from the Theistical multi- 
 tude, who have neither Dr. Campbell's opportunity of knowing the 
 truth, nor his penetration in discerning it, nor his power of relating 
 it ? Mr. Grant's fluent misconceptions may divert us ; but the official 
 errors of Mr. Horace Mann, who in his Census Keport confounds 
 1 Secularism ' with k Sensualism,' and the ponderous imputations of 
 Dr. Campbell, warn us to activity in restatements, or in reiteration of 
 principles, till misapprehension is impossible. 
 
 The police functions of piety are not now what they used to be. Bush 
 (and Manning, Palmer and Paul, Bobson and Bedpath, were all 
 ' sound in the faith.' Had Palmer been a sceptic, Exeter Hall would 
 have been employed in proving the connection between Paine and 
 Palmer, and the Young Men's Christian Association would have had 
 lectures upon the tendency of Atheism towards strychnine, and 
 upon the sympathy existing between Freethought and antimony. 
 It might puzzle Professor Farady to prove any chemical affinity 
 between these substances — but Dr. Cumming or Canon Stowell would 
 soon have established a clerical affinity between them. 
 
 Progress, political and mental, is an accretion, and has to be won in 
 detail. Theories of rights are commonly obstructions in advocacy 
 and tyrannies in practice. If we are acknowledged at all, it will be 
 as a necessity — as a necessity of argument, of consistency or safety. 
 We seek for Atheists moral recognition — and this will come in due 
 course. Society is in transition towards the right, and no reactionary 
 18 
 
138 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Truth the revolutionary element. 
 
 r 
 
 power can effectually arrest it. Those who are tyrants to-day may 
 be down to-morrow, and in need of the toleration for themselves 
 then, which they refuse to others now. The great consistencies which 
 intellect slowly but invariably establishes among all parties, tend to 
 include all the well-meaning classes in the bonds of public respect. 
 £"f # Undiscerning priests may lament, and politicians may plot as they 
 
 will, but the revolutionary element is in the heart of civilisation — 
 not the element of brute violence or purposeless change, but the 
 element of necessary transition and ceaseless progress. What is the 
 admonition of philosophy ? — ' Study realities, pursue the truth.' ' The 
 truth must be loved for its own sake ;' such is the language of the 
 teacher and the press. Truth must be received without hesitation, 
 and followed independently. All the wise of the earth agree to this. 
 Behold, then, the revolutionary germ. Truth is of no party, of no 
 class, it studies no vested interests, it is reckless of dynasties, creeds, 
 hierarchies, and customs. It is the universal conqueror — it sets up 
 new kingdoms — all intelligences wait upon it — all convictions swear 
 allegiance to it. Let crowns and mitres look to it. Truth is the 
 innovatory element — it defies despotism, armies, and diplomacy — it is 
 p^ the omnipotent friend of the people. 
 
 Let all who regard the cause of utilitarian truth note upon what 
 contingencies success depends. It is the worst feature of injustice 
 that it inspires those against whom it is directed with the same spirit. 
 Beware of this. T^We can never be stronger than the Theist unless we 
 are better than he. Though an opponent says that of you which is 
 unjust and untrue, bear it. Though there be a falsehood in every 
 * sentence, and a libel on every page, bear it. Though his followers 
 £ t ' and friends applaud, bear it. Though the newspapers re-echo the 
 calumny, bear it. Return not railing for railing, lest you descend to 
 / the level of your enemy. Answer unfriendliness by serviceable offices, 
 for they made not themselves what they are. It is already their mis- 
 fortune that they have a faith which makes them the foes of good 
 feeling. We will pursue our own course in earnestness and kindness. 
 The Minister has mistaken us, but we owe him no ill-will. We will 
 sit in his chapel when he purposes to instruct us, and we will endeavour 
 to forget that he has misrepresented us. And as we will accept no 
 faith which interferes with mutual respect and good feeling, so we will 
 set up no theory of our own on the ruins of goodwill. And as we 
 answer our opponents here by the logic of words, let us elsewhere try 
 to answer them by the logic of life.* 
 
 We are misunderstood and misjudged, because pretensions are in- 
 ferred for us which we do not set up ourselves. We do notf pretend 
 to possess all truth, and to regard all the world besides without any 
 ray of light. We know that truth is not an absolute, but a relative 
 term. Truth in logic is that which admits of proof — is that statement 
 
 * Said in reply to the Rev. Mr. Fice, of Norwich, 1849-50. 
 t As suggested by the British Banner. 
 
 -^ 
 
THEOLOGICAL PARTY NAMES. 139 
 
 The prejudice against Freethonght initiated by definitions. 
 
 which has the balance of consistent facts in its favour. Truth in 
 rhetoric, is a statement in accordance with reality. Truth is a unity, 
 but it is not one. Truth is millionfold. It is as various as facts, as 
 multitudinous as occurrences, as infinite as the aspects of the universe. 
 It is useless to ask ' What is truth ?' in an absolute and exhaustive sense, 
 for no man can fathom it. It is misleading to say that truth is one, for it 
 is many. It is an egotism or an exaggeration to say of any man — he has 
 Hhe truth ;' or of any system— it contains ' the truth ;' unless we mean 
 in a relative sense. A man may have the truth upon a few topics, a 
 system may contain the truth upon a few questions, but not more. 
 Man masters fragmentary truths, but absolute truth is the secret of 
 Kature. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL PARTY NAMES. 
 
 The early Churches, conceiving themselves composed of the only 
 'spiritually-minded' persons, naturally held that the rejection of 
 Christian doctrine arose from ' the carnal mind, which is enmity 
 against God.'* Christians, therefore, perceived few distinctions among 
 non-Believers, and, of course, in speaking of them, no careful dis- 
 tinction of terms was felt to be necessary. Hence, Infidel or Atheist 
 was considered a sufficiently accurate description of all classes of Free- 
 thinkers. A bad name was wanted, and the term 'Infidel,' or 
 ' Atheist,' seemed to answer the purpose. It accorded with the anti- 
 pathy of those who used it, and it satisfied the public, who (never 
 inquiring into its fitness), were easily imposed upon by it. 
 
 Xeither Christ, nor his Apostles, ever admitted that the sceptic 
 could be honest, or the unbeliever sincere ; and when you begin by 
 assuming his dissent to be manifest guilt, it can matter little what 
 you say to such a man, or how you treat him, or what you call him. 
 Ko wonder that confusion has existed in the application of party 
 names to those w T ho refuse to bear the Christian yoke. The English 
 reviewers of 1852 confounded the authors of the Martineau and 
 Atkinson Lettersf with Atheists ; which should teach us what re- 
 liance to place on the discrimination of anterior history, written in 
 days when men were burnt first and classified afterwards. The 
 Gentiles and heathens of the days of Paul evidently had as confident 
 an impression of the truth of their religion as the Apostle had of his. 
 Christ must have given the High Priest of the synagogue great pain 
 as he uttered his ' daring blasphemies,' or what seemed to the Jews as 
 such. The priests of Jupiter designated the Christians ' Atheists,' 
 and no doubt the Fosters of that day started with horror at the ' por- 
 
 * Eomans viii. 7. t ' On Man's Nature and Development.' (Chapman, London.) 
 
140 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The early Christian blasphemers. 
 
 tentous heroism' of the followers of the reckless and eccentric 
 Nazarene, who dared to deny the Gods of the temples and the groves. 
 It would be a salutary lesson to the Christians of this century could 
 they be made to understand the feeling of the pious Jew as he listened 
 to the alleged ' Blasphemies of Jesus Christ ;' for so the denunciations 
 and doctrines of the revolutionary carpenter's son must have appeared 
 to him, who worshipped the God of Abraham, and devoutly fulfilled 
 the law of Moses. Could some of those Pagan works and criticisms 
 of the new religion, destroyed by the intolerance of the early 
 Christians, now be recovered, they would throw wholesome light upon 
 the intemperate ' infidelity' of those who now plume themselves upon 
 their orthodoxy. V 
 
 The commonest term by which the Christian designates those who 
 differ from him, is ' Infidel' — a term as vague as calumny could wish 
 it, and as false as bigotry can make it. 
 
 The pulpit definition of the ' Infidel ' is incoherent, exaggerated, 
 and disparaging. The lower kind of the Clergy and Dissenting 
 Preachers, define the 'Infidel' as a man who neither believes in God 
 nor Devil, heaven nor hell ; but who prefers the life of a beast and 
 the death of a dog. The definition of the common people is more 
 brief and less malignant. They call every man an 'Infidel' who 
 does not believe as they believe. In this vague sense the word is 
 much used also by Sectaries. It is, as Jerrold would say, the great 
 Barber's Chair of theology, and all the world sit in it in their turn. 
 The Mahomedan calls the Christian ' Infidel,' and the Christian calls 
 everybody else so. The Catholic applies the term to the Protestant,* 
 the Protestant to the Dissenter. The Evangelical Dissenter applies 
 it to the Rationalist Dissenter, and I am not sure that I have not 
 seen the Rationalist trying to show in his turn, that the Christian is, 
 after all, the real unbeliever. When these worthy disputants are 
 tired of this mutual name-calling, the term 'Infidel' descends to 
 newspaper belligerents and vestry belligerents, and the small politi- 
 cians and disappointed Common Councilmen have their carnival day 
 of abuse, and throw the word at each other till it sticks to the 
 weaker party. 
 
 The old immoral meaning of the term ' Infidel,' implies one who 
 is unfaithful to the truth — one who is an apostate — that is false and 
 traitorous to the truth. Probably this meaning of the term was 
 always a libel. The first 'Infidels' were the first martyrs, and the 
 martyrs were sincere men, and not ' unfaithful,' ' false,' or 'traitorous.' 
 The term Infidel arose when Christians were unable to conceive the 
 possibility of their being in the wrong ; and they confidently con- 
 
 * Dr. Newman (the eminent Catholic Father) charged, and repeated the charge, that 
 Dr Achilli (the notorious Protestant convert) was an Infidel. It was alleged that Dr. 
 Achilli preached against the eucharist, auricular confession, and absolution. If it were 
 meant that Dr. Achilli was an Infidel, because he disbelieved in transubstantiation and the 
 efficacy of human absolution and confession, he hoped the number of such Infidels would 
 daily increase. [The Attorney-General, Court of Queen's Bench, June 24th, 1852. Vide 
 Daily News, June 25th, 1852. Case, the Queen v. Newman.] 
 

 THEOLOGICAL PARTY NAMES. 141 
 
 Clerical classification of Atheists and Infidels. 
 
 eluded that whoever ceased to think as they thought, made the 
 change in wickedness, knowing that he apostacised from, and was con- 
 sciously forsaking, the truth. It was in this serious mistake made by 
 the early Christians, that the term ' Infidel ' obtained such unfriendly 
 currency. If we look below the surface we distinguish two distinct 
 classes — a class who are simply indifferent to Christianity through 
 being ignorant of it, or not having time to attend to it, or not caring 
 to attend to it, or not able to attend to it through constitutional in- 
 sensibility to its peculiar appeals, and dissenting indefinitely from 
 its dogmas ; and another class who intelligently reject Christianism 
 for reasons which seem to them conclusive, and of which they 
 are able to give an account. Some reputed ' Infidels ' disbelieve 
 the inspiration of the Scriptures, others believe only in its partial 
 inspiration, others disbelieve in miracles, others disbelieve in the 
 doctrine of Hell, but accept that of Heaven, others differ as to the 
 Godhead, on the character or attributes of Deity, and so on. But 
 Infidels accurately classified, whether those who are so from 
 indifference or from reflection, have, through all their diversities, this 
 one characteristic — they stop short at Deism — they all believe in 
 a God. 
 
 Unbeliever is another epithet applied by Christians to those who 
 dissent from them. But this is too vague to be just. It is taken to 
 mean one who believes in nothing ; whereas the heterodox are 
 persons who, while they are unbelievers in what to them appears 
 Christian error, yet believe steadfastly in what they consider truth. 
 
 The term Sceptic is open to a similar objection. A sceptic is popu- 
 larly understood to be one who doubts everything — to be one of that 
 unsatisfactory race of whom Phyrro was the type, who doubt so 
 vigorously and universally, that they even doubt whether they do 
 doubt. 
 
 The Atheist fares worse than all. He is described by those free and 
 easy delineators, the angry clergy, as being at once arrogant and de- 
 praved, bloody and ferocious,* as one who leaves nothing above us to 
 create awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness, who debases man into 
 a fiend, and drags God himself from his throne in the universe — as one 
 who cannot believe in God, because he is a fool ; as one who will not, 
 because of the pride and vanity of his heart ; or as one who dares not, 
 because he sees in him the punisher of his sensualism and his crimes. 
 But those who examine for themselves find that this order of men 
 are of two kinds. Some are Atheists only relatively. The Pro- 
 testant does not believe in the Gods of the Catholic, and is an Atheist 
 to him in one sense ; just as many of the eminent philosophers were 
 Atheists with regard to Pagans, in whose Gods they did not believe, 
 though most of these philosophers believed in some God of their own. 
 Most cultivated people are Atheists with respect to the Gods of the 
 multitude, but are yet pious and believing men in their own purer 
 sphere. Some are more Atheist than others — as the Unitarian, 
 
 * Vide Rev. Robert Hall's Sermon on Infidelity. 
 
142 THE TRIAL Or THEISM. 
 
 Honourable scrupulousness of Professor de Morgan. 
 
 since he believes less with respect to God than the majority of Chris- 
 tians* Again, there are other persons — as Pantheists — who are more 
 Atheist than the Unitarian, and are yet believers in a Nature- God. 
 None of these are Atheists in an absolute sense, because they all have a 
 God of their own. An Atheist in an absolute sense, as we should 
 explain him, is one who does not believe in other people's abstractions, 
 and sets up no one of his own. Hence, when Miss Martineau says,* 
 ' There is no theory of a God, of an author of Nature, of an origin of the 
 universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties, which is not 
 (to my feelings) so irreverent as to make me blush, so misleading as 
 to make me mourn.' The newspapers and the reviews, with two 
 exceptions, took this to be a declaration of Atheism — overlooking 
 what ought to have been obvious to them, that she might say there 
 was no current theory of a God which she could accept, yet she might 
 have a theory, clearer and purer, of her own. 
 
