NEW SAMCTUARY PROGRESSIVE THOUGHIAN0 SCIENCE l^i! ir ir *o It? Si. 13 "^£7* JL* J!l. Jo »Ou Jj>* Xr. iW. OF -IHE THEOI-OGICAL SEMINARY, AT PRI]VCETO]V, W. J. DONATIOff O^^ SAMUEL A a N-K W , 0>" PHILADELPHIA. PA Letter ^ No. BL 181 .B79 Se^ serious thoughts generated by perusing Lord Brougham T -<^ A J^l y J.i G-irsLcdoL del*- ^' ^r;/t.^i^ ^3/ W KokUr, 22,j:)mm.ark5t,Soho. SERIOUS THOUGHTS, GENERATED BY PERUSING LORD BROUGHAM'S DISCOURSE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY ; WITH A EDUCATION AND POLITICS. BY A STUDENT IN REALITIES. Either blind faith in mysteries, PJ^RT I. or mental conviction from facts but no more Metaphysics. LONDON : PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR; AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN BROOKS, 421, OXFORD STREET. J. Brooks. Printer, 421 , Oxfoirl Street. ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS TO PART I. Page. Theorem. Preface, .,._-- 1 Serious Thoughts, - - - - - 5 The less we know, the more we cherish Faith — and the more we know, the less can we feel its Mediation, 7 Human Thoughts and Instinctive Inquiry are the Genera- tors of all Theology, Philosophy, and Science, - 9 The necessary consequence of arguing upon mere assump- tion is to arrive at questionable conclusions, - - 10 Science is opposed to the System of Perpetuity, - 11 Why has the Study of Nature been so long neglected ? - 12 No arguments in the absence of facts, - - - ib. Old England yet very young in Liberty of Thought, - 13 Why should reasoning be allowed upon some subjects, and forbidden upon others ? - - - ib. Know how to observe while you teach, and watch the countenance of your pupils, - - - 14 Three objects which the Author of the Discourse ap- pears to have had in view, - - . - 15 Stale repetition of the mystic division of Man into two Natures, - ' - - - - - 17 Messenger's Miracles and the Human Understanding, - ib. Apparent inconsistency of the Discourse on the Won- derful, -,-,--- 19 IV ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. Superstition necessary to humility and blind devotion - 20 No great difference between Gods equally y<9«<^ of both, • ib. Criticism leading to inquiry, will do more good than the Discourse itself, - - - - 21 Lord Brougham's Deity not symbolical — it is approached through Eeason and Science — his Dogma would be the mystery of Progress — his Worship the study of Nature. — Our Gospel, - - - - - 23 Beformers still compelled by ignorance to kiss mystical books, like mental slaves, in the midst of Legislative Assemblies, - - - - - - 24 " Two Words" to Lord Brougham, - - - 25 Singular Trinity— proposed amendment in the old form of oath, 29 Publishers and booksellers mentally fettered, - - 30 Observe, listen, reflect, and speak out your conviction upon all subjects, - - - - - 32 Two sources of servitude, - - - - 33 Hints on Education, and politics - - - 34 Wherefore any delay in rational Education ? - - 35 Shall Sectarian paper war never cease ? - - - 36 It is not enough to throw discredit upon " Revelatioriy^ 37 The lona fide labour of the Priest in the present day is to perpetuate the mental servitude they pretend to mi- tigate, - - - - - - 38 British Druids and Spanish Monks, - - - 39 What is persuasion in ignorance ? - - - 40 How Superstition vanishes, - - - 41 How positive knowledge annihilates blind faith, - 42 Physical facts which are common to all religions, - 44 What is the religious feeling ? - - - - 45 Scientific Lecturers are the true Priests of the Sanctuary of Thought and science - - - .46 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. New knowledge is new power, - ^ ^ - Life, is in Death, . - - » - Man's Servitude inseparable from Superstition, - Ancient Doctrines, . - - - No more need for wonder, - - - What is Human Nature ? - - - • Matter is immortal, -*.--- Power of Science, , . - - - Influence of Time and Thought, Martyrs, Monks, and Relicks, - - - - A new training is now required, ~ - - t Confess your ignorance rather than deceive. What is Theology ? . - - - Who are now the Martyrs ? - What it is to Educate, - , *. - Wants measure Social Duties, Satisfy the heart, but do not perplex the brain, When shall Europe be governed rationally ? - How to know thyself, " ' ' " Religion is the Tcnowledge of ignorance. New pleasurable attraction, _ - - - What are Clerical duties ? - - - - Mystical Despotism, - - What are Sermons ? - - " How many Orthodoxies ? - - - - No more Expostulations _ _ .. - When shall Man evince Stoical Fortitude When shall Man walk alone ? - - - The cradle of civilization has been rocked by a mystic Priesthood, who administered and ^xducihedi exclusively, in all things necessary to the economy of human life, - 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 64 65 66 68 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 THEOREM. Since an organic instinctive wish for, and an inherent want of, some knowledge, constitute the very reality and essence of the religious feeling in ignorance of nature. Religions, proper/?/ so called, are not only completely out of reach of destruction, hut are even beyond the appre- hension of it. As, however, all things, impressions, and ideas, whe- ther denominated physical, moral, or intellectual, are subject to vicissitude and change, religious feelings and notions must, of necessity, obey, in common with the rest, the natural law of human progressiveness. Consequently, all fixed dogmas, all articles of faith in mystic worship, as well as all opinions liable to contro- versy, which have hitherto mediated, or are now in actual process of mediation for mankind, have undergone or are undergoing gradual and successive modifications ; changing naturally with the character of the age, and insensibly disappearing ; until finally absorbed by the greater attrac- tion of a NEW mediating influence, more in harmony with TIME and THOUGHT tliaii the preceding one. Hence, nothing can be more futile, more unreasonable, and more fraught with prejudice or superstition, than the regrets, lamentations, and sectarian fears incessantly repeated by departing generations, respecting the tempo- rary fate of their respective churches.* * Sec pages 5, 34, 39, 44, 45, 52, 61, 72, and 76 to 80, PREFACE. UNDER the present influence of a more rapid and, in it's consequences, more awful march of the mental progress of society, than any other age can boast of, life is really too short, for much to be wasted in the investigation and correction of meta- physical abstractions and aberrations. As, therefore. Lord Brougham's Discourse upon Natural Theology, although written by a great man, exhibits as much of that character as any of the opinions and " air spun" errors, he endeavours with some success, to ridicule and refute, we shall, dis- claiming altogether any thing like a general refutation or a particular criticism, content ourselves with stating the ideas suggested to us, by the perusal of a portion of that noble Lord's production. When the ''Discourse" was first advertised, we an- ticipated, in common with those who have followed Henry Brougham for the last twenty years, some new gigantic idea on faith and religion, unveiling all jj PREFACE. mysteries— some new and positive basis of thought and action— some new social system of laws and regulations, founded more on the real wants of man- kind, than upon their blind faith,— some new axioms of life and government deduced from our present knowledge of the organization of man ; or, at least, that the shameful absurdity of old European legisla- tion, when compared with the present symptoms of the new feelings of society, was about to be exposed, so as to be made evident to even the meanest capa- cities—but no, the -Discourse" appeared,— we searched through it in vain, and our first impression was that of disappointment. To this feeling succeeded that of surprise and regret, that an intellect so powerful as that of Henry Brougham's should have laid itself open to the charge of inconsistency, if not to the more serious one of a compromise of principle. Our surprise, however, ceased, upon reflecting that man's mental organiza- tion is not less obnoxious to change and modification than his physical one, and that, as the magnet is constantly more or less deflected from its true direction, so the firmest and best intentioned mind is occasionally warped from poUtical integrity. Endowed with talents and blessed with energies, which not only gained him the respect and admiration of all honest men, but also, struck terror into the knavish and the unprincipled. Lord Brougham might easily have maintained a dignified and commanding attitude, and relying upon the irresistible power of natural facts, to convince the understanding, and to secure the approbation of his countrymen, have bid PREFACE. ^^ defiance to all the mean but pertinacious endeavo . of female bigotry, and all the dirty and despicable manoeuvres of back stair intrigue, to fix upon him the charge of heterodoxy. Instead of this, what has been his course ? He has preferred tacking himself to the skirts of a second rate theologian ; he has chosen to identify himself with that less than third rate class of ph do- sophers, who having before their eyes the fear of th prLthood, think it no prostitution of tbeir ntdlect [o chime in with the cant of the day, and to labor, head and hand, for perpetuating error and falsehood^ Isaac Vossius being once asked what had become o a certain man of letters, bluntly replied He has turned country parson, and is ^^^ceivrng he vulgar It is lamentable to think how applicable the latter part of this answer is to the enlightened, liberal- Lnded and knowledge-promoting Lord brougham It is no easy matter to penetrate the real motives which actuate men like Lord Brougham ; a mental capacity of such calibre as he possesses communis onl with itself, asks counsel only of itself, and like a wise and cautious general, would conceal, almost from itself, the knowledge of its own plans.