 The term Atheist arose when morality was by all, except a few 
 philosophers, derived from Polytheism.f But now morals are, by im- 
 portant writers — from Butler to Binney — admitted to be derivable 
 from nature ; the disbeliever in the ethics of Theism may yet be 
 conceived of as believing in the ethics of humanity, and to apply the 
 term Atheist in the old sense to such a one is simply libellous. 
 
 Anti- Theism — sometimes written Anti-Deism — is a term which may 
 be taken to mean against Theism ; just as the ylra&'-Corn-law 
 League was against the Bread-tax laws. It does not mean hatred or 
 prejudice, but opposing conviction. When Sir Robert Peel came to 
 stand on the side of the Anti-Corn-law League, he had neither hatred 
 to, nor prejudice against, the corn laws ; his convictions had become 
 opposed to them . So Anti-Theism means that state of mind in which 
 the understanding disapproves of Theism for purely intellectual 
 reasons. One whose eminence enables him, no less than his justice 
 inclines him, to be fair to all — Professor de Morgan — thus writes : — 
 
 ' There is a word in our language with which I shall not confuse 
 this subject, both on account of the dishonourable use which is 
 frequently made of it, as an imputation thrown by one sect upon 
 another, and of the variety of significations attached to it. I shall 
 use the word Anti-Deism\ to signify the opinion that there does not 
 *exist a Creator, who made and sustains the Universe.'§ 
 
 Theodore Parker's steps in definition are instructive, and will help 
 many to a sounder comprehension of theological party names. 
 
 1 Speculative Theism,' says he, ' is the belief in the existence of 
 
 * Letters to H. G. Atkinson on Man's Nature and Development. 
 
 t ' The word Atheist simply means god-less. Those who rejected the popular gods were 
 everywhere liable to be thought godless and immoral ; but this was, of course, a prejudice. 
 The title or name is as vague in Greek as in English, and I can give you no further aid 
 than by the translation godless.' — Letter from Professor Newman. 
 
 % Anti-Deism is a term practically synonymous with Anti -Theism. Ne-theism— as Mr. 
 Holdreth writes it — expresses substantially the same idea. 
 
 § Essay on Probabilities, p. 22. Augustus de Morgan. 
 
ATHEISM THE PARENT OF SELF-HELP. 143 
 
 Definitions of Theism and Atheism hy Theodore Parker. 
 
 God, in one form or another ; and I call him a Theist who believes in 
 any God.'* 
 
 This may pass as a definition of Theism in its largest sense. It 
 would be more complete were we told what is meant by ' any God.' 
 Mr. Parker proceeds — 
 
 ' By Atheism I mean absolute denial of the existence of God. A 
 man may deny actuality to the Hebrew idea of God, to the Christian 
 idea of God, or to the Mahometan idea of God, and yet not be an 
 Atheist.'t 
 
 Here the difficulty turns upon the meaning to be attached to the 
 term 'absolute denial.' Is it denial of the possibility of a God, or de- 
 nial of the alleged proofs of the existence of God ? Mr. Parker 
 continues : — 
 
 ' Atheism is the absolute denial of any and all forms of God ; the 
 denial of the genus, the denial of all possible ideas of God — highest 
 as well as lowest.' J 
 
 The definer seems to overlook that a man may deny the possibility 
 of any idea of God — or deny all possible ideas of God, as involving 
 contradictions so far as they have yet been explained — and yet not 
 assume the infinite pretension of declaring that Nature conceals no «£ 
 fact of God. Does the most absolute Atheism do more than declare 
 the secret of Nature to be unrevealed ? 
 
 ' At this day there are some philosophers, quite eminent men, too, 
 who call themselves Atheists ; and, in set terms, deny the actuality of 
 any possible idea of God. Man has a notion of God, they say, but 
 there is nothing [known] in the universe to correspond thereto.' ^The 
 word supplied in brackets completes what Mr. Parker should say, so 
 far as Atheists are known to us. The critic we quote adds, with 
 generous frankness : — 
 
 ' These men do not mean to scoff at others. They teach their 
 doctrines with the calmness and precision of philosophy, and affirm 
 Atheism as their theory of the universe. It is a conclusion they have 
 deliberately arrived at.' 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ATHEISM THE PARENT OF SELF-HELP. 
 
 Atheism, always using the term in the sense of pure intellectual 
 rejection of Theism, leaves a man to nature, to sense, to reputation, 
 and to the laws. So Bacon, ever penetrative, points out. Theism is 
 dependence ; Atheism is self-reliance. Providence does not interfere 
 in human affairs. Nature is an ever-present dependence. The negation 
 of Theism leads to the study of the positivism of Nature. What the 
 duty of the Cosmist is — the duty of him who is the student of 
 Realities — a modern writer has put in terms which need no interpre- 
 
 * ' Atheism, Theism, and the Popular Theology,' p. 2. t Idem, p. 3. J Idem, p. 3. 
 
144 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Infidel Franklin, preserver of Boulogne Cathedral. 
 
 tation. ' The world would come right, we are told, if we leave it to 
 God,. It wont. Is it not one of the truisms of our morality, that 
 where evil is active, good must be strenuous on all sides, cr the fair 
 fabric will go to ruin, while the ministers he sent to keep it sound are 
 singing hymns ? '* 
 
 Christianity promised a fairer moral world than the ancient — 
 whereas, the modern moral world is, if anything, worse than the 
 ancient. Athens was not worse than London. Rome was not 
 worse than Glasgow. Caligula was not worse than Louis Napoleon. 
 Nero was not worse than Nicholas. Theism does not necessarily im- 
 prove society. India has of late shown with what atrocity Theism is 
 compatible, until morality chastens it. Therefore, as far as security 
 goes, it is better for safety, as well as for truth, that we stand on the 
 side of Nature, than on the side of Theology. If any form of 
 European Theism can afford protection, it is Catholicism — that 
 Church which preserves the ancient machinery of faith free from the 
 disturbance of modern discussion. Three incidents lately occurred 
 across the channel which shows how little the power of this Church 
 can compete with the power of Nature. 
 P> A famous feminine Saint, called Our Lady of Boulogne, had taken 
 ' up her residence in that agreeable port. Numbers flocked to receive 
 her blessing, and Boulogne rejoiced in her protectoress. When, 
 however, a deadly sickness set in, when Mr. A'Beckett perished, 
 everybody who could, fled from ' Our Lady,' and sought protection 
 elsewhere. When real danger came, the believers in 'Our Lady' fled 
 to their physicians. 
 
 About the same time a solemn procession wound through the 
 streets of Boulogne : young and old, citizens and saints, proceeded 
 to the coast, and the bishop blessed it. His holy hands were 
 upheld, and his prayer, it was said, had brought down from 
 heaven security to all mariners in those parts. Not long after, two 
 foreign vessels arrived. Foreign winds which filled their sails had 
 not heard of the bishop's blessing the coast, and the angry, heretical, 
 and unbelieving sea dashed the ships on the shore, and their wrecks 
 strewed the very spot on which the praying priests had the day before 
 stood, causing many to think that a stout vessel is, after all, the 
 sailor's best providence, and a skilful captain of more value to a 
 shipowner than any bishop ! 
 
 The Cathedral of Boulogne was about the same time consecrated. 
 The bishop and the faithful united to invoke heaven to direct storm 
 and tempest from the sacred dome ; but when you look outside you 
 find that they have taken care to place there the lightning rods of 
 the ' Infidel ' Franklin, as a sort of security for the fulfilment of their 
 prayers,^ or as an assistance to heaven in answering them. 
 
 Here are instances in which the laws of Nature ride triumphant 
 over priests, prayers, and processions. We therefore prefer to stand on 
 the side of that Nature which rules over the Church, over the devout- 
 
 * Westminster Review, p. 414, Oct., 1857. t IT. G. Atkinson. 
 

 ATHEISM THE PARENT OE SELF-HELP. 145 
 
 The victories of materialism and spiritualism compared. 
 
 est, the subtlest, and the haughtiest Church of the age, and when the 
 highest church is swept away, the lower churches are not worthy the 
 attention of those who need protection, and seek power. 
 
 The practical conclusion against Theism would be this : — Granting 
 that there is spirit, spirit is no element with which men can work. It 
 is subtle, capricious, evasive, defiant. You cannot detect it, you cannot 
 control it, you cannot use it. It has no known conditions, and it obeys 
 no known laws. It is the dream of night, while humanity requires the 
 wakefulness of day to watch, and the certainty of science to work for 
 its deliverance. 
 
 That which is material is calculable. In various ways it be- 
 comes evident to the senses, or can be so controlled as to be the 
 source of external impressions. In fine, it is found to act under 
 law. That which men hastily ascribe to spirit appears to be some 
 material influence, acting under laws not yet discovered. That which 
 men call matter is material influence, whose law has been dis- 
 covered. The conquest of Mature is the discovery of its laws. So 
 long as a particular action is unknown it is declared to be spiritual. 
 The moment you trace its law of action, it is called material. 
 Practically, then, the spiritual is the unknown — the material is the 
 known. What are our proudest discoveries and inventions — our arts, 
 sciences, and civilisation, but one unbroken series of material con- 
 quests? What has wrought miracles in chemistry and medicine, 
 except material investigations ? To what do we owe the marvellous 
 recovery of thousands of insane persons ? — mind, which the old 
 spiritualism chained, yields to the beneficent material conditions dis- 
 covered by our Cononleys and Winslows. What are the triumphs of 
 spiritualism ? "Where are its discoveries, inventions, and improve- 
 ments ? Contrast together the Laboratory and the Church! What 
 do we see? In the temple of prayer you have words — in the 
 temple of science you have Works. The Priest preaches consola- 
 tion — the Professor teaches you deliverance. Granting, then, that 
 spiritualism has a place in the world's speculation — materialism has 
 a much larger place. It is the source of surety — it is the measure 
 of our reliance, materialism is co-extensive with our knowledge of 
 Nature — it is the index of our acquaintance with the real. As Mrs. 
 Barrett Browning sings, in language w T hich may shame many a mere 
 spiritualist : — 
 
 ' God himself is the best poet, 
 And the real is his song.' 
 Some one has said that facts are God's thoughts. We know then that 
 materialism is the garment in which Nature clothes herself. Granting, 
 then, that God exists, Nature is his manifestation, and materialism is 
 the poetry and the thought of Deity. The materialist, therefore, in 
 studying Nature is on the right track for truly serving humanity. 
 He may realise on earth what the Theist in his despair postpones to 
 heaven. We conclude, therefore, that the study of Nature is no 
 capricious choice and no antagonistic profession — it proceeds from the 
 19 
 
; ^ 
 
 146 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Lord Brougham maintains that the Atheist is incapable of blasphemy. 
 
 wish to be right and the desire to be sure ; it is principle and policy, 
 service and duty, progress and reverence, strength and peace. 
 
 It is clear from history and experience that God has not spoken 
 directly to any. Nature has spoken directly to all. God has not 
 spoken to Jew, Mahommedan, Buddhist, or Christian. "VVe know that 
 no body of worshippers have his message, by their not being able to 
 agree about it among themselves. We know the priests never had it, 
 for God would not give to any section of the human family a mono- 
 poly of favour — a source of interest to them and hatred to others. 
 In truth, justice, and temperance lie all dignity in life, all courage 
 in danger, all equanimity in death. And the sense of truth, justice, 
 and temperance, Nature gives to all who have patience, thought, 
 and fortitude. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ATHEISM VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OE IRREVERENCE. 
 
 Lord Brougham, in his ' Lives of Men of Letters and Science, who 
 nourished in the time of George III.,' has uttered a remarkable expo- 
 sition of the intellectual characteristics of Freethought, which 
 Atheists ought not willingly to let die. His weighty words disprove 
 the common clerical charges of the irreverence of Atheists : — 
 
 ' The mention of Voltaire,' says Lord Brougham, ' at once presents 
 to every one the idea — not so much of a philosopher, whose early in- 
 quiries have led him to doubt upon the foundations of religion, or even 
 to disbelieve its truths, as of a bitter enemy to all belief in the evidence 
 of things unseen, an enemy whose assaults were directed by malig- 
 nant passions, aided by unscrupulous contrivances, and, above all, 
 pressed by the unlawful weapon of ridicule, not the fair armoury of 
 argument ; in a word, he is regarded as a scoffer, not areasoner. Akin 
 to this, is the other charge which makes us shudder by the imputation of 
 blasphemy. Now, upon this manner of viewing Voltaire some things 
 are to be explained, and some to be recalled, that they may be borne 
 in mind during the discussion of his character. 
 
 ' Let us begin with the last charge, because, until it is removed, no 
 attention is likely to be gained by anything that can be urged in defence, 
 or in extenuation. It is evident that, strictly speaking, blasphemy can 
 only be committed by a person who believes in the existence and in the 
 attributes of the Deity whom he impugns, either by ridicule or by 
 reasoning. An Atheist is wholly incapable of the crime. When he 
 heaps epithets of abuse on the Creator, or turns his attributes into 
 ridicule, he is assailing or scoffing at an empty name, at a Being whom 
 he believes to have no existence. In like manner, if a Deist, one 
 who disbelieves in our Saviour being either the Son of God, or sent 
 by God as his prophet upon earth, shall argue against his miracles, or 
 ridicule his mission or his person, he commits no blasphemy, for he 
 firmly believes that Christ was a man like himself, and that he derived 
 
ATHEISM VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OP IRREVERENCE. 147 
 
 Blasphemy the offence of a believer in Deity scoffing at Deity. 
 
 no authority from the Deity. Both the Atheist and the Deist are free 
 from all guilt of blasphemy— that is, of all guilt towards the Deity, or 
 towards Christ. 
 
 'It is wholly another question whether or not they are guilty 
 towards men. They plainly are so if they use topics calculated to 
 wound the feelings of their neighbour, who believes what they dis- 
 believe ; because religion, unlike other subjects of controversy, is one 
 that mixes itself with the strongest feelings of the heart, and these 
 must not be rudely outraged, because no man can be so perfectly 
 certain that he is himself right and others are wrong, as to justify 
 him in thus making their opinions the subject of insolent laughter or 
 scurrilous abuse ;* because it is our duty, even when fully convinced 
 that we are dealing with error, and with dangerous error, to adopt 
 such a course as will rather conciliate those we would gam over to the 
 truth than make them shut their eyes to it by revolting their strongest 
 feelino-s. Hence all lawgivers have regarded such scoffing and inso- 
 lent Stacks on the religion professed by the great majority oi their 
 subjects as an offence justly punishable ; although it may fairly be 
 doubted whether the interposition of the Law has ever had a tendency 
 to protect religious belief itself, and may even be suspected ot having 
 favoured the designs of those who impugn it, both by the reaction 
 which such proceedings always occasion, and by the more cautious and 
 successful methods of attack to which they usually drive the opponents 
 of the national faith. But the offence, whether punished by the laws or 
 not, is very incorrectly, though very generally, termed blasphemy, 
 which is the offence of scoffing at the 1 >eity, and assumes that the scoffer 
 believes in him. Now it is barely possible that this offence may be 
 committed; but it is the act of a mad, rather than a bad man. If, 
 indeed, any one really believing pretends to unbelief, in order to 
 indulge in Gcoffing, no language is too strong to express the reproba- 
 tion he deserves, it' he be in his senses ; for he adds falsehood to a crime 
 so horrible as almost to pass the bounds of belief; the frightful act of 
 toilfully rebelling against the Almighty Creator ot heaven and earth. 
 Tliis is the first and worst form oi the offence. 
 
 'Secondly: the like guilt will, to a certain extent be incurred by 
 him who vents his ribaldry upon the mere ground oi his scepticism. 
 On such a subject, doubting is not enough. Unless there is an entire 
 conviction in the mind that the popular belief is utterly groundless in 
 the one case (that of attacking the Deity) that there is a God, in the 
 other (attacking Christianity) that there is a foundation for revelation, 
 the emit of blasphemy is incurred. He must be convinced, not merely 
 doubt, or see reason for doubting; because no one has a right to 
 speculate, and take the chances of being innocent ; guiltless if his 
 doubts are well founded, guilty if they are not. I he virtuous course 
 here is the safe one. This is the moral ot tie fable, m which the 
 hermit answers the question of the rake, « Where are you, father, if 
 
 * This equally applies to Thcists in then- language towards Atheists. 
 
148 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The collar of the church. 
 
 there be not another world ?" with the other question, " And you, my 
 son, if there be ?" We need not go so far as some have done, who on 
 this ground contend that it is safer always to believe than to doubt, 
 because belief must ever, to be of any value, depend on conviction. But 
 we may assuredly hold that the better conduct is that which abstains 
 from attack and offence where the reasons hang in suspense ; abstains, 
 because of the great guilt incurred if the doubt should prove groundless. 
 
 ' It is a third and lesser degree of this offence if a person carelessly 
 gives way to a prevailing unbelief, and does not apply his faculties to 
 the inquiry with that sober attention, that conscientious diligence, 
 which its immense importance demands of all rational creatures. No 
 man is accountable for the opinion he may form, the conclusion at 
 which he may arrive, provided that he has taken due pains to inform 
 his mind, and fix his judgment.* But for the conduct of his under- 
 standing he certainly is responsible. He does more than err if he 
 negligently proceeds in the inquiry ; he does more than err if he 
 allows any motive to sway his mind, save the constant and single de- 
 sire of finding the truth ; he does more than err if he suffers the least 
 influence of temper or of weak feeling to warp his judgment ; he does 
 more than err if he listens rather to ridicule than reason, unless it be 
 that ridicule which springs from the contemplation of gross and 
 manifest absurdity, and which is, in truth, argument and not 
 ribaldry.' We commend these words of Brougham to the churches. 
 
 The church of our day, to speak of it collectively, is perfectly 
 conventional. Its bearing is more that of the snob than the 
 gentleman. If you recur to what is passing in society, you are aware 
 that the 'fast men' of the last generation were bullies ; they drank, 
 boxed, and broke off knockers at night. The present race are genteel 
 and slow. You know them by their wearing a high, perfectly stiff, 
 and immoveable shirt collar. And this collar determines their entire 
 behaviour. The head is held still — they look straight before them — 
 their whole manner is quiet, and all grows out of the collar. If they 
 moved their head, they would rumple the collar. If they indulged in 
 any active motion, the collar would be ruined. If they have to turn 
 round, they turn their entire body round. If they have to bend, 
 they bend in the back — a bend in the neck would disarrange the 
 symmetry of the collar. This restraint on their manners brings with 
 it some grace — quietness is always grace. But their quietness is not 
 the natural repose of gentlemen — a repose which admits of manliest 
 activity. The slow man's repose is a spurious repose. The 
 laundress is the author of the manners of the snob — all his graces 
 depend upon the stiffness of his collar. His dignity rests upon 
 starch. The creed of the church resembles the collar of the snob. 
 It is the rule of its manners. Freedom of thought in this 
 
 * Then how few Theists stand excused, who so rarely know, or care to know what can 
 be said upon the other side ; who, indeed, but too frequently shut their own eyes, and shut 
 the eyes of others, and use their influence to prevent the other side from being* heard. 
 
ATHEISM VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OF IRREVERENCE. 149 
 
 The God of the current theologies a modified Moloch. 
 
 generation has led to the development of noble natures. The church 
 of science and philosophy has thrown into the'shade the churches of 
 old superstition and vulgar dogmas. As a consequence, the old 
 creeds looked poor, felt limp, and have been called shabby ; so poor 
 old lady Orthodoxy, the laundress of the old churches, has been en- 
 gaged to re-wash and starch the creeds, and we see them everywhere 
 stiffly displayed, under forms of new interpretations, and harmonisings, 
 and adaptations to the wants and fashions of the age. But there is 
 nothing opulent or free in the thing. The church talks of freedom, 
 and truth, and progress, but you find all its notions fettered, and all 
 its attitudes constrained and conventional. The creed is its collar in 
 a double sense, and it lives in terror of spontaneous motion. You 
 know the dress of the gentleman by the fineness of his cloth and 
 whiteness of his linen. There is nothing noisy and nothing formal 
 about it. There are quiet grace and perfect facility of motion. He 
 dashes his head about with a regal swing — he is not afraid of his 
 C0 H ar — De can get another. The poor snob moves his head as though 
 the collar he wears was his last, and he knew not where to get another 
 when that is gone. In the gentleman, you feel the presence of the 
 man Avithin the dress In the snob, you feel the presence of the dress 
 on the man. So it is with the church. It acts like the snob. It is 
 always afraid of rumpling its creed. It fears it will not bear re- 
 starching much longer, and it knows not where to look for a new one 
 when that is gone. You do not feel a soul in the church, but a creed 
 upon the church. You do not feel a living church moving under 
 
 , free principles, but you find a starched and petrified creed, pressing 
 on an automatised congregation. For our part, we prefer to belong 
 only to that party which is opulent in principle and free in action. 
 We too prefer a creed, but it shall be a creed as definite as science, 
 and as flexible as progress, which shall have its deepest roots in the 
 human heart, and count as its highest victory the permanent welfare 
 of the peoples, whose worship shall be work, and which shall talk 
 little of the smile of God until it can be shown reflected in the smile 
 of the poor. 
 
 As to religion, is any religion possible but that of good works, which 
 man in his humility can offer, or God in his greatness care to accept ? 
 As taught in the great majority of pulpits, religion is but the egotism 
 f God— God, in the old Testament, capricious and retaliative ; in the 
 New, seated on a throne, placed on the margin of a brimstone lake, 
 
 * exacting belief in his Son under penalty of being cast into that fire 
 which is never quenched — governing the world like a convict colony, 
 where ' every idle word ' is ' treasured up against the day of wrath,' 
 where each must supplicate for his daily bread, and in the pitiless 
 
 I struggle for existence keep God for ever in his thoughts. Behold 
 Catholicism's elaborated ceremonies— the Church of England's stereo- 
 typed formularies — Calvinism's alarmed propitiations — Wesleyanism's 
 stormy invocations — Unitarianism's studied solemnities — Pantheism's 
 pompous homage. Contrasted with a free and natural reverence, 
 
150 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Isaac Taylor on the new characteristics of Atheism. 
 
 what are they all but so much spiritual attitudinising in the face of 
 High Heaven — the mere worship of slaves, trembling with different 
 degrees of decency beneath the eye of a tyrant God ? How much 
 more simple and sublime is that view of life which regards labour as 
 the Universal Prayer, conscious independence as the true homage, 
 genius as the emblem of God, and the spontaneous song of Humanity 
 as part of the natural music of the spheres. 
 
 Isaac Taylor, the chief of modern Evangelical writers, has borne 
 new testimony to the character of the Atheism around us, and 
 recognises elements in it which no other writer of his school has 
 before either discerned or admitted. He says : — 
 
 ' The Atheism of this age has a depth which is its own, only 
 because it has sent its line down into that abyss from which Chris- 
 tianity withdraws, in part, the veil. This Atheism displays a grandeur 
 which is not its own, but which it assumes in rearing its head, and 
 looking upward, beneath the vault of that Infinitude to which it has 
 gained admittance, by favour of the Gospel. This Atheism shows, and 
 actually possesses, a sensibility, and it has a consciousness of the true, the 
 beautiful, and the good, which it owes, conspicuously and entirely, to 
 the books and to the system which it denounces. These tones of 
 tenderness and of purity, in which it has learned to utter itself— if we 
 catch them at a distance, so as to lose what in them is articulate — might 
 be mistaken for the silver sounds of God's mercy to man.' 
 
 What of excellence Mr. Taylor discerns in 'Atheism' he traces to 
 'Christian influences; while, in fact, these influences which he so 
 frankly describes, are inherent in cosmical truth, and, moreover, 
 there is no Theism around us from which they can be derived. 
 Cr Who are the preachers with whom Theism has to confront itself? 
 
 1 Go into the streets, where the Methodist thumps the Holy Word of 
 God as beadles beat cushions, and bawl out His great name, as 
 cabmen shout to their fellows. Go into the Conventicle, where igno- 
 rant Ministers talk of the ' Lord of Hosts,' as stable boys do of Tom 
 Cribb and Dutch Sam. Go among even educated Dissenters, who send 
 out the Rev. Brewin Grant, from whose hands the influence of the Holy 
 ^"Spirit is dispensed over sceptics like a torrent of lemon juice. Go 
 among the more classical clergy of the Church of England, where the 
 ^-v*. people are prayed for, and often snubbed at the same time. Go into 
 the Catholic Church, where there stretches out to welcome you, a 
 = hand of iron, covered with a velvet glove — prepared, when it has 
 ' £ k grasped the people's conscience, to twist the neck of their liberties. 
 Are these the heralds of God, before whom Atheism should stand 
 jjM dumb? Is it the vitriolic page of the Tract Society? Was it the 
 B?*itish Banner, with its ponderous distortions ? Is it the North 
 British, or Quarterly Reviews, so often acid or contemptuous, that 
 shadow forth the Divine love ? Who does not feel some pang of pity 
 ' for High Heaven, condemned to endure such ambassadors on earth ? 
 _ Turn to Mr. Rogers, who writes in a solution of evangelical strych- 
 . nine, to Conybeare, so coarse, reckless, and savage, to Father Spencer, 
 
WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE ? 151 
 
 If modern preachers are saved, no one need be apprehensive. 
 
 to Canon Stowell, to Hugh McXeile, to Francis Close, and Mr. 
 Spurgeon. Who is there among Christians so imputative but he may- 
 be supported, who so bitter but he will be approved, who so vulgar 
 but he will be followed ? We hear of the long suffering of Heaven. 
 We may believe it when we see the class of preachers it permits. If we 
 stood on soil of such good taste as that which swallowed up Korah, 
 Dathan, and Abiram, it would swallow up half the race of modern 
 champions of Deity. Talk of the difficulty of salvation, why nobody 
 need be afraid if the mass of present ministers be saved. St. Peter, 
 who admits them, will never be accused of fastidious selection. He 
 who reads the religious literature, or listens to the mass of the religious 
 sermons of our day, will have but a poor opinion of the society of 
 'just men made perfect' in Heaven. Compared with the way in 
 which Theism is commended around us, the silence of Atheism is inno- 
 cence, dignity, and adoration. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVH. 
 
 WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE ?* 
 
 ' Even in the " last dread scene of all " personal conviction is sufficient to produce 
 calmness and confidence. There was one who for three months suffered agonies unutterable, 
 ■who exclaimed in his anguish, " So much torture, God ! to kill a poor worm ! Yet if 
 by one word I could shorten this misery I would not say it." And at last, folded his 
 arms, and calmly said, " Now I die !" Yet this man was an avowed infidel, and worse, 
 an apostate priest.'— Spoken by Father Newman (in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri) of 
 Blanco White. 
 
 When the cholera prevailed in London in 1848, many were carried 
 away without opportunity or power to testify to the stability of 
 those conclusions which had been arrived at when life was calm, and 
 the understanding healthy. The slightest summary of opinions, 
 concientiously prepared, would have been sufficient to prevent mis- 
 representation after death, provided the person who had drawn up 
 such statements had strenth to revert to them, and to make some sign 
 that a conviction of their correctness remained. Mr. Hetherington 
 and myself drew up brief statements of tenets which appeared to us 
 to be true. He, as we know, sealed his in death. In several lectures 
 delivered, at the time when no man could calculate on life an hour, 
 I recited the grounds on which the Atheist might repose, and it has 
 since appeared that their publication would be useful. The book, of 
 which a second volume has since appeared, entitled ' The Closing 
 Scene,' by the Rev. Erskine Xeale (in which the old legends about 
 infidel death-beds are revived) , lauded by the Times, and patronised 
 by the upper classes, is proof that there are some priests going up and 
 down like roaring lions, seeking consciences which they may devour, 
 and proof of the necessity of some protest on this subject. 
 
 * This chapter is inserted here after revision — as necessary to the design of this 
 volume. It may still be had in a separate form, under the title of the ' Logic of Death,' 
 of which forty thousand copies have been sold. 
 
152 WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE? 
 
 Those who must answer for themselves, have the right to think for themselves. 
 