-we cannot, therefore, presume to explain the reasons ^hich may have induced the noble Lord to ollow in the wake of an archdeacon, but if ambition be one. we fully agree with ^ contemporary, when he says " the ambition of Lord B. seems just to have .' missed its mark, from the error perhaps of making " too large an allowance for the wind of expediency. IV PREFACE. Natural Theology will never seduce but the half- religious, the A^ //-thinking, and the Aa?/^convinced. It aims at establishing a singular "juste milieu" sys- tem, between blind faith in revelation on the one hand, and mental conviction, arising from a know- ledge of realities, on the other ; but this wretched system, the offspring of distempered minds, must be trholly obliterated from our religious literature and our politics : it's equivocal principles cannot thrive in the present excited moral atmosphere of Europe, for like bifront Janus, it presents two faces equally repulsive, and equally deceitful, alike abhorred by- Liberals and Serviles. — Perish it must in theology as in politics, and perish it will by a felo de se. SERIOUS THOUGHTS. ALL works upon Theology, whether on ''revelation" or on Nature, as well as all the philosophical writings of ancient and modern times, on Metaphysics, Spirit- ualism, Ethics, &c. are nought but the result of im- pressions made on the mind of man, through what it has been agreed to denominate faith in fiction or CONVICTION from facts ; such impressions or feelings changing their name, influence, and power over society, according to time, to circumstance, and to the degree of positive knowledge diffused by civilization. Many expected the Discourse now before the pub- lic, to have been more in advance of all its prede- cessors in the wide field of speculative abstraction, than it has proved to be. It is, in fact, anything but an attempt to annihilate fiction and superstition ; for it is clear that the sole aim of the author is to destroy one source of error and prejudice, with the view of substituting another, however well dis- guised. What is it, for instance, that we read in the preface — page 2 '^ — '' We were strongly urged *' to publish an edition of Dr. Paley's popular work, " with copious and scientific illustrations. We both *' favoured this plan, (Lord B. and John Charles 6 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. Spencer,) " but some of our colleagues justly appre- " hende'd that the adoption of it might open the door " to the introduction of religious controversy^ among "us against our fundamental principles."— This opening, we confess, vastly dimmished our predispo- sition to admire. How very exclusively English this is, and yet how unaccountably stupid ! What ! a society is formed for the noble purpose of Diffusing Useful Knowledge vet sets out. forsooth, by forbidding the most useful —the most interesting of all discussions-those re- lating to the utility of the old dogmas, of mysteries, and of religion, as now taught 1-admittmg all the while those questions to be a constant source ot angry disputation, threatening even the dissohition of society! This, in our humble opinion, ^sthe very reason why free discussion should have been encouraged, as th; most likely means of putting an end to quarrel and dispute ; but no, they "justly apprehended." Why justly ? why apprehend any thkg? were they afraid of the Devil? do they actually believe in the existence o his Satanic Majesty ? if so, what kind 'of useful knowledge are we to expect from them? useful to whom ? to the people? never. 'rhey say "that it might have "opened the door to religious controversy." Well, and ^hf the.? Was their mind so clogged, so benumbed by the torpors and terrors of blind faith, as to incapacitate them for any other useful thought ?-Impossibe'. we shall never believe it, for the faculties of thought, when duly cultivated, raise the intellectual man SERIOUS THOUGHTS. / above the religious feeling ; it was, therefore, a mere weak and pusillanimous regard for some antiquated notion about a theological power which, intimidating and over-awing nineteen persons out of twenty, continually prevents the necessary reforms in the abuses arising from errors and prejudices, the con- tinuance of which must perpetuate it's evil influence, and criminal desire of preventing the diffusion of the very knowledge which the society avowed it their object to promote and diffuse. Shall we never know, then, what is faith '? or why mankind did always believe '? why it is, that we invariably find philosophy opposed to blind faith *? Which of the two, then, is now the most attractive '? Which the best adapted for improving the mental faculties of the brain *? For it is now time to choose ; and which of the two was ever inseparable from, and ever good for ignorance'? These, and other such, are the true questions for the day — and undoubtedly the most useful of any to be examined by liberal and learned societies, who profess to be disinterested, and who promised to he useful to the peoj)le at large. What, after all, is that religious feeling so very prone to silence, if not the vague expression of man- kind, in its primitive ignorance : the natural organic wish to acquire knowledge P Is is not true, that the MORE we know of nature the less we can understand our faith P Is it not true, also, that the less we know of nature through physical sciences, the more that faith has exercised absolute sway over all our thoughts and actions P Here then we have abundant matter for serious reflection and discussion. We 8 SERIOUS THOUHTS, should not have at present to discuss the origin, the necessity, the utiUty, the mission, in short, of religious notions, if, before now, such discussion had been allowed ; but since, at last, we enjoy full liberty of conscience, full liberty of opinion, full liberty of the press, in the name of common sense, let us encourage Societies for the " Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," without any restriction whatever upon thought, — and subjected only to such regulations as may be necessary to enforce the proper bearing and deport- ment of the members towards each other, and to ensure a fair hearing to every one's advantages which no epoch of the mental progress can ever reject, blame, or despise. When once the mind has enjoyed conviction, from visible and tangible facts, the belief in fictions and mysteries loses much of its influence on our own will and determination ; yet we read in a book just writ- ten in favour of positive science (p. 5.) '" There is, as " regards natural theology, a more limited use of the *' word which confines it to the knowledge and attri- " butes of the Deity, and regards the speculation " concerning his will and our hopes from, and duties " towards him." jij What shall we say to this*? Why, that a man whose name is an authority, publishes a book in 1835, and writes in it, about the " knowledge',' and the " attribute,'' of what is totally unknown : about " hopes from" that, which is assumed : about " duties towards him," ivhose exist eiice as a Being cannot he conceived by the human mind, when trained in positive and useful knowledge. Yet that great man well SERIOUS THOUGHTS, » knows that the supposed existence of some such being was never fully credited, but when, and where, nothing positive was ever well known ; when, and where, no fd^cts could yet be brought to bear against invented mysteries and fiction ; in the name of positive sciences, of what actual utility can such a book be, to a people called upon seriously to renounce superstition, and to acquire useful knowledge ? — be at least consistent. At page 18, we are again astounded by the most curious division of our knowledge into '' human' and '' divine,'' which means nothing else but using other words for facts and fiction : it runs thus— " In a word the structure and relation of the universe ** form the subject of the one branch of philosophy, *' and may be termed human science : the origin and " destiny of the universe form the subject of the other *' branch, and is termed Divine science or theology.'^ Now, we are of opinion that it is only the first, (human science) which deserves at all the name of positive science, for it is that alone, that can possibly lead us to what is termed '* the second branch," or true theology (if that word must always be preserved.) It is only a knowledge of the structure of the universe, and that of the relations existing between all the beings and substances in existence, which can ever lead us to form any idea of its origin and destiny; therefore it is throughout human science and nothing else. Neither can we understand the proposition (p. 19.) where it is said, " the proposition which we would '' establish is, that the science of natural theology is » VO SERIOUS thoughts; " strictly a branch of inductivQ philosophy, fomied^ '' and supported by the same kind of reasoning upon " which the physical science and psychological " science are founded." No such thing — that science, (natural theology) is not a branch of inductive phi- losophy, for if it is any thing, it must of necessity be purely and simply the corollary, the result, of all the other sciences, '' if we wish to know the origin of the world, as well as the origins and relations of all the beings in it, and upon it, is it not evident that we must observe, investigate, in short that we must study the world, the beings, and their relation '? " * What most offends our understanding in this, as in all similar works, is, the readiness with which an assumption is made, and then a conclusive argu- ment built upon it, just as if such