 Since my trial before Mr. Justice Erskine, in 1842, I have in some 
 measure been identified with sceptics of theology, and many ask the 
 opinions of such on death. If the world ask in respect, or curiosity, 
 or scorn, I answer for myself alike respectfully and distinctly. I love 
 the world in spite of its frowning moods. For years I have felt 
 neither anger nor hatred of any living being, and I will not advisedly 
 resuscitate those distorting passions through which we see the errors 
 of each other as crimes. 
 
 In my youth I was in such rude contact with the stern realities of life, 
 that the visions with which theology surrounded my childhood were 
 eventually dispelled, and now (so far as I can penetrate to it) I look 
 at destiny face to face. Cradled in suffering and dependence, I was 
 emboldened to think, and I took out of the hands of the churches, 
 where I was taught to repose them, the great problems of Life, Time, 
 and Death, and attempted the solution for myself. It was not long 
 hidden from me that if I followed the monitions of the pulpit, the 
 responsibility was all my own : that at the ' bar of God,' before which 
 I was instructed all men must one day stand, no preacher would take 
 my place if, through bowing to his authority, I adopted error. As I, 
 therefore, must be reponsible for myself, I resolved to think for 
 myself — and since no man would answer for me, I resolved that no 
 man should dictate to me the opinion I should hold : for he is impo- 
 tent indeed, and deserves his fate, who has not the courage to act 
 where he is destined to suffer. My resolution was therefore taken, 
 and I can say with Burke, ' my errors, if any, are my own : I have 
 [and will have] no man's proxy.' 
 
 In the shade of society my lot was cast, and there I struggled 
 for more light for myself and brethren. For years I toiled, with 
 thousands of others, who were never remunerated by the means of 
 paltriest comfort, and whose lives were never enlivened by real 
 pleasure. In turning from this I had nothing to hope, nor fear, nor lose. 
 Since then my days have been chequered and uncertain, but they have 
 never been criminal, nor servile, nor sad : for the luxury of woe, and the 
 superfluous refinement of despair, may be indulged in, if by any, by 
 those only who live in drawing-rooms — sorrow is too expensive an 
 article to be consumed by the cottager or garreteer. The right- 
 minded in the lowest station may be rich, accepting the wise advice 
 of Carlyle : — ' Sweep away utterly all frothiness and falsehood from 
 your heart : struggle unweariedly to acquire what is possible for every 
 man — a free, open, humble soul ; speak not at all, in any wise, till 
 you have somewhat to speak ; care not for the reward of your 
 speaking : but simply, and with undivided mind, for the truth of your 
 speaking : then be placed in what secticmof Space and of Time soever, 
 do but open your eyes, and they shalFactually see, and bring you 
 real knowledge, wondrous, worthy of belief.' Thus have I en- 
 deavoured to see life ; and it is from this point of view that I explain 
 my conceptions of death. 
 
 The gates of heaven are considered open to those only who believe 
 
WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE? 153 
 
 The four tenets of the popular theology. 
 
 ' 
 
 
 as the priest believes. The theological world acts as if we did not come 
 here to use our understandings, as if all religious truth was ascertained 
 2000 years ago, and we are counselled to accept the conclusions of the 
 Church, on pain of forfeiting the fraternity of men, and the favour of 
 God. I know the risks I am said to run, but ' I am in that place,' to use 
 the expression of brave old Knox, ' in which it is demanded of me to 
 speak the truth ; and the truth I will speak, impugn it whoso lists.' 
 And after all, the world is not so bad as antagonism has painted it. 
 It will forgive a man for speaking plainly, providing he takes care to 
 speak justly. To give any one pain causes me regret ; but, while I 
 respect the feelings of others, I, as conscience and duty admonish me, 
 respect the truth more — and by this course I may be society's friend, 
 for he who will never shock men may often deceive them. 
 
 It becomes me therefore to say that I am not a Christian. If I 
 could find a consistent and distinctive code of morality emanating 
 from Jesus I should accept it, and in that sense consent to be called 
 Christian. But I cannot do it. Xor am I a believer in the Inspiration 
 of the Bible. That which so often falls below the language of men, 
 I cannot, without disrespect, suppose to be the language of God. 
 Whatever I find in the Bible below morality (and I find much), I 
 reject ; what I find above it, I suspect ; what I find coincident with 
 morality (whether in the Old Testament or the Xew), I retain. I 
 make morality a standard. I am therefore the student of Moralism 
 rather than Christianity. It seems to me that there is nothing in « 
 Christianity which will bear the test of discussion or the face of day, 
 nothing whereby it can lay hold of the world and move it, which is 
 not coincident with morality. Therefore morality has all the strength 
 of Christianity, without the mystery and bigotry of the Bible. 
 
 But I am not a Sceptic, if that is understood to imply general doubt ; 
 for though I doubt many church dogmas, I do not doubt honour, or 
 truth, or humanity. I am not an Unbeliever, if that implies the 
 rejection of Christian truth — since all I reject is Christian error. 
 There are four principal dogmas of accredited Christianity which I 
 do not hold : — 
 
 1. The fall of man in Eden. 2. Atonement by proxy. 3. The sin 
 of unbelief in Christ. 4. Future punishment. 
 
 A disbeliever in all these doctrines, why should I fear to die ? I 
 will state the logic of death, as I conceive it, in relation to these 
 propositions. . 
 
 1. If man fell in the Garden of Eden, who placed him ^ iere • ■" ^ 
 said, God ! Who placed the temptation there ? » is said, God ! 
 Who gave him an imperfect nature — a nature " f which it was tore- 
 known that it would fall? It^said, God! ^o what does this amount? 
 
 If a parent placed his poorRiild iw^ a fire at which he knew it 
 would be burnt to death, or near a well into which he knew it would , 
 fall and be drowned, would any deference to creeds prevent our giving 
 speech to the indignation we should feel ? And can we pretend to 
 believe God has so acted, and at the same time be able to trust him? 
 
154 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The offence of sin reaches not to Deity. Proof by Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 If God has so acted, he may so act again. This creed can afford 
 no consolation in death. If he who disbelieves this dogma fears to 
 die, he who believes it should fear death more. 
 
 2. Salvation, it is said, is offered to the fallen. But man is not 
 fallen, unless the tragedy of Eden really took place. And before 
 man can be accepted by God he must, according to Christians, own 
 himself a degraded sinner. But man is not degraded by the misfortune 
 of Adam. No man can be degraded by the act of another. Dis- 
 honour can come only by his own hands. Man, therefore, needs not 
 this salvation. And if he needed it, he could not accept it. Debarred 
 from purchasing it himself, he must accept it as an act of grace. But 
 can it be required of us to go even to heaven on sufferance ? We 
 despise the poet who is a sycophant before a patron, we despise the 
 citizen who crawls before a throne, and shall God be said to have 
 less love of self-respect than man ? He who deserves to be saved thus 
 hath most need to fear that he shall perish, for he seems to deserve it. 
 
 3. Then in what way can there be a sin of unbelief ? Is not the 
 understanding the subject of evidence ? A man, with evidence before 
 him, can no more help seeing it, or feeling its weight, than a man with 
 his eyes or ears open can help seeing the stars above him or trees 
 before him, or hearing the sounds made around him. If a man 
 
 jv. disbelieve, it is because his conviction is true to his understanding. 
 If I disbelieve a proposition, it is through lack of evidence ; and the 
 act is as virtuous (so far as virtue can belong to that which is inevit- 
 able) as the belief of it when the evidence is perfect. If it is meant 
 that a man is to believe, whether he see evidence or not, it means that 
 he is to believe certain things, whether true or false — in fine, that he 
 may qualify himself for heaven by intellectual deception. It is of no 
 use that the unbeliever is told that he will be damned if he does not 
 believe; what human frailty may do is another thing; but the judg- 
 ment is clear, that a man ought not to believe, nor profess to believe, 
 what seems to him to be false, although he should be damned. The 
 believer who seeks to propitiate Heaven by this deceit ought to fear 
 its wrath, not the unbeliever, who rather casts himself on its justice. 
 
 4. There is the vengeance of God. But is not the idea invalidated 
 as soon as you name it ? Can God have that which man ought not 
 to have — vengeance ? The jurisprudence of earth has reformed itself; 
 we no longer punish absolutely, we seek the reformation of the 
 offender. And shall we cherish in heaven an idea we have chased 
 from earth ? But what has to be punished ? Can the sins of man 
 disturb the peace of God ? If so, as men exist in myriads, and action is 
 incessant, then is God, as Jonathan Edwards has shown, the most 
 miserable of beings and the victim of his meanest creatures. Surely 
 we must see, therefore, that sin against God is impossible. All sin is 
 finite and relative — all sin is sin against man. Will God punish 
 this which punishes itself ? If man errs, the bitter consequences are 
 ever with him. Why should he err ? Does he choose the ignorance, 
 incapacity, passion, and blindness through which he errs ? Why is 
 
 S 
 
 :'? 
 
WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE? lo5 
 
 Christ's death the great testimony against eternal retribution. 
 
 he precipitated, imperfectly natured, into a chaos of crime ? Is not 
 his destiny made for him ? and shall God punish eternally that sin 
 which is his misfortune rather than his fault ? Shall man he con- 
 demned to misery in eternity because he has been made wretched, and 
 weak, and erring in time ? 
 
 But if man has fallen at his conscious peril — has thoughtlessly 
 spurned salvation — has wilfully offended God — will God therefore 
 take vengeance ? Is God without magnanimity ? If I do wrong to a 
 man who does wrong to me, I come down (has not the ancient sage 
 warned me ?) to the level of my enemy. Will God thus descend to 
 the level of vindictive man? "Who has not thrilled at the lofty 
 question of Volumnia to Coriolanus ? — 
 
 ' Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man 
 Still to remember wrongs?' 
 
 Shall God be less honourable, and remember the wrong done against 
 him, not by his equals, but by his own frail creatures ? To be un- 
 able to trust God is to degrade him. Those passages in the New 
 Testament which we feel to have most interest and dignity, are the 
 parables in which a servant is told to forgive a debt to one who had 
 forgiven him ; in which a brother is to be forgiven until seventy 
 times seven (that is unlimitedly) ; and in the prayer of Christ, 
 where men claim forgiveness as they have themselves forgiven 
 others their trespasses. What was this but erecting a high 
 moral argument against the relentlessness of future punishment of 
 erring man ? If, therefore, man is to forgive, shall God do less ? 
 Shall man be more just than God? Is there anything so grand in 
 the life of Christ as his forgiving his enemies as he expired on the 
 cross ? Was it God the Sufferer behaving more nobly than will God 
 the Judge ? Was this the magnificent teaching of fraternity to 
 vengeful man, or is it to be regarded as a sublime libel on the 
 hereafter judgments of heaven ? The infidel is infidel to falsehood, but 
 he believes in truth and humanity, and w T hen he believes in God, he 
 will prefer to believe that which is noble of him. Holding by no 
 conscious error, doing no dishonour in thought, and offering his 
 homage to love and truth, why should the unbeliever fear to die ? 
 Seeing the matter in this light, of what can I recant ? The perspicuity 
 of truth may be dimned by the agonies of death, but no amount of 
 agony can alter the nature of moral evidence. 
 
 To say (w 7 hich is all I do say) that theology has not sufficient 
 evidence to make known to us the existence of God, may startle those 
 who have not thought upon the matter, or who have thought through 
 others — but has not experience said the same thing to us all ? Where 
 the intellect fails to perceive the truth, it is said that the feelings 
 assure us of it by its relieving a sense of dependence natural to man. 
 How ? Man witnesses those near and dear to him perish before his 
 eyes, and despite his supplications. He walks through no rose-water 
 world, and no special Providence smoothes his path. Is not the sense 
 
'J 156 * THE TRIAL \>F THEISM. h- # 
 
 Atheism suspensive worship. 
 
 J 
 
 of dependence outraged already ? Man is weak, and a special 
 Providence gives him no strength — distracted, and no counsel — 
 ignorant, and no wisdom — in despair, and no consolation — in distress, 
 and no relief — in darkness, and no light. The existence of God, 
 therefore, whatever it may be in the hypotheses of philosophy, 
 seems not recognisable in daily life. It is in vain to say, 'God 
 governs by general laws.' General laws are inevitable fate. 
 General laws are atheistical. They say practically, ' We are without 
 God in the world — man, look to thyself: weak though thou niayest 
 be, Nature is thy hope.' And even so it is. Would I escape the keen 
 wind's blast, I seek shelter — from the yawning waves, I look up, not 
 to heaven, but to naval architecture. In the fire-damp, Davy is 
 more to me than the Deity of creeds. All nature cries with one voice, 
 ' Science is the Providence of man.' Help lies not in priests, nor in the 
 prayer : it lies in no theories, it is written in no book, it is contained 
 in no theological creed — it lies in science, art, courage, and industry. 
 
 Some who regard all profession of opinion as a mere matter of 
 policy, and not of the understanding, will tell me that I can believe as 
 I please, and that I may call the Deity of theology what name I please : 
 forgetful that names are founded on distinctions, and that he who does 
 not penetrate to them is unqualified to decide this matter. It is in 
 vain to say believe as I please, or entitle things as I please — philoso- 
 phical evidence and classification leave no choice in the matter. 
 
 The existence of God is a problem to which the mathematics of 
 human intelligence seem to me to furnish no solution. On the 
 threshold of the theme we stagger under a weight of words. We 
 tread amid a dark quagmire bestrewed with slippery terms. Now 
 the clearest miss their way, now the cautious stumble, now the 
 strongest fall. 
 
 If there be a Deity to whom I am indebted, anxious for my grati- 
 tude or my service, I am as ready to render it as any one existent, so 
 soon as I comprehend the nature of my duty. I therefore protest 
 against being considered, as Christians commonly consider the 
 } unbeliever, as one who hates God, or is without a reverential spirit. 
 Hatred implies knowledge of the objectionable thing, and cannot 
 exist where nothing is understood. I am not unwilling to believe in 
 God, but I am unwilling to use language which conveys no adequate 
 - J idea to my own understanding. 
 
 Deem me not blind to the magnificence of nature or the beauties of 
 art, because I interpret their language differently from others. I 
 thrill in the presence of the dawn of day, and exult in the glories of 
 / the setting sun. Whether the world wears her ebon and jewelled 
 crown of night, or the day walks wonderingly forth over the face of 
 nature, to me — 
 
 ' Not the lightest leaf but trembling teems 
 With golden visions and romantic dreams.' 
 