assumption were facts lately discovered and confirmed. For instance, we read (p. 29.) of the Discourse, '" When his (Newton s) '' discoveries taught the properties of " light, it was found to have been acted upon, and " consequently known by the Being ivho created the " ey^." Now, for the real sense of this — First, imagine an " immense Being,'' as the creator of the universe. Secondly, endow that Being with all the faculties, the notions, and the impressions of the human orgaiiization, then only is it, that you are w^arranted to say rationally, that *' when your Being created the eye, he must have had a knowledge of the properties v^e attribute to light." For our part we can see no use whatever for the people in such, or any other comparison, ot parallel, between the positive * A. C. G. Jobert. SERIOUS THOUGHTS, :_1I .'discoveries of men, and the assumed knowledge of -a .supposed Being. We are satisfied with admitting that eyes without light, or light without eyes, would appear to our mind to be equally absurd, and that having both at our command, we are hound in the in- terest and welfare of all, to use both our eyes to see the light, aiid use to the utmost, our mental faculties, to improve social comfort and happiness, and the same for all the contents of nature within our reach. All this gallimatias * of literary hodge-podge, how^- ever correct the style, however ingenious the thought, for those who admire intellectual wanderings, belongs of right to the primitive schools, or rather more pro- perly to what should be called, the bastard school of humanity, i. e. fiction still respected, with due sub- mission; and facts brought up and presented so, as to support its evil influence. Believing the intention good, we may commend the feelings of the heart, in re-publishing now such trash, but w^e must condole with the head, however high that head may soar in political and forensic spheres. Another extraordinary assertion, not at all founded in science, occurs again, {p. 41.) '^ All changes in " the system of nature, are thus periodical, and its per- " PETUAL STABILITY, is completely sccure' — nowpure science so far as we know, leads us to no such conclu- sion : (very interesting we allow , if life was not so short.) That system of ''perpetuity' was first ima- gined 6 or 800 years before the christian era, i. e. " that the world is eternal, and had never been created, * G«/m«/ias means in French, a confused medley of language, canveying no positive meaning, although appearing actually to mean something; a discourse unintelligble to the Author or his readers. 12 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. '' 01% that it is to have no end, because it never had a " beginning." *' Science on the contrary leads ns most probably, if not positively, to look for a heginning, when all matter vras in a state of fluidity or rather fluidness : — and for the end, when all fluids shall be in a state of condensation : — no reasoning, no sound argument, can possibly lead us now rationally further than that, because, all reasoni?ig stops (in 'positive science,) precisely at the point where our faculty of observing facts must cease. No fact, no argument — (such is our motto) " the facts here known are, the observations of Nehulm, the existence of a fluid, termed Ether, the globes burning in space, and gra- dually cooling ! Thus continuing to mix up imagination and facts with assumptions, the Discourse makes out, (p. 44,^ " the foundation of the inference, that the members " of the body were fashioned for certain uses, by a ** maker, well acquainted with their operations, and *' willing, that those uses should be served." A very bad argument, to say the least of it, which must be- come a source of superstition. Since it pre-supposes a Being, acting upon matter in the same way as we should : No — No — from that, to a God, with a human face, there is but one step. The Discourse justly complains, (p. 69), that the " study of nature, and the operation of the " mind have been unaccountably neglected by Phi- " losophers, and Theologians." We agree in the complaint most earnestly — but, why this branch of the Science has been so long neglected, is by far, the more proper question, for the age we live in ; and we «KR10US THOUGHTS. 13 actually expected no less, from the grasping mind of the author; he knows full well, that the ansiver to such questions, must he looked for, in the still endu- red withering powers over youth and education, of the old system of dogmas, erected upon fiction. ''Among the most remarkable faculties of the " mind, (continues the same page) is the power of " reasoning, or first comparing ideas, and drawing con- " elusions from them:" Why then has reasoning been so long forbidden*^ Why in his very Society, for the ''Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," has the author consented, that, reasoning should be allowed upon some subjects, and forbidden upon others '? Is it because, a sufficient number of intellectual gentlemen, without religion, scruples, or, without perplexity of faith, could not have been brought together"? if so, then indeed is Old England, yet very poor and very young in the liberty of thought. One word more, on this half sublime and half ridiculous production, which we half admire, and half regret, because its unfortunate tendency of clearing the road for progress, at the same time that it places new obstacles in our way, is to produce a Statu quo, more to be dreaded a thousand times, than open mental revolt, against the shackles put on the mind, by most respectable deceivers. "Voluntary attention (^says, p. 59 J being the most " difficult of all acts of the understanding ! " . . . that dithculty, we contend, is only apparent, it is the fault of the matter and of the method, not at all a natural deficiency of the mind. Voluntary atten- tion is the most difficult act, when only the subject 14 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. given, or the mode of treating it, is not made attrac- tive — but, attention is the most easy, and even, mi- intentionally absorbing, where the subject or the ^object upon which attention is required, are congenial to the nature, to the progress of the mind, and suited only, to the natural and noblest faculties of human understanding. In this important fact, greatly mistaken in this part of the Discourse, lies all the mysteries of our false instructions: — when the mind is not open by proper training — when the teacher has to inculcate his errors, instead of his positive knowledge, then indeed, does attention become next to impossible, then, is the real difficulty, then, the torture of the pupil, or say rather of the patient : but, the mind naturally feels its way when the method is good, and the subject rendered attractive: when the understanding is actually at work, and feels its own development, attention need not been forced, for then it becomes a real pleasure, and then, only, can it be called Education, or rather eduction — to educe, to call out, to extract, to bring into view, dormant faculties, and on this, we appeal to all sincere disinterested teachers, if any there are, and to all fathers and mothers, who know how to ob- serve while they teach ; watch the expressions of your pupil — his tvhole countenance, for that expression is of itself all-sufficient to reveal to honest masters, and liberal minded parents, ivhat may be taught to youth, and what should not. — Strike out grammar and the duties founded on mysteries, because both being un- intelligible to youth, cause the look of stupidity. We arc the more surprised at our last extract SERIOUS THOUGHTS. 15 (p, 59^ that in the very next page, (60) the author partly agrees with the above remarks upon it. '' Cu- *' riosity, or the thirst for knowledge, renders any new *' idea, (for a child, all things are new) the source of *' attraction, and makes the mind almost involuntarily, " and with gratification, rather than pain, bend and " apply itself to whatever has the quality of novelty *' to rouse it." No doubt, that a change of matter, of object, is a pleasure from which the mind always derives fresh vigour and activity, and in that lies the great secret of good methods. Without entering more into details, our impression is on the whole, that Lord Brougham's object, in publishing his opinion on Theological matters, was, in \\i^ first flace — to upset the grounds o{ blind faith in mysteries, so far as these mysteries rest upon what is called, '' revelation " made to man by a supposed God, Creator of the world. Governor and Judge of mankind. Seco7idly : To spread as much as possible, a gene- ral taste, for the study of nature, as the best means now to be recommended of convincing all men, of the existence of some ''immense Being/' far more intel- ligent than man himself, without presuming however to determine the place and mode of existence, of that *' immense Being.'' Thirdly : To convince the priesthood, that they need not to be alarmed in the least, at the opinion he maintains, respecting ^'revelation," which alone, can lead to absolutely nothing : Since '^ revelation ' can prove nothing further, than, that a man calling him- ii.elf, a MESSENGER from God, told to other men, such 16 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. and such things, without their being able to prove the truth of them ; — the miracles themselves, which the supposed Messenger performed, proving nothing beyond the mere fact, of that messenger having per- formed them, and without its following, that he came from any one, or that such person or persons, were good or wicked beings, or even, that they had any thing to do with the Messenger, or with his miracles. Then says Lord B. to the Priesthood, fear not my words, for I am going to prove the existence of an ** immense henevolent God,'' by my natural Theology, in a much more positive way, than you can, by your '* revelation," the former being as the great Bacon said before, the necessary key to the latter. Thus, both together, natm^al and revealed religion, may go on more secure, against the attack of *' infi- delity I' and materialism ; and depend upon it, you, christian-priests, have now, no other chance of main- taining your power over the mind of man ; — whilst, my natural religion may very well stand alone ; your supposed, "' revelation" alone, has no longer the power of inspiring any faith at all. With me, you can stop the progress of materialism, since I prove the existence of mind, independent of all matter, and with me, you can stop also, the progress of ** infidelity,'' since I prove the presence of the true God, in all na- tural facts. It is by the study of nature, says he, and by that means only, that you can now convince the human mind of the existence of an *' immense Beings Far then from attacking me — you priests, should support religious reform, and join me, in establishing such a new beHef in God, as may be expected to last. SERIOUS THOUGHTS. 