 It is not in a low, but in an exalted estimate of nature that my rejec- 
 
WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE ? 157 
 
 The distinction between the Pantheist and the Atheist. 
 
 tion of the popular theology arises. The wondrous manifestations of 
 nature indispose me to degrade it to a secondary rank. I am driven 
 to the conclusion that the great aggregate of matter which we call 
 Nature is eternal, because we are unable to conceive a state of things 
 when nothing was. There must always have been something, or 
 there could be nothing now. This the dullest feel. Hence we arrive 
 at the idea of the eternity of matter. And in the eternity of matter 
 we are assured of the self-existence of matter, and self-existence is the 
 most majestic of attributes, and includes all others. That which has 
 the power to exist independently of a God, has doubtless the power to 
 act without the delegation of one. It therefore seems to me that 
 Nature and God are one — in other words, that the God whom we 
 seek is the Nature which we know. 
 
 I will not encumber, obscure, or conceal my meaning with a cloud 
 of words. I recognise in Nature but the aggregation of matter. The 
 term God seems to me inapplicable to Nature. In the mouth of the 
 Theist, God signifies an entity, spiritual and percipient, distinct from 
 matter. With Pantheists the term God signifies the aggregate of 
 Nature — but nature as a Being, intelligent and conscious. It is my 
 inability to subscribe to either of these views which prevents me 
 being ranked with Theists. I can conceive of nothing beyond 
 Nature, distinct from it, and above it. The language invented 
 by Pope, to the effect that 'we look through Nature up to 
 Nature's God,' has no significance for me, as I know nothing be- 
 sides Nature and can conceive of nothing greater. The majesty of 
 the universe so transcends my faculties of penetration, that I pause 
 in awe and silence before it. It seems not to belong to man to com- 
 prehend its attributes and extent, and to affirm Avhat lies beyond it. 
 The Theist, therefore, I leave ; but while I go with the Pantheist so 
 far as to accept the fact of Nature in the plenitude of its diverse, 
 illimitable, and transcendent manifestations, I cannot go farther and 
 predicate with the Pantheist the unity of its intelligence and 
 consciousness. This is the inability, rather than any design of my 
 own, w r hich has exposed me to the unacceptable designation of 
 Atheist. 
 
 One has said, I know not whether in the spirit of scorn or suffering, 
 but I repeat it in the spirit of truth — ' What went before and what 
 will follow me, I regard as two black impenetrable curtains, which 
 hang down at the two extremities of human life, and which no living 
 man has yet drawn aside. Many hundreds of generations have 
 already stood before them with their torches, guessing anxiously what 
 lies behind. On the curtain of futurity many see their own shadows, 
 the forms of their passions enlarged and put in motion ; they shrink 
 in terror at this image of themselves. Poets, philosophers, and 
 founders of states have painted this curtain with their dreams, more 
 smiling or more dark as the sky above them was cheerful or gloomy ; 
 and their pictures deceive the eye when viewed from a distance. 
 Many jugglers, too, make profit of this our universal curiosity: by 
 
158 THE TKIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The actuality of life apart from theology. 
 
 their strange mummeries they have set the outstretched fancy in 
 amazement. A deep silence reigns behind this curtain ; no one once 
 within will ansAver those he has left without ; all you can hear is a 
 hollow echo of your question, as if you shouted into a chasm.'* 
 
 Theology boasts that it has obtained an answer. What is it ? The 
 world will stand still to hear it. Worshipper of Jesus, of Jehovah, 
 of Allah, of Bramah — in conventicle, cathedral, mosque, temple, or in 
 unbounded nature — what is the secret of the universe, and the destiny 
 of man ? What knowest thou more than thy fellows, and what dost 
 thou adore ? He has no secret to tell. You have still the old 
 dual answer of centuries, given in petulance or contempt — ' All the 
 world have heard it, and so r^s you ;' or, ' None can understand the 
 Infinite, and you must submit.' The solution of the problem must 
 therefore be sought independently. 
 
 Separate individual man from the traditions of theology, and what 
 is his history ? A few years ago he sprang into existence like a 
 bubble on the ocean, or a flower on the plain. He came from the 
 blank chaos of the past, where consciousness was never known, where 
 no gleam of the present ever pierces, no voice of the future is ever 
 heard. He exists — but in what age he appears, or among what people 
 or circumstances he is thrown, is to him a matter of accident. To him 
 no control, no choice is vouchsafed. His physical constitution, his 
 powers and susceptibilities, his proportion of health or disease, are 
 made for him : and fettered in nature and fixed in sphere, he goes 
 forth to struggle or to triumph, and encounter the war of elements 
 and strife of passion, and oppose himself to ignorance, error, and 
 interest, as best he may. 
 
 Three or four years pass away before sentient existence is lighted 
 with the spark of consciousness, which burns faintly, intensely, or 
 flickeringly till death. Gradually the phenomena of the universe 
 disclose themselves to man. The ocean in its majesty, or the earth in 
 its variety, engage him — spring is exhilarating, summer smiling, 
 autumn foreboding, winter stern. By day the sun, by night the moon 
 and stars, look down like the eyes of Time watching his movements. 
 Above him is inconceivable altitude — around him, unbounded dis- 
 tance — below, unfathomable profundity ; and he arrives at such idea 
 as man has of the infinite. What is, seems to exist of its own inherent 
 power. It always was, or it could not be. The idea of universal 
 non-entity is instinctively rejected. Utter annihilation never enters 
 into his most desultory conceptions. The sentiment of the Everlasting 
 seems the first fruit of meditation, as an impression of the Infinite was 
 the first lesson of comprehensive observation. Man stands connected 
 with the infinite by position, and is related to the eternal in his 
 origin, and an emotion of conscious dignity follows the first exercise 
 of his reason — and his pride and his confidence are strengthened by 
 perceiving that this infinite is the infinite of phenomena, and the 
 
 * Thomas Carlyle. 
 
WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE ? 159 
 
 The principles of natural life delineated. 
 
 eternal that of matter. He may be hut the spray dashed carelessly 
 against the shore, or the meteor-flash that for a moment illumines a 
 speck of cloud — or a sand of the desert which the whirlwind sweeps 
 into a transient elevation with scarcely time for distinction : yet he is 
 sustained by conscious connection with the ever-existing,though ever- 
 changing — his home is with the everlasting, and when he sinks, it is 
 into the bosom of nature, the magnificent womb and mausoleum of all 
 life. 
 
 As youth advances, and his experience increases, he finds his 
 knowledge amplified. "With nothing intuitive but the aptitude to 
 learn, he feels that his wisdom is ever commensurate with his industry 
 or observation — and as even aptitude is but progressively manifested, 
 he perceives that to attempt the untried, is to develop his being more. 
 Prematurely wasted by sudden efforts to change the order of society 
 or influences of things, he sees that nature never hastens, and that in 
 measured continuity of action lies the rule of success. Neither the 
 muscle of the gladiator, nor the brain of Newton, acquired at once 
 their volume or power — the leveling of the mountain or the raising 
 of the pyramid is not the result of a single hasty attempt, but of 
 repeated and patient efforts. Thus, while man learns that his degree 
 of intelligence depends upon his industry and observation, his con- 
 quests depend on the strength of his perseverance — and he looks to 
 himself, to the exercise of his faculties, and the right direction of his 
 exertions, both for his knowledge and his power. His lot may be cast 
 in barbarian caves, where ignorance and wildness ever frown, or under 
 gilded pinnacles, where learning and refinement are lustrous : he may 
 have to tread the very rudimental steps of civilisation, or he may 
 have but to stretch forth his hand to appropriate its spoils — still what 
 he will be will depend on his aptitudes, and what he will acquire on 
 his discrimination, application, assiduity, and intrepidity. 
 
 As his improvement, so also his protection depends on his own pre- 
 cautions. He defends himself from the inclemency of the elements 
 by suitable clothing — for health he seeks the salubrious locality, 
 wholesome, nutritious food, exercise, recreation, and rest in due pro- 
 portion, and observes temperance in all things. His security on land 
 is the well-built habitation — on the sea, the firmly-built vessel. His 
 relation to the external world, and the conditions of fraternity with 
 his fellows, are the physical and social problems he has to solve. He 
 sees the strength of passion and the educative force of circumstances, 
 and he studies them to control them. The affairs of men are a process 
 which he seeks to wisely regulate, not blindly and violently thwart. 
 The world has two ages — those of fear and love. The barbarian and 
 incipient past has been the epoch of fear. Even now its dark shadows 
 lower over us. Love has never yet emerged from poesy and passion, 
 has not yet put forth half its strength, nor kindness half its power. 
 These graceful forces of humanity, whose victory is that of peace, 
 have scarcely invaded the dominions of war — but Love will one day 
 step into the throne of Fear, the arts of peace become the business 
 
160 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The epitaph of a student of nature. 
 
 of life, and fraternity the watch-word of joyous nations. Plainly, as 
 though written with the finger of Orion on the vault of night, does 
 man read this future in his heart. The impulse of affection that leaps 
 unbidden in his breast, though suppressed in competitive strife, or 
 withered by cankering cares, yet returns in the woodland walk and 
 the midnight musing, ever whispering of something better to be 
 realised than war, and dungeons, and isolated wealth have yet brought 
 us. The student of self and nature, thus impressed, goes forth in the 
 busy scene of life, to improve and to please. The attributes which 
 rationalism prescribes to man, are perennial discretion and kindness. 
 
 Thus I have believed. I accepted the order of things I found with- 
 out complaint, and I attempted their improvement without despair — 
 and it might be written on my tomb, 
 
 ' I was not troubled with the time which drove 
 O'er my content its strong necessities, 
 But let determined things to destiny 
 Hold unbewailed their way.' 
 
 And looking out from the bed of death, over the dim sea of the 
 future, on which no voyager's bark is seen returning, I can place no 
 dependence en priestly dogmas, which all life has belied. The paltry 
 visions of gilt trumpets and angels' wings seem like the visions of 
 irony or levity. The reality it is more heroic to contemplate. The 
 darkness and mystery of the future create a longing for unravelment. 
 The enigma of life makes the poetry of death, and invests with a 
 sublime interest the last venture on untried existence. 
 
 Many honest and intelligent persons, who do not fear the future, 
 fear the transit to it. Novelists and dramatists, in illustrating a false 
 theory of crime, adopted from the Churches, have drawn exaggerated 
 pictures of the aspects of death, through which the popular idea of 
 dying has become melodramatic, and as far from truth and nature, as 
 is the extravagance of melodrama from the pure tone of simple and 
 noble tragedy. 
 
 A little reflection will show us that the physical fear some have of 
 death is as groundless as the moral. Eminent physicians have shown 
 that death being always preceded by the depression of the nervous 
 system, life must always terminate without feeling While appre- 
 hension is vivid, while a scream of terror or pain can be uttered, death 
 is still remote. Organic disease, or a mortal blow, may end existence 
 with a sudden pang, but in the majority of cases men pass out of life as 
 unconsciously as they came into it. To the well-informed, death, in 
 its gradualness and harmlessness, is, what Homer called it — the half- 
 brother of sleep : and the wise expect it undisturbed ; and if they 
 have no reason to welcome it, bear it like any other calamity. 
 
 Were we not from childhood the victims of superstitions, we should 
 always regard death thus ; but priests make death the rod whereby 
 they whip the understanding into submission to untenable dogmas. 
 For men know no independence, and are at the mercy of every strong 
 imposition, while they fear to die. That ancient spoke a noble truth 
 
WHY SHOULD THE ATHEIST FEAR TO DIE ? 161 
 
 The Golden Rule considered as a maxim of the last judgment. 
 
 svho said nothing could harm that man — tyranny had no terrors with 
 tvhich it could subdue him who had conquered the fear of the grave. 
 How often progress has been arrested — how often good men have 
 faltered in their course — how often philosophy has concealed its light, 
 and science denied its own demonstrations, only because the priest 
 has pointed to his distorted image of death ! 
 
 Among people of cultivated intelligence the idea of a punishing 
 God is morally repulsive. It is rejected as a fact because demoralising 
 as an example. The Unitarian principle, which trusts God and never 
 fears him, is the instinct of civilisation : it gains ground every day 
 and in every quarter. The parent coerces his child in order to cor- 
 rect him, because the parent wants patience, or time, or wisdom, or 
 humanity. But as God is assumed to want none of these qualities, he 
 can attain any end of government he wishes by instruction, for in 
 moral discipline 'it is not conduct but character which has to be 
 changed.' In Francis William Newman's portraiture of Christian 
 attributes, he enumerates 'love, compassion, patience, disinterested- 
 ness,' qualities incompatible with the sentiment of eternal punishment 
 — and as was before observed, God cannot be supposed as falling short 
 of the virtues of cultivated Christians. If we accept the hypothesis of 
 God, we must agree with Mr. Newman that ' all possible perfectness 
 of man's spirit must be a mere faint shadow of the divine perfection.' 
 ' The thought that any should have endless woe, 
 Would cast a shadow on the throne of God, 
 And darken heaven.' 
 The greatest aphorism ascribed to Christ, called his Golden Rule, 
 tells us that Ave should do unto others as we would others should do 
 unto us. It is not moral audacity, but a logical and legitimate 
 application of this maxim, to say that if men shall eventually stand 
 before the bar of God, God will not pronounce upon any that appalling 
 sentence, ' Cast them into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and 
 gnashing of teeth ;' because this will not be doing to others as he, in 
 the same situation, would wish to be done unto himself. If frail man is 
 to ' do good to them that hate him,' God, who is said to be also Love, 
 will surely not burn those w T ho, in their misfortune and blindness, 
 have erred against him. He who is above us all in power, will be also 
 above us all in magnanimity. 
 
 Wonderful is the imbecility of the people ! The rich man is con- 
 ceded the holiest sepulchre in the Church, although his wealth be won 
 by extortion or chicane, or selfishly hoarded while thousands of his 
 brethren have perished, while children have grown up hideous for 
 want of food, while women have stooped consumptive over the needle, 
 and men have died prematurely of care and toil. The priest-soothed 
 conscience feels no terror on the pillow of plethoric affluence — then 
 why should the poor man be uneasy in death ? Kings and queens, who 
 cover their brows with diadems stained with human blood, and main- 
 tain their regal splendour out of taxes extorted from struggling 
 industrv, are, in their last hours, assured by the highest spiritual 
 21 
 
162 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 It is only the slave soul that imagines a tyrant God. 
 
 authorities of their free admission to Heaven, and Poets-Laureat have 
 sung of their welcome there — then why should the obscure man be 
 tremulous as to acceptance at the hand of Him who is called the God 
 of the poor ? The aristocracy pass from time unmolested by death-bed 
 apprehensions, although they hold fast to privilege and splendour, 
 though their tenants expire on the tireless hearth, or on the friendless 
 mattrass of the Poor Law Union — then why should the people enter- 
 tain dread ? While every tyrant who has fettered his country — and 
 every corrupt minister who has plotted for its oppression, or betrayed 
 its freedom to the ' Friends of Order ' — is committed to the grave ' in 
 the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection ' — why should the 
 indigent patriot fear to die ? While even the bishop, who federates 
 with the despots, and gives his vote almost uniformly against the people 
 — while the Priests, Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenting, work into the 
 hands of the government against the poor, and fulminate celestial 
 menaces against those whose free thoughts reject the fetters of 
 their creeds — while these can die in peace, what have the honest 
 and the independent to fear ? If the insensate monarch, the 
 sordid millionaire, the rapacious noble, the false politician, and 
 the servile clergyman, meet death with assurance, surely humble 
 industry, patient merit, and enduring poverty, need not own a 
 tremor or heave a sigh ! If we choose to live as freemen, let us at 
 least have the dignity to die so, nor discredit the privilege of liberty 
 by an unmanly bearing. If we have the merit of integrity, we should 
 also have its peace — while we have the destiny of suffering we should 
 not have less than its courage ! 
 
 The truth is, if we do not know how to die, it is because we do not 
 know how to live. If we know ourselves, we know that when we 
 can preserve the temper of love, and of service, by which love is 
 manifested, and of endurance, by which love is proved, we acquire 
 that healthy sense of duty done which casts out fear. They who 
 constantly mean well and do well, know not what it is to dread ill. 
 And the fearless are also the free, and the free have no foreboding. 
 ' It is only the slave soul which dreads a tyrant God.'* Therefore — 
 
 'So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan, that moves 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night 
 Scourged to his dungeon; but approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'f 
 
 W. J. Fox, M.P. t Bryant. 
 
UNITARIAN THEISM. 163 
 
 Unitarian misconception of Secularism. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 UNITARIAN THEISM. 
 
 Since Atheistical views have somewhat occupied the attention of the 
 public, orthodoxy has claimed whatever it has condescended to 
 consider good in them ; and Unitarianism, with half-hidden pity, has 
 gently warned us that we need not put up with our inferior views, 
 while theirs lie ready at hand for adoption. Thus the world is 
 instructed to esteem us either benighted or infatuated until we catch 
 the accents of one Shibboleth or the other. Orthodoxy has no claims 
 upon us ; and as we find Unitarianism willing to cast off its own free 
 churches, and looking coldl}* on its progressive preachers, we are little 
 attracted by it. Orthodox Unitarianism makes no progress. It has 
 retrograded since the days of Priestley and Belsham. Where is now 
 the political vitality it had in the time of Dr. Price and Dr. Cooper ? 
 It is supine in life, and recalcitrant in creed. It exerts its ornate elo- 
 quence to win men back (under all the fruitless odium of heresy) to the 
 superstitions from which they have escaped. 
 
 Debate does not cut the Gordian knot of mystery. Mental difficulties 
 are not to be cut, but unravelled. Human opinions upon unsolved 
 problems are a mingled web of truth and error, of prejudice and mis- 
 conception. Discussion may sometimes ravel as well as unravel. In 
 all human attempts to untie knots there is the liability of drawing 
 them tighter. This sometimes happens in debate ; but in time the 
 threads of confusion get disentangled one by one. 
 
 It will be well, in this place, to notice the relation of Theism to 
 Secularism. It is needless to disguise the fact, that the name of the 
 writer of these pages will lead many readers to suppose that certain 
 Secular principles, insisted upon at times by him, are necessarily anti- 
 theistic, whereas such principles are perfectly neutral. As certain 
 eminent Unitarian Ministers have fallen into the error of confounding 
 Secularism and Atheism, it will be instructive to review here six 
 discourses by gentlemen whose names we shall enumerate.* 
 
 * In 1855 the Rev. Brooke Herford, then of Todmorden, Unitarian minister, proposed to 
 place before the Secular body the Unitarian views. His lectures, delivered in the London 
 Mechanics' Institution, at the request of the London Secular Society, were much esteemed 
 for their ability and liberality. Afterwards sis lectures were addressed to the Secularists of 
 London. The" topics and lecturers were as follow :— 
 
 ' The Causes of Unbelief among the Working Classes.'— Rev. John Gordon, of Edinburgh . 
 
 'Religion Indispensable to the Moral Development of Human Nature.'— Rev. Henry 
 Solly, 
 
 ' True Religion expressed in the Life and Teachings of Christ.'— Rev. J. J. Tayler. 
 
 ' The Recognition of the Distinction between Religion and Science, essential to a right 
 understanding of the Bible.'— Rev. Thomas L. Marshall. 
 
 ' The Christian View of Human Life and Destiny.'— Rev. Thomas Madge. 
 
 ' The Right of Free Ltquiry in Relation to Christianity and its accompanying Responsi- 
 bilities.'— Rev. Charles Clarke, of Birmingham. 
 
164 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The function of Materialism scientific security. 
 
 In Mr. Gordon's lecture, there was a stateliness of thought and 
 style, and a well-earned authority of opinion, that lent weight to his 
 advocacy. 
 
 Mr. Solly spoke earnestly, but in a fluent, paternal tone, as though 
 the Unitarian Church had settled the question of moral sentiment for 
 all classes and for all time. 
 
 Mr. Tayler's eloquent lecture was the most artistic and matured of 
 the course. In it, the mind was wooed by all the graces of thought, 
 and all the tenderness of chastened sensibility. The argument of 
 affection was heightened by a poetic warmth which imparted fresh- 
 ness to that which was old, and seductiveness to that which was new. 
 
 Mr. Marshall went over the debatable ground of Biblical inter- 
 pretation, as though difficulties were imaginary, and doubt a caprice. 
 
 Mr. Madge sought to show that Christianity, if it were not the 
 conviction of the understanding, might be the policy of the affections, 
 and painted the Christian destiny in all the allurements of an elegant 
 and impressive rhetoric. 
 
 Mr. Clarke's very liberal lecture had the peculiarity of agreeing with 
 Secularists more cordially, and differing from them more widely, than 
 any preceding one. 
 
 I cannot pretend to speak with either the dignity or the authority 
 of these gentlemen : to all their splendour of persuasion, I can only 
 oppose the plain impressions of one who listened to learn, and not to 
 confute. 
 
 I shall speak of each discourse in the order in which it was 
 delivered, presuming to indicate only the general impressions made 
 upon the Secular hearer. 
 
 Mr. Gordon confounded the popular predilection for the doctrine of 
 necessity — which truly means the law of causation — with the second 
 and repulsive sense of Materialism, which means grossness. The 
 working class are less attached to material interests than any class in 
 the state : all the forlorn hopes of progress are made up from their 
 ranks. It is not Materialism in its secondary sense, but causation, 
 which is becoming the philosophy of the working class ; and certainly 
 they who suffer so much are entitled to ask the reason why, and to 
 insist upon having a reason, both from the politician and the priest. 
 
 An important verbal injustice is done to Freethought when it is 
 rendered in the hard, gross, self-sufficient sense which priests have 
 associated with the term Materialism. In its actual sense, Materialism 
 is the search after calculable causes, that progress may no longer be 
 a vague or capricious aspiration, but a serious scientific pursuit, in 
 which the steps shall be definite, measured, and reliable. In this 
 universe of multitudinous effects, Materialism does not pretend to 
 assign the causes of each. What Materialism does is this — it endea- 
 vours to ascertain the causes of such effects as men may find it desirable 
 to control. Materialism does not deny effects because it cannot assign 
 their causes — it acknowledges that innumerable effects exist of which 
 the causes are unknown — but the service Materialism renders, is that 
 

 UNITARIAN THEISM. 165 
 
 The origin of theology. 
 
 of warning mankind that these effects cannot constitute any part of a 
 science of progress until they are traced to calculable causes. 
 
 A philosophical Materialism does not seek to forestall proof, and 
 predict that all causes must be physical. The unknown causes of 
 effects may be moral, or even spiritual : such issue it foresees, but it is 
 wisely inexorable in demanding the proof before it admits the fact. 
 It is of no consequence to progress, whether causes are physical, 
 moral, or spiritual, provided they are calculable : with this element 
 they are reliable, without it, mystical and uncertain. In the face of 
 the weighty judgment of Mr. Gordon, I do not hesitate to avow myself 
 as belonging to this school of Causationists — nor do I see how a wise 
 rationalism can discourage the intellectual discipline which a pure 
 Materialism inculcates. 
 
 Mr. Gordon rightly credited the working classes with the frankness 
 of publicly avowing their Freeth inking. It would be wrong, however, 
 thence to infer that Freethinking has not made great progress among 
 other classes. Indeed, the working classes are too apt to consider all 
 above them as time-serving. I, however, have heard more gentlemen 
 than workmen, openly refuse to stand on the Christian side, or to bear 
 the Christian name. The Freethought of the workman is more 
 zealous, militant, and devoted, according to means, but that of the 
 gentleman is more incisive and thorough. And when Freethinking 
 can win legal equality in law courts, and learns to maintain its honesty 
 free from belligerent repulsiveness, it will be found to have substantial 
 supporters in all classes. 
 
 Mr. Solly evidently regarded us as children wandering on the shore 
 of opinion, sometimes stumbling on pebbles of Truth — but who 
 evidently did not know what to do with them when we had found 
 them. Mr. Solly was wrong in supposing that we regarded religion 
 as an invention of priests. The simplicity of popular ignorance is 
 such, that if religion be an invention at all, it is quite as likely to be 
 an invention of the people's as of the priests'. Eeligion, however, was 
 no invention : it was a growth : it grew out of that error which Mr. 
 Solly suggested, and which Mr. Madge, with more elaborate eloquence, 
 commended to our adoption — the error of regarding our presentiments 
 as proofs of external existences. 
 
 When an orthodox man finds you do not believe in the Bible, he 
 immediately concludes that you do not believe in anything great or 
 good — indeed, his range is so narrow, that he does not see anything 
 save the Bible to believe in. In the same manner, Mr. Solly, because 
 we do not believe in his ideas, concluded that we do not believe in any- 
 thing or anybody ' superior to ourselves.' As a type of the logical 
 Secularist, as Mr. Solly appears to conceive him, Mr. Solly introduced 
 to our notice a certain person, whom he had actually met — a man 
 'who did not believe in anything superior to himself.' I have 
 often heard of this notability before. He is nearly as well known in 
 polemical literature as the Wandering Jew. Addison reported him, 
 the author of the ' Minute Philosopher ' made a ' note of him.' Before 
 
166 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Civilisation has disproved and superseded the trustfulness of Christ. 
 
 railways were invented, perigrinating clergymen caught glimpses of 
 him upon stage-coaches. He now chiefly shows himself in third class 
 carriages, and in the note-hooks of city missionaries. But Mr. Solly's 
 is the first authentic case in which this self-sufficient individual has 
 been seen face to face.* Mr. Solly's contempt, however, for his order 
 of mind, is not greater than ours. If we do not believe in the Shib- 
 boleths of Theology, we believe in Humanity, in Justice, and in Truth 
 — and our appeal is to those who can distinguish identity of emulous 
 sentiment under diversity of manifestation. 
 
 When men first began to turn with disdain from Bacchanalian 
 orgies, Greek orthodoxy saw in it the decline of piety. In these days, 
 when you reject Christianity, modern orthodoxy sees in it the decline 
 of reverence. It is simply another form of progress to higher and 
 severer ideals. The wonderful progress initiated around us, is but a 
 new manifestation of the eternal and inextinguishable sentiment of 
 reverence. The very word progress implies the perception, the 
 preference, and the pursuit of excellence. But this spontaneous and 
 hopeful choice of new excellence, upon which the development of 
 Humanity depends, the Conservative calls anarchy, and the Theologian 
 ' atheism.' 
 
 And here one is forced to dissent from Mr. Tayler's doctrine, that 
 Christ was a model man — a perfect type of Humanity in religiousness 
 — i.e., in dependence upon God. Christ's religiousness was not that 
 cultivated dependence upon God which regards the universe as His 
 manifestation, and the laws of nature as the ritual of His service — it 
 was not that instructed faith which sees true prayer only in honest 
 action — which regards ' the prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field 
 to weed it — or the prayer of the rower, bending with the stroke of his 
 oar,' as nobler worship than the cheap and florid orisons of indolent 
 piety. The religiousness of Christ consisted in a dependence, which 
 civilisation has discarded, and which all modern churches treat as 
 fanatical in men. Xo one sooner than Christ, would repudiate the 
 cold and relative dependence which Unitarianism recognises. The 
 trustfulness of Christ held nature and life in an imperial subordination. 
 His royal words were, ' Take no thought for the morrow ; consider 
 the lilies of the field how they grow — yet they toil not, and they spin 
 not.' These were the words of a conqueror, and the inspiration of a 
 devotee. After two thousand years, there would be a power in them 
 to stir the souls of men were not all civilisation in a conspiracy to dis- 
 prove their truth. What Christian now takes Christ at his word ? Are 
 they not all anxious in spite of it ? Do not all strive in face of the 
 promise ? What sect presents the grace of perfect trust ? St. Paul 
 himself, penetrating to his Master's error, or despairing of his Master's 
 policy, led the way in suggesting the Secular maxim, • diligent in 
 
 * In the course of some courteous and friendly, but critical remarks offered on this 
 passage, the Rev. Mr - Solly said, he hoped we did not dispute the fact, that he had met 
 such a person. Certainly not. We intended to indicate that Mr. Solly's authority estab- 
 lished authenticity of the individual. 
 