17 notwithstanding the natural progress of the human mind — your revelation, as now taught, will never satisfy, for any length of time, a W' ell-educated people, and then^ — w^hat becomes of your boasted system of Church and state, founded, as it is, on the credulity and hVuid faith of ignorant masses'? The Discourse reproaches Doctor Paley with the great omission of not having included the human mind in his Theology, for " this is not only the most in- structive branch of natural science, but also, the most wonderful, the most divine, and that which alone could lead us naturally to the belief of an immense Being, Creator of the Universe." All this is, however, nothing more than a stale repetition of the old story ; matter and mind, body and soul ; a dividing of man in tvjo natures, and the erecting of a machinery, hy the ivorking ofv)hich the material half shall he terrified into blind submission hy the invented spiritual one. Although mere criticism is not our object, we, however, must express our surprise at what aj^pears to us inconsistent, coming from the same pen; — The miracles performed by Jesus Christ, (called the ■Messenger, in the Discourse,) are said to be no proof in the least of his having been sent by a Supernatu- ral being. Creator, Governor and Judge of mankind, — nor of the existence of such a being ; — agreed : The human mind will now see nothing in such mi- racles, beyond the fact that, " one man could do before other men, what these other men could not do.'' No inference whatever, can be drawn from this, as to the existence of any other being — of his having sent that c ^^ SERIOUS THOUGHTS. man — of his having inspired — or of his having given him the power of performing miracles.: — Neither can there be any inference drawn from this fact, of a God having performed miracles through that man; the miracles being considered all the while, as having been really performed: — agreed again. — Now here comes, we believe, the inconsistency. — Another fact is admitted: i. e. the existence of the human mind — of human intelligence, which appears to Lord B., so wonderfully miraculous, that he actually separates it from nature, and because it appears to him so wonderful, there must be, says he, an '' im- mense Being^ a vast intelligence far superior to that of man — and that "immense Being J' must have created the world. Is not this as much as to say — ^ your messenger was an impostor, for, I am the tme prophet P First, assume that mind is free and isolated from what is called matter ; then, estaWish what difference you please between matter and mind ; call one j^a^- sive, the other active ; then call God, the active prin- ciple ; — build up a new system of nature, and your Cosmogony will be as complete a mysticism by which to enslave mankind, through primitive ignorance, natural credulity or old prejudices, as any former Cosmogony that ever was invented since man ap- peared on the earth as a sensitive substance, orga- nized for generating knowledge. We ask now, w^here is the difference*? — The hook of revelation requires it to he helieved, that a few men were inspired hy an eternal God, and therefore^ that what they said is to be eternal trnth. Lord SERIOUS THOUGHTS. 19 Broughams natural theology requires it to be believed, that all organized substances (not a few only, as stated in revelation,) manifesting intelligence or mind, or an active princii)le, have received it from an '' immense Being,'' himself all intelligence, all spirit, all-powerful, in short, another God (only not the revealed one), hut equally entitled to devotion, humility, obedience, and submission to his ivill, as manifested by the laws of nature. ' Now this is what the French would call bonnet blmic, and blanc bomiet ; or six of one, and half a dozen of the other. The miracles appeared wonder- ful to ignorance, the mind of man appears wonder- ful to Lord Brougham, and thus both parties are led by the wonderful to believe in supernatural powers ; hence, whoever denies the god of revelation, must, if we understand what reasoning is, also deny Lord Brougham's God : but enough of this. One circumstance, however, most clear and positive, connected with this author's opinions is, that he wishes to appear the declared enemy of the mate- rialism of the last century ; hence his endeavour to annihilate its metaphysical authors both English and French, by a still further use of endless meta- physical arguments which, to say the least of them, are each and all not only unseasonable, ill-timed, and short of the mental wants of the age, but as far below the present powers of thought, as far behind the present state of knowledge, as the age oi Aristotle was behind that of Bacon. 20 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. Yet although Lord Brougham seems thus to follow in the wake, he speaks warmly in favour of the pro- gress of ideas. Does he presume then to limit that progress '? Why not rather lend it, in a more deci- ded manner the authority of his name in order to accelerate its march ? Why continue to shackle the mind with the piimitive idea of a powerful God, inspiring devotion, after he has proved that the effort of '' revelation to inspire the human mind with such a belief, has been vain and unsuccessful *? Whom or what is he afraid of — the Clergy, the Court, his own mind, or of his own " immense Being P'' No; but perhaps, of telling too much to the people at once, for he seems desirous of stopping all speculation, all ideology respecting his '' immense Being /' and this, as a means more certain and less absurd in the present day, than mere blind faith in revelation would 1)6, of maintaining among the ignorant as much of hlind humility and blind devotion as might insure the continuance of submission to a bad and too ex- clusive system of religious and civil regulations, by inculcating a rather more enlightened faith in some God or other, who, though not precisely the God of "revelation J' is, however, represented to be equally/ fond of humility and devotion. In fine, this clever little book of artful expediency presents not one new idea pregnant A^'ith any im- portant results — nothing striking, nothing capable of creating a strong sensation among the thinking part of the public ; yet, most probably, some of the SERIOUS THOUGHTS. 21 clergy will be alarmed at its publication, and in this respect its appearance must be hailed by the sup- porters of the liberty of conscience as that of a useful auxiliary. Lord Brougham is an authority with many. Criticism will do still more good than the hook itself; believers and injidels unll both quote it. Its perusal will induce many to reflect more seriously upon the nature of their owii feelings, as well as upon the veracity of the Avhimsical stories, \^'hich, when chil- dren, they w^ere crammed with by nurses, and, when adults, by priests and bigoted instructors. Many of its pages are well calculated to encourage the study of nature ; a salutaiy effect already pro- duced, to a certain extent, l^y what Lord Brougham had written before, and caused to be written by others. The withering and benumbing influence of biblical reading will certainly be diminisht^d ; for, the book of revelation is here logically discussed by a severe and inflexible attorney, who sees in words nothing but words ; in things nothing but things ; in a supposed divine Messenger, nothing but a man ; in miracles, nothing but miracles; whatsover be the authority that performed them, saw them, or reported them. This is undoubtedly the strongest part of the work ; it is not here metaphysical, but positive ; it even appears that a certain apprehension or fear of having said too much against the God of revelation, had induced the author to conclude his discourse with a few passages from Scripture, and encomiums upon religious devotion. Be this, how^ever, as it may, he / 22 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. has undoubtedly furnished fresh weapons for assauU- ing ''heaven;' — another authority for those whom the clergy stigmatize as '' infideV unhelievers ; and so far my Lord Brougham is entitled to our warmest thanks, for, in our opinion, this curious discourse, although ill-timed, may yet be quoted as one most decidedly hostile to the truth of revealed religion, — as denying the importance of blind faith in mysteries, — and questioning the supernatural divinity of Christ, still so fondly cherished by his numerous and faithful but infatuated followers. As to the effect that will be produced, or could be produced, by this new illustration of Dr. Paley's Natural Theology, we have no doubt that it would be far more in favour of mental progress, did it not fall, as in this land it unfortunately does, upon a generation already saturated with old creeds, exten- sive devotional reading, and biblical education, in the narrow minded sense in which the Scriptures are still taught. This being the case, there are some who believing in God the Father! in Mary the Mother! in God the Son ! and in God the Holy Ghost .^" will still quote Brougham's book as an au- thority for faith, and for remaining stationary in the holy, ignorant expectation of a more happy hereafter — in blessed individual selfishness, '^for ever and ever. Amen." Whereas, could the same discourse have appeared among a virgin nation, having no system of*, sacred books, no mystic education in fiction of any kind, it would have proved a firm and immova- OUR GOSPEL. 23 ble fouiulation for a new social system, or a new reli- gious creed, greatly in advance of nicdern idolatry. Lord Broughams Deity, it nmst be admitted, is not ahsolutely mystic — not symbolical. You are to approach it through reason, and through science ; — his dogma ivoidd he the mystery of PROGRESS ; — his mode of tvorship, the study of NATURE. A new people thus instructed, thus bound toge- ther, resting their creed on Brougham's or Paley's natural theology, might well address us Christians in the manner of that extraordinary man Rasj)ail,^ of Paris : — " We are no infidels, though certainly not believers after your fashion. We follow a philosophy without egotism ; — not a blind faith in mysteries, but an enlightened faith without preju- dice, and this, through our knowledge of nature. Our gospel is the universe — it is the gospel of the people, for the people are the children of nature. Our s is a gospel without Catholicism, vjhich is the child of despotism, of ambition, of intolerance, and the curse of this age. Ours is a gospel without Protestantism, which is the child of Established ignorance, and of that wil- ful mysticism which stifles all thought and reason. The gospel written in organic nature is our law of * The persecuted author of an admirable work, entitled, " New System of Organic Chemistry."— Bailliere, Reg^ent- street. French Edition. 24 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. action — it is gut model of social liarmony, of that harmony which you Christians are still ignorant of, after eighteen centuries of your symbolical worship. We never had any faith in that " divine right' by which you are still governed '' de facto',' though you may vainly boast of its being no longer acknow- ledged " dejureT ''Your Lords, Masters, and Chiefs are still authorized, nay compelled, to instruct you in the absurd beHef that your god is susceptible of insult; as if the '' omnipotent Beinf of your imagination could ever require the labour or the wealth of a priest, as the means through which to obtain respect from his creatures. Hence, you still look upon the mighty of the earth as representatives of that Beings They who have been collectively entrusted by the mighty Conquerors of man with the making and applying of your laws, are still obliged to take a form of oath ''before a GodP and through a God, ''on mystical hooks, to a crowai, which books they are still compelled to kiss like children, or mental slaves, in the midst of your legislative ^assemblies, and be- fore part of a bigotted public, who all the while presume to call themselves reformers. In consequence of the false and frivolous educa- tion these legislators have received in their youth, they either do not feel, or dare not express shame, for submitting to an obsolete and now degrading ordeal. '' It follows of course, that the energetic truths, or the severe complaints which the people feel it neces- sary to address to those sworn dignitaries of the MR. JOBERTS '^ TWO WORDS. 25 realm, are still punished by you, with the same defa- mation of character, as were in times of old, the imprecations addressed to the gods, by suffering humanity." The book of Natural Theology now before us, pretends to distinguish itself from all others by help- ing you out of the mire of revelation: but, how! by dragging you mentally through the obscure and crooked road of Metaphysics, in which, centuries back, so many superior minds already lost their way, with- out ever benefitting mankind one iota Not a direct word can he found in the Discourse ^ against the monstrous usurpation of Priest-craft over { the mental capacity/ of man; not a word on the gigan- j tic mission of science to emancipate mankind from / the terrors of their own imaginations. Read it with caution, and trust not its author im- plicitly, for in spite of his attacks upon ''Revelation/' we have detected, in more than one passage, the monk's cowl under the advocate's wig, and lawn sleeve influence under the lawyer's gown. Let us now listen to sincerity and breathe more freely. *' The knowledge of facts alone, is accessible to -man; we arrive at the knowledge of facts through the -medium of our senses only." -Has the Universe been created?" -Has the Inorganic world had a beginning?" - Has the Organic world had a beginning ? " -How did the Inorganic and Organic world begin?" 26 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. Such are the contents of a small pamphlet just handed to us. * ''A pamphlet in size only." We rejoice to see such questions proposed, hecause they are the same as must in all probability have presented themselves naturally to the most profound thinkers of all ages. Such questions v^ere the first expressions of that Organic wish to knoiv, ly inquiry and reflexion: of that Organic want, which stamped from its primitive exist- ence the human species — the first Animal organised for progressive improvement, in order to become su- perior upo7i earth, to any other organised substance. Sitch is Man. We look upon the feelings connected with these questions, as the only natural and real foundation of all religious dogmas, invented by superior minds for the use and consolation of mankind, before the time that any experience and utility could have been de- rived from the subsequent knowledge of facts. The natural instinct of the human species was such from the beginning, that any kind of fiction presented as an answer to those questions, supplied for the time being the want of some better system of knowledge, until the repeated inquiries of the future generations of mankind by brooding intellectually over the majestic book of nature could produce neiv systems of positive knowledge which, hy giviiig a new conviction to the mind, should gradually neutralize, supersede or displace for ever, blind faith in the good old dog- mas — though in themselves all-sufficient to establish * Two words'" on Lord Brougham's Natural Theology, by A. C. G. Jobert ; E.Bull, 19, Holies Street. MR. JOBERT's '' TWO WORDS." 27 and maintain a prospective view of happiness and justice, for a progressive animal, compelled to pass through ages in total ignorance of himself, and of the physical laws which are continually in sensitive action. We hail the appearance of this curious and instruc- tive pamphlet, and sincerely hope that it may be pe- rused by all the readers of the Discourse on Natural Theology ; under the modest title of '' Two words :" it creates new feelings and contains new ideas— at pre- sent most necessary to be felt and discussed. It has certainly refuted with success, the fundamental argu- ments of Lord Brougham and Paley, and has more- over, the rare merit of comprising in the short space of 36 pages, more interesting matter of useful re- flexion, written in a popular style, by a real friend of the people of all nations, than any other work ever did before to our knowledge. Yet, we are bound to notice what appears to us incomplete in it, or if complete, rather inconsistent: From page 10, the Author seems to be quite aware of the object of the Discourse to establish— '' that all -natural phenomena being attributes of the Deity, it -is principally by an investigation of them that %ve « arrive at the knowledge of a God, and learn how to " adore him." On this Mr. Jobert states (p. 11.) his own conmC- tions, '' that the notion of God as conveyed hy the ar- «gument of Brougham and Paley, is an obstacle to <' improvement— a source of error and superstitionr — Agreed. 28 MR. jobert's " TWO words/' Further on (p. 28.) we read ''the idea of the workman " who made the watch would lead me to the idea " of an organised being, who employed hands, eyes, ''and an intellectual power, an organ of thought," — but to argue in the same manner, in order to explain the production of a living animal, " would be to ima- " gine a God with senses, with organs — ^brains ; in short, a human God, a ''monstrous God." — agreed again. Here then Mr. Jobert objects both, to the nature of the God and to the mode of arriving at a knowledge of him. But now, coming to (p. 35.), Mr. Jobert tells us himself, that " it is through the knowledge of these ''facts alone, that tve can come to the knowledge of " the Deity r Is not this precisely what the Discourse on Natu- ral Theology wishes to establish'? and here Mr. Jo- bert acknowledges also, the existence of a God, as proved by the phenomena of nature. — Since the know- ledge of these phenomena are to lead us to a Deity. Either then, there is contradiction : or Mr. Jobert's God, is not the same as Lord Brougham's God. Mr. Jobert says, (p. 10), but it is " evident that the "progress of the mind under its influence, (the belief "in God) will go no further than religious creeds — "which will form of necessity, the limits of the deve- " lopment of the human intellect." Here then he ob- jects most decidedly to the notions of a God, as he does equally (p. 11), when he complains of its heing a source of error and superstition. We repeat then, that Mr. Jobert's Deity, cannot be the same as Lord SINGULAR TRINITY. 