UNITARIAN THEISM. 167 
 
 The character of Jesus Christ. 
 
 business, fervent in spirit — serving the Lord.' And all Christendom 
 has acknowledged the sagacity of the apostle, and have consented to 
 interpret Christ by Paul, and to explain away that grand repose, that 
 brave and reliant trust, which Christ counselled and which Christians 
 certainly owe to Him, whom they pretend to recognise as their 
 Father and their God. The universal necessity of men cleaving to 
 Paul, while they swear by Christ, proves that the religiousness of 
 Christ was a superstition, and it is counted such when we meet the 
 same quality of it in the Koran. 
 
 There was intensity in Christ's utterances, but not that consistency 
 now claimed for him. He inspired, but he did not guide. He who 
 could counsel us to forgive our brother seventy times seven, and yet 
 feel that the day would come when he would deny those in Heaven 
 who denied him on earth — he who could sublimely tell us to overcome 
 evil with good, and yet predict the time when lie would cast into 
 ' outer darkness,' into ' weeping and wailing,' those who failed to 
 believe in his name — he who, down to his last hour, when his own 
 true heart told him to forgive his persecutors, still felt it necessary to 
 implore God to forgive those who knew not what they did — he, I say, 
 betrayed a fatal moral incoherence which plunges the earnest believer 
 at once into love, terror, and distraction. In Christ's teachings the 
 ethics of Heaven and of Earth were distinct, different, and irrecon- 
 cileable. There is one memorable sentence of Christ's far too fervid 
 not to have been genuine. It is the keystone to his religious character : 
 he lived with its shadow on his soul, and he died with its spirit on his 
 lips. I allude to his declaration that 'they who believed should 
 be saved, and they who believed not should be damned.' This 
 text opens like a grave. It is a gulf into which sincerity is 
 thrown with vice ; it is the bottomless pit of an undiscriminating 
 Christianity, into which will be hurled alike the earnest and 
 the hypocrite. Honesty and purity will be buried there with 
 sensuality and villany.* Christ saw no distinction — he felt none, he 
 meant none, or he would have made one. How men of cultivated 
 sentiments can, in this day, hold up Christ as the perfection of moral 
 genius, is to me inexplicable. The first thinker of our times has said 
 ' Christ was a Chartist.'f It would be far more accurate to say he 
 was the Robespierre of Christianity. Gentle himself, in all personal 
 affection, Christ was — under the influence of his faith — inexorable. 
 There he spared neither ties of blood, nor friendship, nor age, nor sex, 
 nor integrity. Robespierre, as a man, would not put King Louis to 
 death — as a theorist, he would guillotine a nation. Christ, as a teacher, 
 
 * The overwhelming majority of Christians have always so understood this passage. 
 Witness the following words from the sermon of our modern Whitfield. We quote from a 
 sermon on the ' Sin of Unbelief,' by tiiis new master of orthodox fustian :— ' Oh ! sirs, be- 
 lieve me, could ye roll all sins into one mass — could you take murder and blasphemy, and 
 lust, adultery, aud fornication, and everything that is vile, and unite them all into one vast 
 globe of black corruption, they would not equal even then the sin of unbelief. This is 
 the monarch sin, the quintessence of guilt ; the mixture of the venom of all crimes ; the 
 dregs of the wine of Gomorrah ; it is the Al sin, the masterpiece of Satan, the chief work 
 of the Devil.'— Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 t Carlyle. 
 
168 THE TRIAL, OF THEISM. 
 
 The ethics of the Bihle as uninspired as its science. 
 
 could say with ineffable tenderness — ' Suffer little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not ;' as the defender of a religion, he was 
 prepared to cast a world into ' the fire which is never quenched.' 
 
 Mr. Marshall gracefully conceded our right to dig with himself in 
 the mine of scriptural facts, but he made no secret of his opinion, that 
 we were incapable of distinguishing the ore from the earth. His idea 
 that we refuse to recognise the wonderful facts in the life of Christ, 
 because the Songs of Solomon are unreadable, was the usual misap- 
 prehension of the Secular view of the scriptures. I do not refuse 
 to recognise the divine in Christ's character. I do not see it there. 
 The Unitarian estimate of it seems to me a reactionary exaggeration. 
 Alarmed at their just temerity in excluding the Son of a Carpenter 
 from the Trinity, the Unitarians, so it appears to me, hasten to pro- 
 pitiate orthodox resentment, by extolling the human nature of Christ 
 up to the point of celestial perfection and infallibility ; at which point 
 his example ceases to be an encouragement to men, because his life is 
 then no longer a struggle with our common frailty, but the easy 
 triumph of a faultless nature. Endowed above all men, he suffered 
 therefore less than any. In conscious communion with God, he 
 neither experienced our darkness nor our doubts. Had his recorded 
 life been equal to the Unitarian theory, Christ would still be a mis- 
 chosen exemplar to humanity ; but as his life was below their theory, 
 Unitarianism contradicts the intellect, as well as confuses morals. 
 
 The doctrine of Mr. Marshall, that the Scriptures are inspired in 
 moral, and not scientific respects, never did seem to me, in any form in 
 which I have met it, as worthy of serious refutation. Certainly, the 
 Bible is not more inspired in morals than in science. The educated 
 religious ideas of this day are as superior to the theology of the Bible, 
 as the science of this day is superior to the science of the Bible. The 
 doctrine that the Holy Spirit pandered to the scientific ignorance of 
 the olden times, is really but another way of saying that inspiration 
 pandered to moral imperfection also. The moral teaching, both of the 
 Old and Xew Testaments, is quite as crude as their scientific compro- 
 mises. Be this as it may, I must still be allowed to say, that Mr. 
 Marshall's doctrine, that God adapted his scientific allusions to the 
 ignorance of his people,* is one which a Christian ought himself 
 strenuously to protest against. Silence itself, where truth would 
 have been so easy to God and so beneficial to men, is hardly capable 
 of justification ; but to assert that God, consciously or wilfully, used 
 forms of expression which assented to error, and added to it the solem- 
 nity and permanence of celestial verification, would appear to us, if 
 not put forth by Christians themselves, as charging upon God that 
 which we should resent in man as unnecessary, dangerous, and an 
 unpardonable dishonesty. 
 
 * This appears to me to be the actual purport of this passage : — ' The Bible did not profess 
 
 to instruct mankind. ... in physical science of any kind : its authors were inspired only 
 
 when they wrote on subjects affecting man's spiritual condition. The early portion of the 
 Old Testament was adapted to the state of knowledge at the time at which it was written.' 
 — Vide Inquirer, No. 672, p. 315. 
 
UNITARIAN THEISM. 169 
 
 The battle of life is for justice— not for consolation. 
 
 As respects the judgment of Scripture, a question raised by Mr. 
 Gordon, and insisted upon by Mr. Marshall, I do not see how any 
 Unitarian conclusion can be accepted, unless it be done upon grounds 
 independent of Christianity. I agree with Dr. Hampden, that the 
 Bible contains the facts of Christianity, but I feel myself unable to 
 follow any one who reasons upon those facts, unless he admits the 
 infallibility of them all, or specifies which he retains. You can never 
 try the conclusions of that man who takes the rationalist license of 
 dropping out the facts from the Scriptural premises, or changing the 
 classification from literal to metaphorical, at discretion. Nor can you well 
 reason on the Bible with any man, whether orthodox or rationalist, 
 until he puts into your hands an exact copy of the Bible as he would 
 render it, with the historic and spiritual passages marked, the doubtful 
 passages fixed, and a glossary of leading terms. Until he does this, 
 you can get no certain guidance out of him. Until he does this, his 
 dogmatisms are an injustice to others, and until the common ground 
 of the argument is before us, we are bound to disallow the right of 
 such a one to judge us. 
 
 Mr. Madge's estimate of the social theorists, from Plato to Godwin, 
 was the estimate of one who not only misapprehends the moral inspi- 
 ration of Socialism, but also the signs of the times around us. The 
 social theorists, from Plato to Godwin, were the social prophets who 
 taught society to what it should tend, and who predicted to what it has 
 tended ; and though the elements of Christianity have combatted their 
 inspirations at every step, each new triumph of civilisation is a contri- 
 bution to, and a confirmation of, their truth. 
 
 It seems to me a duty to dissent from Mr. Madge's views of Christian 
 life and destiny. Because virtue often suffers, and vice attains public 
 success, he presses to know, on the supposition that this life is all, how 
 we can combat this discouragement ? We answer, that to the man 
 educated in integrity, virtue is never absolute suffering, and vice never 
 appears to such a man ' success.' He views such success with disdain, 
 and combats it as a policy. Next we say, that the state of society hi 
 which the prize of life can fall to the vicious is proof of the moral 
 impotence of Christianity. It is on this very ground that Morelly 
 proposed, and we justify, the problem of Communism, which is ' to 
 find the conditions in which it shall be impossible for men to be 
 depraved or poor.' When Mr. Madge tells us that some such scheme 
 of consolation is publicly necessary, he gives up the battle of life. We 
 do not. Secularism proposes to continue it, by more reliable weapons 
 than Christianity has, or can supply. We may say, in the impassioned 
 words of Louis Blanc : ' 2,000 years have passed, during which entire 
 nations have knelt before a gibbet, adoring in the sufferer who gave 
 himself up to death — the Saviour of mankind. And yet what slavery 
 still ! What lepers in our moral world ! What unfortunate beings 
 in the visible and feeling world ! What triumphant iniquity ! What 
 tyranny enjoying at its ease the scandal of its own impunity ! The 
 Saviour has come — when comes salvation ?' 
 22 
 
170 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 If we seek satisfaction rather than truth, the old religions are before the new. 
 
 Secularism does not despair. It will not give up the contest ; nor 
 will it accept any doctrine of consolation as a substitute for justice 
 here. It seeks redress. 
 
 The admirable ability with which Mr. Madge put his case, enables 
 us to see more clearly the answer thereto. Neither my presentiments 
 nor my wishes are grounds for accepting any belief. The Unitarian 
 view of destiny may be acceptable to my nature, but I dare not adopt 
 it until I see it to be true. Truth is higher than any theory. No 
 system can meet the wants of any truthful nature except that which 
 is compatible with the convictions. Is not this the history of the 
 progress of the purest religions ? Ka man may choose a religion 
 because it meets the wants of his nature, why should any man adopt 
 Unitarianism, which snaps asunder that wondrously- devised link of 
 human sympathy — the idea of God in Christ — a blending of the human 
 and celestial elements, which has fascinated Christendom for eighteen 
 centuries ? Why should we not re-advocate the doctrine of prayer 
 for temporal deliverance — that doctrine which nerved the early 
 martyrs, and which still lures the multitude to the churches ? On the 
 principle that that is preferable which is best adapted to human nature, 
 Polytheism is infinitely before even Trinitarianism. Of all religious 
 devices, the worship of the Virgin is, to my mind, the most graceful 
 and seductive In all the literature of sentimental piety, there is 
 nothing so full of true pathos as the Evening Prayer of the Catholic 
 maiden — 
 
 ' mother of God! star of the sea! 
 Pray the Wanderer — pray for me.' 
 
 "Why Protestantism, by the brutal hand of Luther, cut off from human 
 worship the sweetest elements of half human nature. Who would not 
 exchange the anxious life of the Englishman for the impassible non- 
 chalance of the Turk, whose quiet fatalism gives him fearlessness 
 in battle, and indifference, though the arrows of death, or pestilence, 
 fall around him — 
 
 ' Who is not troubled with the tide, which drives 
 O'er his content its strong necessities — 
 But lets determined things to destiny 
 Hold unbewailed their way.' 
 
 Why should we seek to disturb the rapt devotion of the Hindoo, who 
 drinks the sacred waters of the Ganges with a sublime joy unknown 
 to those who sit at cold communion tables, and who expires in bliss if 
 his weary feet can carry him to the rocks of Gangoutri ? Com- 
 pared with old religions, whose antiquity, glory, and splendour 
 fill the soul, enchant the sense, gratify the affection, and call forth 
 heroism stronger than death — what is our cold and heartless Protes- 
 tantism, Avith scant traditions, without dominion, divorced from art, 
 barren, bleak, and bare? What charms have neAv opinions and 
 reformed religions equal to these age-crowned glories? Is it not 
 
UNITARIAN THEISM. 171 
 
 The charge that Freethought is deficient in the element of reverence. 
 
 that truth is stronger than time ; that reality conquers tradition ; 
 that the fresh inspirations of freedom and nature purify the intellect, 
 and give new powers and affections to man ; unfold to him purer 
 glories, and renew before his wondering eyes a*i untried existence, 
 surpassing in splendour and permanence the superstitious past ? The 
 worship of truth is the only healthy worship, and will, one day, super- 
 sede all others. 
 
 Mr. Clarke's lecture was a model of liberal sentiment. I hear many 
 liberal sentiments, to which I pay no regard, perceiving that those 
 who utter them do not understand them. But it was very easy to see 
 that Mr. Clarke, in speaking high words of freedom, meant them. 
 But his defence of Christianity was without force or originality. To 
 assert that the axioms by which we oppose Christianity are derived 
 from it, and can have no independent source, is a narrower judgment 
 than Butler, or Chalmers, or Whately, or Binney, would utter. To 
 contend that the rise of Christianity was unique — that all great ideas 
 (in music, architecture, humanity, morals, etc.) have arisen out of it* 
 — that all human virtue pales before that of Christian professors, were 
 instances of those agreeable complacencies peculiar to all old religions, 
 but not often manifested or admired elsewhere. 
 
 In reviewing these lectures, I combat the broad spirit, rather than 
 the terms, of notable passages. It was easy to see that Secularism 
 was regarded as deficient in the element of just reverence. We demur 
 to the judgment, and question the fitness of the judges to pronounce 
 it. The religionist is noticeably the slave of inherited associations, 
 and always thinks, more or less, within the fetters of the Bible. The 
 Secularist, standing on independent grounds, determines for himself 
 what should be the attitude of man towards the Infinite Personality 
 on the part of those discerning His existence. And noticing the 
 manner in which God is addressed, he feels the truth of Miss 
 Martineau's exclamation — ' There is no view of Deity extant which is 
 not so degrading as to make me blush, so misleading as to make me 
 mourn !' Who can regard free parliaments as the symbol of repre- 
 sentative institutions, and hear them described as mere national 
 palavers, without feeling that the way is paved for their dissolution 
 by your Crom wells — or their abolition by your Louis Napoleons ? 
 Who can regard families as the source of social purity, and not regard 
 the conventional derision of their responsibilities as so much blasphemy 
 against them — and when I hear people tell me I should hold the 
 great name of God in honour, at the same time that they suffer it to 
 be the word of intrigue in politics, of contentions on platforms, of 
 polemics between rival sects, the catch-word of literature, and the 
 task-word of schools, I cease to believe in the existence of any true 
 
 * Doubtless important ideas have been suggested by the Bible, as has happened with the 
 Bibles and national books of all peoples. But all great ideas are not so derived. The 
 world is greater than the Bible. The great and progressive ideas of the a^e are not extracted 
 from the Bible. Men put them in, and Bibliolatry believes it finds them there. 
 