29 Brougliam's God — for we can see no other way by which to avoid the apparent contradictmi hetv^een dreading the Qonsequences of a belief in the God of the Discourse, and convey i7ig at the same time, the very same identical notions. We are therefore led to admit the curious idea, that Lord B.'s God could be a source of error and superstition, but Mr. Jobert's God not so. We fear that in this, as in some other instances, the author'smeaninghasbeensacrificedtothe publish- er's pusillanimity, who may very likely have said to Mr. Jobert, '' I ivill print so far hut no further ; " and that most probably we are not yet in possession of Mr. Jobert's idea fully developed. In the mean time, we may perhaps be allowed to congratulate the saints of all shades and colours, upon the prolific efforts of thought, which in less than three months, have conceived for them two new Gods, neither of whom is the God of "revelation.'' Are ive doomed, then, under the law of mental progress, to believe in a new and singular Trinity, consisting of The God of Revelation ; The God of Lord Brougham and Archdeacon Paley; The God of Mr. Jobert ; If really so, would it not, then, be high time to move by way of an amendment in the forms of the oath under which our future law-makers, compelled as usu- al to kiss the book, should be required to add the follow- ing words, — '' Be it further understood by all present, *' that by the word God we mean the old God of '* revelation,'' and nowise and never the God of 30 PUBLISHERS " Lord Brougham, nor the God of Johert, 7ior any " other God not yet concocted, or if concocted in " some brains or other, not yet introduced to the ''public" For our part, we should prefer Mr. Jobert's God, and for this reason, that we anti- cipate from his new work in the press " the his- *' tory of the earth before the appearance of man P some definition of the word God, intelligible to all understandings, which will reconcile all sects, and put an end for ever to religious controver- sies, which, to say the least of their vast influence upon society, create animosities without real cause, and retard the progress of rational civilization. Are we, then, to have a new God with every new sys- tem ^ Why should every new theory, every instructive and learned investigation of nature, published in this country, be obscured by abstract notions of blind faith, which belong of right and exclusively to pri- mitive ignorance'? — Why should a series of true facts presented in all their simplicity to reason, be so incessantly marred by invented fiction, the most ridiculous arguments being put in requisition by most authors, even to this day, in order to establish some forced and monstrous connexion between what must ultimately be forgotten if we wish rightly to understand the mental progress, and what must be felt to promote the good it is pregnant with '^ Why '? But that unfortunately publishers and booksellers are mentally fettered and morally bound to pamper an ignorant public with error and p>rejudice P Take your MS. to them, and consult them upon the publi- cation of a new, important, and scientific work. MENTALLY FETTERED. 31 consisting purely and plainly of man's questions on one side, and of nature's answers on the other, will they not say to you. — ''True, sir, very profound thought — " rational all through — full of most important facts '' very well w^ritten, indeed — strong in conviction — " most conclusive, therefore most useful ! hut depend *' upon it, unless you make such alterations as will " shoiv the wisdom of God, his goodness, and connect " a little more your matter with our divine religion, " so that our clergy may recommend it, the book will '' never sell in England, and therefore we cannot " undertake its publication." . . Very well, we admit that under such impression, and with such preposterous hindrances and scruples hanging about them, no publisher can undertake any work really useful to the people, in a national point of view : but we contend, that, however necessary this might have been in time past, it is no longer so now ; that, only to break through that pretended power must annihilate it for ever, since it is now admitted that it is no longer to be supported by the sword and bayo- net; no, not even in Ireland. Thus, the day is come for an independent publisher to immortalise his name, by boldly sounding the trumpet for a decided reform in literature, and abandoning all fictions, whether in Novels, Romances, or Religion, for the more truly useful productions of real Scien- tific knowledge, written in a popular manner for all classes of readers. We do not here speak of mere books of Science, of those published full as they are of restrictions on the mind. We have already but too many for the ^2 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. learned, the professional man, or the student.— We mean the publication of moral and political works^ connected with our emry day Ufe—tvith a scientific basis, and no other ; such as would establish, for in- stance, our WANTS, on the facts of our organization, our Duties, as social beings, on the natural feelings resulting from those ivants,— and our Political RIGHTS as Freemen, established on the natural con- sequence, both, of having acquired the knowledge of our wants, and that of our moral duties, through natural experience and knowledge. In the days of Metaphysical Discussion, it was merely permitted to doubt: in still more remote periods, ignorance was compelled to beheve in spite of reason and common sense ; but, in the present day, man is not only no longer required to believe against his conviction, or merely permitted to doubt, but his duty as an intelligent being, on whom education must soon be freely bestowed, is to look, to observe, to know of himself and to speak from his own conviction, whatever that conviction may be. Away then with all symbolical worship, and from thatmomentdisappearwith it, all impiety and blasphe- my — since these become impossible, being then mere words without sense. Eeason will then at last direct the helm, and legislators unshackled, will speak out all their thoughts, without fear or pusillanimity ; for, be assured ? *^ Symbolical superstitiofi, is to the intel- lectual and enlightened man ; ivhat feudality, is to the political and social man ; — * * Philosophy of Revelations. SERIOUS THOUGHTS. 33 These two sources of servitude, mental and corpo- real, constituted in past ages, the long and cruel bar- barism of mankind, which the knowledge and the lil)erty of the present time have the mission of anni- hilating for ever — know then your century. — Far, however, from blaming the past, as it has been the fashion for more than a century, w^e believe that all its mistakes and errors are entitled to our gratitude, and should be duly appreciated ; for it w^as '' nature all through" that having generated the animal man, conducted him step by step until he attained his present condition (in Europe at least) of being all but ripe for a more rapid and more generally useful development of his intellectual powers, which as a continuation of mental progress, nature has manifested upon earth through human organization. Therefore, the question of all questions for the age is : — ^hy has man ever been so credulous P — Whence that curiosity'? — Whence that thirst for knowledge *? — Has its great mission been ever yet well understood '? — Does it not explain quite naturally, the organic want of ignorance, to obtain some knowledge, or some sort of system. Can w^e not trace there, the mysteries of blind faith — its tenacity in ignorance "^ its vast influence on humanity, fii'st, for good, then for evil ^ hence (we have not the least doubt) the ig- norance of all ancient nations and their l)lind faith in the cosmogonies of their priests and philosophers. Hence also, the belief of modern ignorance in all the dogmas erected on, or deduced from, those very cosmogonies. Blind Faith has been, we repeat it, the first step E 34 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. of Curiosity— the first expression of a thirst for know- ledge, according to the organic law of progress.— Blind Faithyvas therefore, in the beginning, the Cra- dle of all the Sciences for which man was organised, and nothing more; but, positive science is now on its legs— it walks alone— it runs, nay, more, it now takes gigantic strides, and even begins to sap the old orthodox foundation of every Government. HINTS ON EDUCATION. Is it not then time to abandon the Cradle and the mystic nurse, to those who still, deprived of a rational education, stand in need of them to sooth and to guide their ignorance ; is it not time, we ask, to abrogate all the laws which, however indirectly, still enforce the appearance of respect and submission to them, on the part of those who, more advanced, have shaken off these trammels of credulity : for there is an invisible power, generated by the organs of thought in human organization, which is progressive in its irresistible influence on the condition of mankind. Far from longer delaying the education of all the children of the people, the knowledge of every really useful truth must be spread as quickly as possible in every direction, so as to extinguish fanaticism, and annihilate those superstitious ideas which still degrade society, even in the sanctuary of legislation. HINTS ON EDUCATION. 35 Whatever he your efforts, whatever your zeal to accomplish so necessary a reform, its progress can he hut very slow indeed, ivhen we consider the very deep root which prejudices have been allowed to take in this I'diidof modern Cj/c/oj^^-a people we maintain, without fear of contradiction, the least advanced of any nation in Europe, tvith regard to freedom of thought, or indi- vidual mental liherty, although the very first, — 710 one disputes, in the training of the brute, and in all the working and shapings of mineral and vegeta])le substances. The only way in which to account for a retarding influence so singular in itself, and so afflicting for the progress of the nation in intellectual development, (although compensated for in some degree by mechani- cal and mercantile powers, which once baffled all com- petitors) is by reflecting on the fact, that in England, all private and public education still remains almost exclusively under the control of a respectable but too narrow-minded priesthood, although it is generally known, and publicly admitted, that credulity, igno- rance and prejudice among the people, are the best safeguards of that powerful party. - "Les Pretres ne sont point ce qii'un vain peuple pense - " Voire credulite fait toute leur Science." Wherefore that delay in the legislation about a general and rational education — who is he, that has any thing to fear'? Can property be more secure when surrounded, as it is, by ignorant semi-barbarism, than when all shall evince that moral sense of rec- titude, which knowledge bestows with far more success than mere preaching and obsolete exhortation ever 36 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. will? Dare you presume still to say that the people are not prepared to listen to you '? Do they not show on the contrary their thirst for new knowledge? Mistake not the present symptoms — what better proofs can you wish for, than their continual divi- sions and subdivision into sects, under a 'priesthood too often compelled to mystify their knoivledge of nature, to supply the real tvants of education in the present era of our Civilization P Can their Sectarian paper war ever open the mind of the people to useful and practical knowledge? — Their millions and billions of tracts, their sermons forced upon us in the streets (in Vv^hich you may now hear hundreds of Mawivormsin agony,) would suffice to fill, nay would block up your market places with ridiculous trashy twaddle, concocted in a mystic jar- gon, the reading of wdiich vrill make your grand chil- dren blush for their fathers' ignorance and fanaticism. Yet not a week passes, but some new pretended proofs of the truth of Christianity are imagined, or old ones again compiled, and promulgated by troops of young achorets for obtaining a holy name or a well supplied larder ; — scarcely a month passes but some new ''Life of Christ just published," is exposed for sale in proof of a divine mission which learning dis- proves, and common sense denies , . Say now, is it enough, amidst such powerful extin- guishers of thought and enquiry, to ridicule *' reve- lation,'' and preach up a new metaphysical God in nature'? No, no, your ''immense being,'' my Lord, filling up space, and metaphysically separated from matter, — yet ever acting upon it, does after all, but HINTS ON EDUCATION. 37 modify the feeling of Mysticism, by forging new patent chains for the mind of the people, after the old ones corroded by rust, or loosened and worn out by the continued efforts of the giant 'prisoner to break them asunder, alarm you, lest political in- justice and legal plunder should lose their main prop — Mystification. — No, it is not enough to throw discredit upon " Revelation." It is not even enough, in this age of struggles against old interests and old prejudices, to encourage the diffusion of posi- tive knowledge among the people ; but ivhat has been done, and ivhat is still daily doing against the mental faculties of adult youth, must he opposed and undone. Make them understand, that the ancient theory of some future rewards and punishment is but the deductions, natural enough, of a barbarous social con- dition maintaining inequality and servitude in the darkness of ignorance. Tell them, that in such a state, notions of a providential imaginary remunera- tion and of real justice (not yet found upon earth,) are the most easy to be propagated because of the natural instinct of curiosity, because of the organic wish for some system of knowledge : a want of the human species, implanted by nature in the first animal organized upon earth, with a capacity for mental progress. '' The indigent poor, bent beneath the stigma of misery and of want — crushed by the insolent prospe- rity of his wealthy oppressors, naturally credits them with avidity." *' We should not contest their relative moral and 38 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. temporary utility were it not for their consequences — which strengthen and perpetuate the degrading ser- vitude which they pretend to soften by perpetually repeating the same old dreams of consolation to comC;, and of chimerical felicity '"hereafter." ''The Egyptian priesthood who were the first to propagate them, had only imagined them for that very purpose." *' It is not in the nature of any sacerdotal power, (now the most iniquitous of all aristocracies) to believe the possibility of promoting on earth actual and pure justice for the people; and this is the reason why, they so constantly, so loudly and so haughtily invoke the justice of their supposed God in heaven."* Speaking to those who profess to be the true friends of the people, and who sincerely wish for their education, we would warn them that it is no longer, as in times of yore, by a well managed decep- tion — ^by a calculated kindness — ^by Christian piety — by the Christian hope of a future life, in short by Christian precepts and exhortations, that they can expect to gain their confidence, or to ensure their continued submission, to social injustice, masked as it is by a forced charity, separated from the Church. All this might be well and good when the people taught in fiction only, were required and compelled to believe it, but now, that the people of all Europe, modified by time according to the irresistible law of mental progress, manifest every where a wish to be really and truly educated, faith in fiction must inevi- tably lose its influence over all those who shall taste * Philosophy of revelations. HINTS ON EDUCATION. 39 of positive knowledge and feel its attractive influ- ence; the history of mankind heretofore written for them to make them believe, must soon be written by themselves, to make them at last know: and some new basis, of thought and action, some new social link resting upon physical sciences will be found through the power of knowledge, that will completely satisfy the heart, without perplexing and torturing the mind. Many there are, no doubt, at this very moment, who lament the sacrilegious murders committed in Spain upon lazy Monks and Friars — ^let such pause, and re- flect upon the murders and burnings committed a few centuries back, upon old British Druids, by the Ro- man Soldiers : — were there not then in this very land thousands who lamented the cruelty and sacrilege of those times, who must have prophesied the end of all morality, of all virtue, and of all religion ^ and yet, consider — ^liave not their descendants to this day, found their ignorance of nature, as much soothed and comforted, under the new worship of the cross, as our forefathers found their ignorance of nature, soothed and comforted, under the worship of the oak. In these horrors, the Philosopher can see nothing but the law of mental progress opposed by ignorance : all, all, are compelled to move on, according to the mental wants of human organization, which increase age after age. Human nature is gradually modified, under the gradual changes of the human substance, by the necessary and constant process of as simulation: but, as to written books and written dogmas, which cannot in like manner assimilate, they remain 40 SERIOUS THOUGHTS. naturally behind the age, and must therefore sooner or later, be laid upon the shelf; hence it is the deficiency of our legislators in the knowledge of nature, that creates all our social difficulties. Should an infatuated power presume to dictate and to assert that it must be otherwise, — moral thun- ders and mental earthquakes mu^i inevitably ensue, for nature is a dangerous enemy to contend with, in ig- norance; however docile, manageable and subservient it must be when controled by the positive knowledge of man. Instead of interminable disputes about some little differences in imaginary shades of faith, we urge the people to reflect more seriously on the nature of the inward feeling, which, during a state of ignorance compels them to believe. What then are all religions "? Superstition, systematized; the result of a persua- sion obtained or acquired through early instructions in error. What is it then to be persuaded ? It is to be impressed, to receive an impression — and in whatever manner that impression is communicated: whether, by the external world, or by a sensitive substance acting upon another sensitive substance: that impression could never be made without the existence of some organ to receive and manifest it : who then shall dare to deny that all Religions are the mere result of an organic want requiring rather to be satisfied, in spite of the Priest than desiring to be controled by his orthodoxy. HOW SUPERSTION VANISHES, 41 Long and serious reflection on the curious but indubitable fact, that nothing like general good has resulted from all which has been said, written, and published against the pernicious effects of supersti- tion, from the time of Plutarch and Theophra- Tus, * down to our own — having convinced us that it must have been in the very nature of the animal man to cherish superstition and to cling to it, so long as his intellectual faculties were not or could not be cultivated ; we have come to the conclusion, that Reason, Common Sense, and Sound Judgment, re- quire the existence of something positive — such as the acquisition of mental conviction from ivell ascer* tained facts, before those faculties can be called into action, so effectually as to be of any avail against credulity and superstition. The physical sciences alone could supply the know- ledge of those facts and furnish that conviction before which superstition is ever found to retreat, without any of that obstinate resistance, it so promptly, and fearlessly opposes, when its only assailants are denial, ridicule or persecution. Hence it is our decided conviction, that the feeling of superstition, by which some have been exalted so high and others degraded so low in the estimation of all sound and unprejudiced minds, is naturally gene- rated in the sensitive organization of the progressive animal, called man, precisely in the same manner as * Plutarchus and Theophrastiis on Superstition. Translated and Printed by Julian Hibbert, No. 1, Fitzroy place, Kent- ish Town.