172 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 Decker's saying that ' Christ was the first true gentleman that ever breathed.' 
 
 religious sentiment on their part. During these discourses, I have 
 heard a familiarity of thought on this subject, which, had I been a 
 believer, I myself could not have employed. Even in Mr. Tayler's 
 lecture, so eminently chaste in thought, I had no sooner, as an unpre- 
 judiced hearer should, surrendered my sympathies to the lecturer, 
 than I heard phrases which smote on my conscience like a crime ; and 
 from which, if a Christian, I should again shrink as though I heard 
 some guilty thing. Mazzini and Professor Newman are the only two 
 persons whose deep converse on God meets my ideal of what is theoreti- 
 cally reverential. Mr. Tayler quoted Decker, who described Christ 
 as 'the first true gentleman that ever breathed;' a remark which 
 Christ, were he upon earth, would not understand, nor accept if in 
 heaven. Yet this idea is higher than the Christian notion of God, 
 for Christians certainly speak of him and to him, as they would not 
 dare to speak to or of any gentleman. If Plato, or Aristotle, or Bacon, 
 or Shakspere, were to revisit this sphere, how few men are there who 
 could adequately converse with them, and who would dare praise 
 them to their face ? What is the praise of mediocrity in the estima- 
 tion of genius ? Only those whose reach of thought is equal to that 
 of the person praised, is, in the opinion of the person praised, of any 
 value. What presumption, then, lies in the defence-praises of God, 
 with which our pulpits abound ! If Christ be but half as great as 
 Unitarians allege, Mrs. Barbauld is right, and ' silence is our least 
 injurious praise.' What gentleman would endure to be perpetually 
 told of his good qualities or benefactions. The ' true gentleman ' 
 treats with quick contempt, or deeply suspects, the obtrusive gratitude 
 which is ever forcing itself on his notice. That others are happy, he 
 is content, and he has a feeling of just satisfaction if it be through his 
 instrumentality ; but he never degrades his munificence by exacting 
 or permitting an everlasting and demoralising acknowledgment of 
 it. 
 
 The orthodox worship of God I do not here notice. Excepting in 
 its sincerity, it is simply revolting. My purpose is to protest with all 
 the energy of which I am capable, against the constant imputation of 
 irreverence to Atheism, on the part of a public who commit, or per- 
 mit, or sanction, the most contemptuous familiarity with Deity; 
 while we seek to preserve a studious and decorous neutrality. 
 
 The Unitarian is a mystery to me ; with his faith, I never could 
 live with his apathy. With the orthodox, God is an image of terror 
 — with the Unitarian, an object of trust. When I first saw this dis- 
 tinction, it had all the force of magic on my mind ; it was the first 
 deep thought of unchequered consolation I derived from theology, and 
 I never can understand how it is, that the Unitarian does not burn 
 with a noble passion to impart to the orthodox this inspiring and re- 
 fining idea, and to take in public affairs the lead this freedom gives 
 him. Whereas (with some noble exceptions on the part of persons 
 scarcely counted orthodox by their brethren) we find Unitarian 
 preaching a sonorous pastime, and the body a school of conservative 
 
UNITARIAN THEISM. 173 
 
 The character of a Secular Society. 
 
 doctrinaires, carefully guarding themselves against an identification 
 with others, which others do not desire.* 
 
 Let me, however, provide against the supposition any orthodox 
 hearers may entertain that because I dissent from Unitarian] sin, 
 therefore I undervalue the past of the Unitarian body, or their still 
 relative usefulness. In every part of the land, freedom and progress 
 are more indebted to them, than to all the orthodox sects. When I 
 first sought the privilege of teaching in their Sunday-schools, my re- 
 ligious friends gathered around me, and on their knees prayed against 
 the danger to my soul of such a step. In the tearful struggle through 
 which I then passed, I for the first time felt how orthodoxy was op- 
 posed to Secular usefulness. I went to the Unitarian Sabbath-schools, 
 and found crowds of children receiving their Secular instruction on 
 the only day on which they could get it. It seemed to me then, and 
 it seems to me still, that no faith was so sweet, no prayer so humane, 
 no creed so pure, as that true service to the poor. I can point at 
 this hour to scores of men who owe the capacity and usefulness of 
 their lives, to that instruction which Unitarianism gave, and Orthodoxy 
 refused, and still refuses, on the Sunday. The voice of Unitarianism 
 is still to me the voice, comparatively, of the friend of freedom and 
 progress — the voice of Orthodoxy that of the enemy of my peace and 
 my improvement. 
 
 From the points here briefly and abruptly discussed, some features 
 of Secularism may be gathered. I may in a few sentences 
 suggest more definitely what it is. I am not quite sure that the 
 gentlemen who have addressed us are very accurately informed 
 as to its nature. 
 
 An Athenasum is a type of a Secular Society. The members of an 
 Athenaeum are bound together by the avowed pursuit of literature 
 and science. In a news-room they learn the facts of the day — in a 
 library, the thought of ages — in a laboratory, the truths of science — 
 in a drawing room, they find recreation — in a coffee room, refresh- 
 ments. They have theatres for lectures — classes for languages, logic, 
 arts, and physics. Yet the society is not based on a mathematical, or 
 an astronomical, or a geological principle, but on the common prin- 
 ciple of personal improvement, with a view to public efficiency. In a 
 more limited and humble way, a Secular Society is an Athenaeum in 
 philosophy, with a wilder and more serious range of purpose. It has 
 classes for studies, committees who have charge of recreations, and a 
 platform for free advocacy. But its general principles are distinct 
 from all. 
 
 Secularism cemmences not in Atheism, but Cosmism. It acknow- 
 
 * A curious report in connection with the lectures here reviewed was made hy the Rev. 
 Thomas Marshall, at Radley's Hotel, on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the London 
 District Unitarian Society. Among other things, he related that ' Mr. Holyoake had told 
 him that he wished he could embrace Christianity,' etc. Mr Marshall is the Refractor of 
 Unitarianism. If a straight rod is dipped into water it appears crooked. Mi*. Marshall's 
 mind seems to he a similar refracting medium— the most straightforward statement that 
 enters it generally comes out bent. 
 
1 74 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 The Secular sphere, subjects, and mode of action. 
 
 ledges that nature is — it does not declare why it is. It traces the 
 order of the universe, but does not pronounce upon the cause. It 
 studies manifestations, but does not pledge itself to account for them. 
 Guided by the principle of materialism, which we define as the search, 
 not after primary, but after calculable causes, it labours in the inex- 
 haustible field of positive philosophy. A Secular Society may contain 
 classes for the study of Atheism, as it may of Theism, but the society 
 is not compromised by such pursuits. It neither proposes to define, 
 nor to limit, nor to answer for the opinions of its members. Its 
 function is to indicate to its members reliable methods of forming 
 their opinions, and to defend their right to acquire them, to hold them, 
 to utter them, and to debate them. 
 
 In observing the relation of man to the external world, we find 
 science to be an ever-growing source of help and conquest, which it is 
 wisdom to study and humanity to apply. There may be other help 
 than this. There may be help from prayer, or from providence. 
 Upon these points, the members of the Secular Society form such 
 opinions as to them the facts may seem to warrant, and they are 
 equally free to affirm or deny the existence or availability of super- 
 natural aid. Secularism limits itself to declaring that (whatever else 
 may be) science is a reliable and important agent of human progress. 
 Secularism qualifies its professions in order not to mislead its members, 
 but it insists on a free platform, that no conscience be compromised, 
 and all progress be possible. 
 
 In morals, the sphere of Secularism is no less sharply defined and 
 independent. It regards ethics as a possible science. Secularism 
 seeks to supply the material and social conditions under which, what- 
 ever of goodness (relative or absolute) exists in human nature, may 
 manifest itself unchecked. It would place the intellect under the 
 dominion of true ideas, and show to others that virtue is an advantage 
 as well as a duty. Whatever other means (as the authority of 
 the Bible or Grace of God) may be invoked as moral influences, 
 Secularism neither determines nor denies. Its province is to study 
 the universal and available Secular influence, which may exist and 
 operate independently or compatibly with Christianity. 
 
 The Secular rule of speech is referable to the same principle of 
 causation everywhere recognised. We do not seek to coerce the man, 
 but to dare and to command the judgment. We question sentiments 
 which we can try — not motives which are hidden, and may be as 
 honest as our own We would reason, not denounce. The true and 
 clear exposition of erroneous principles is higher in force than any 
 invective. Yet, here also we do not dogmatise ; we merely choose. 
 We leave to others, other weapons of advocacy — but we claim the 
 right to choose our own. 
 
 Secularism is a recognition of causation in nature, hi science, in 
 mind, morals, and manners. In electing its own sphere, however, it 
 will combat without contemning others. It may also omit much that 
 it respects, as well as that which it rejects — but to omit is not to 
 
UNITARIAN THEISM. 175 
 
 The leading principles of Secularism recounted. 
 
 ignore.* The solution of the problem of union can only be effected 
 by narrowing the ground of profession, and widening that of action — 
 it requires to collect sympathies without dictating modes of mani- 
 festation. 
 
 Secularism teaches the good of this Life to be a rightful object of 
 primary pursuit, inculcates the practical sufficiency of Natural 
 Morality apart from Atheism, Theism, or the Bible, selects as its 
 method of procedure the promotion of human improvement by 
 material means, and proposes unity of action on this threefold ground 
 of Positivism. 
 
 Secularism holds that the Protestant right of private judgment 
 includes the moral innocency of that judgment, whether for or against 
 received opinion ; provided it be conscientiously arrived at — that the 
 honest conclusion is without guilt — that though all sincere opinion is 
 not equally true, nor equally useful, it is yet equally without sin — 
 that it is not sameness of belief but sincerity of belief which justifies 
 conduct, whether regard be had to the esteem of men or the approval 
 of God. 
 
 With respect to the service of humanity, deliverance from sorrow 
 or injustice is before consolation — doing well is higher than meaning 
 well — work is worship to those who accept Theism, and duty to those 
 who do not. 
 
 As security that the principles of Nature and the habit of Eeason 
 may prevail, Secularism uses itself and maintains for others these 
 rights of reason. 
 
 "The Free Search for Truth, without which it is impossible. 
 
 The Free Utterance of the result, without which the increase of 
 Truth is limited. 
 
 The Free Criticism of alleged Truth, without which conscience will 
 be impotent on practice. 
 
 A Secularist sees clearly upon what he relies as a Secularist. To 
 him the teaching of Nature is as clear as the teaching of the Bible, 
 and since, if God exist, Nature is certainly His work, while it is not 
 so clear that the Bible is — the teaching of Nature will be preferred 
 and followed where the teaching of the Bible appears to conflict with 
 it. 
 
 All pursuit of good objects with pure intent is religiousness in the 
 best sense in which this term appears to be used. The distinctive 
 peculiarity of the Seeularist is, that he seeks that good which is dic- 
 tated by Nature, which is attainable by material means, and which is 
 of immediate service to humanity, a religiousness to which the idea of 
 God is not essential, nor the denial of the idea necessary. 
 
 Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will 
 illustrate the principle of action prescribed by Secularism. One man 
 
 * Yet we are continually reasoned against, as though the two terms were identical. 
 Mathematics does not ignore poetry because the laws of prosody are omitted in the postu- 
 lates of Euclid. 
 
176 THE TRIAL OF THEISM. 
 
 A fragment of the logic of life. 
 
 will go on this errand from pure sympathy with the unfortunate ; 
 this is- goodness. Another goes because his priest bids him ; this is 
 obedience. Another goes because the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew 
 tells him that all such persons will pass to the right hand of the 
 Father ; this is calculation. Another goes because he believes God 
 commands him ; this is piety. Another goes because he perceives 
 that the neglect of suffering will not answer ; this is utilitarianism. 
 But another goes on the errand of mercy, because it is an errand of 
 mercy, because it is an immediate service to humanity ; and he goes 
 with a view to attempt material amelioration rather than spiritual 
 consolation ; this is Secularism, which teaches that goodness is sanctity, 
 that Nature is guidance, that reason is authority, that service is duty, 
 that Materialism is help.* 
 
 Speaking mainly on the part of those who regard Secularism not 
 as a working scheme merely, but as a philosophy of life, I wish 
 only to observe — Man does not live by egotisms, hopes, and com- 
 forts — but rather by self-renunciation, by service and endurance. 
 You ask, will Secularism meet all the wants of human nature ? To 
 this we reply, every system meets the wants of those who believe it, 
 else it would never exist. We desire to know and not to hope. We 
 have no wants, and wish to have none, which truth will not satisfy. 
 We would realise this life — we would also deserve another — but with- 
 out the selfishness which craves it — or the presumption which expects 
 it — or the discontent which demands it. We pray it may be given to 
 us to be 'too busy to be anxious, and too loving to be sad.' Our final 
 objects may be described in the noble words of one (Mazzini) who has 
 lived the life he commends to us : — 
 
 ' We propose progressive improvement, association, transformation 
 of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, the overthrow 
 of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We want man to 
 be not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality of the 
 actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another, bending to 
 power which he hates or despises ; carrying empty popish or thirty- 
 nine article formularies on his breast, and none within. We would 
 make man a fragment of the living truth — a real individual being 
 linked to collective humanity, the bold seeker of things to come ; the 
 gentle, mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of 
 all that is just and heroic' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Vide Institute Tapers, No. IV.. Reasonee. 017. 
 
 JOHN WATTS, PRINTER, 1 i7, FLEET STREET. 
 
University of 
 Connecticut 
 
 Libraries 
 
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