— 1828, F 42 HOW POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE. any other of Us feelings are generated. — Superstition is nought but an organic want felt by ignorance. The philosophy of blind faith in all the religious creeds of the world, may now assume a much higher ground for cj[uestioning the utility of the Dogmas of the day, than Metaphysics, or Natural Theology can pretend to. The only effect produced upon many believers by the bitter sarcasm, the keen invective and the severe but too often (it must be owned) undeserved reproach of the injudicious Sceptic or infidel, has been that of increasing their blind zeal for their symbolical wor- ship, instead of inducing them, as well as their supe- riors to reflect calmly and seriously upon the origin nature, and expediency of the feeling of faitli, ab- stractedly from the particular creed or dogmas which they were trained to believe in, long before their dis- criminating faculties could have been exercised by inquiry, observation and comparison. Ascertain then, what your religious faith is in it- self; — endeavour to trace its origin, its power, its in- fluence, its mission, as connected with the continued progress of mankind ; and you will soon find the true key— the law of Nature, the real but tempo- rary utility of all Symbolical Worship, After more than thirty years' observations, reflex- ions, researches, and comparisons, it is our conviction, that religious faith, can be nothing more, nor less, than a feehng proceedmg from the internal want of human organization to obtain some knowledge : \\\q want being satisfied, when a sufiicient degree of knowledge is acquired. Hence it is explained ANNIHILATES BLIND FAITH. 43 why and how all errors have successively passed for truths until some new truths which inspired more faith, condemned the former truths as errors — and so on and so on — must the mental progress still continue. The same desire, the same natural want, has con- stantly discovered itself in all inhabited countries by a belief or faith in the religious dogmas. These dogmas by palming upon credulous ignorance, cun- ningly devised cosmogonies or systems of nature more or less ingenious or possible, in the place of positive facts, satisfied in this manner, the most urgent want of a sensitive and progressive being. These systems became the very first social links of mankind, binding together large communities under one faith — and separating the human race into as many different nations as there were different religious creeds arising from those cosmogonies. A circumstance equally beneficial to the primitive ages as to the barbarous ones. These Cosmogonies, Dogmas, or systems of nature being the first step which ignorance made in the continued progress of mankind towards the superior intelligence to be acquired by real and positive know^- ledge, for which knowledge primitive man although then in the lowest degree of the progressive scale, w^as as well organized as the man of to-day — are entitled to our respect and veneration as being so many records of the first efforts of the human mind to palliate, satisfy, or supply the universal w^ant felt by ignorance, at a time when the sciences, the daugh- ters ofobservation and experiment were yet unattain- able, and when even those natural phenomena ob- 44 PHYSICAL FACTS COMMON servable by all, conld not without the subsequent assistance of time be divested of their awe and fear inspiring character, by being rendered familiar and intelligible. Of the numerous creeds or persuasions, which have successively blessed and cursed the necessary igno- rance, semi-barbarism, and even the civilization of human society, we do not mean to speak here other- wise, than to express our decided opinion, as to the impropriety of allowing any one of them to be hence- forth made the basis of a liberal education. And this because we do not perceive one of the present Secta- rian creeds to have any thing of sense, of meanmg, of utihty, or even of truth, that can harmonize with our mental faculties ;— they may work well as matter of mere instruction ; they may well continue to be, as they have been for ages, matter of persuasion, when and where nothing being actually known, no- thing else could be taught—but as they do not speak to our understanding they must, so far from being useful, prove excessively detrimental to real education. '' As to the contrary opinions founded upon blind faith, we respect without beheving them. If decep- ptive illusions are still capable of making other men happy, it would evince but little wisdom to reject them with intolerance merely because we our- selves are happier by means of reality." '' To make use of human passion in opposing human errors, will never lead to conviction. If wars are to cease against ^' mater iaV interests, still more should they cease against'^ irnmateriaV'' ones. Such is we hope the motto of the generation just now TO ALL RELIGIOI^S. 45 rising to purify ^'itself from the slime and filth of the civilization in which we hve." Without agreeing, however, about the present intrinsic merit of illusions or religions— we cannot deny that they must all rest upon some real- ity ;— there must be a real fact in the human organi- zation common to all superstitious creeds, and with- out which, no rehgion could ever have been taught or even known. This fact, common to all sects, to all creeds, to all Dogmas of faith, is termed by some the -Mystic Sense;' by others the -religious fibre r but we should rather say the - relicjioiis feeling /w^y^^^^^ by the organ of credulitf without which no priesthood m the world could ever have been wanted.— Thus we greatly simplify the question respecting the tempo- rary truth and present utility of religious instruction: —for, although we deny the truth of every mysterious faith, we nevertheless have two physical facts insepa- rable from all rehgion s : first, the religious feeling impressed by the organ of credulity ; and secondly. the existence of a priesthood in all past ages. Let us now see whether, by some analysis, we can- not prove from the present relation of these two facts with modern improved Society, that a religious edu- cation is not only useless but highly detrimental. What then is the religious feeling ^ The rehgious feeling is no other than the expression of an organic ^.ant :— a natural instinct within man— a desire, a * Perhaps Phrenologists do well to call it the or^a7i of Fene- ration, on account for the still prevailing opinion, that, to call it by its true name, might offend a Divinity. 46 SCIENTIFIC LECTURERS .ARE wish to know something about the facts, which he feels must have preceded the existing order o/the tan* gihle and visible nature by which he is not only sur- rounded but constantly impressed and modified; — if so — (and we doubt it not) the facts ascertained by modern science must compel us whether we will or not, to confess even to our shame and degradation, that, — '' the nations of antiquity who worshipped the sun or fire, were nearer the truth in matters of faith than Christians are at this day ; — and were there- fore, far less given to superstition or idolatry*^ than are the people of more modern times who still pros- trate themselves before a painted image — a w^ooden cross — a printed book — a brass or bronze Figure — or who repeatedly bend in assumed humility at the invocation of a name.'' After the organic want — the instinctive wish of human organization : came the priest — for none we hope are stupid enough to imagine that he was the antecedent fact; — What then, was the Priest ? The Priest was undoubtedly the first director, master, and ruler of human society — the first gene- rator of thought among mankind ; — ^he alone could subdue ignorance through persuasion ; — with his Cosmogonies, his imagined system of nature, he fully satisfied the instinctive wish to know and the orga- nic want of a sensitive being in ignorance, a being who deprived of the means of observation, research, experience and comparison, (which time alone could build up into real science) required then no better proof than mystical words like Fii, Yao, Vishnou, NOW TIIK TRUE PRIESTS. 47 Brahma, Zeus, Theos, Yehoii, Jehora, Deus, God, Sjnrit, Lord or ''immense Being,'' and for this very good reason — that the priest never had or could have any other proof to give — nor could he demon- strate what he advanced as truth, so as to satisfy the hetter understanding of men;— had he been able to do so — the harmony between mind and the science of the jrriest tvould then have existed — and blind faith which disclaims all harmony, luould never have been required. Now it is precisely because Mystical instruction was required for credulity ivhen and where nothing was hioivn, nothing 'positive was taught, and nothing real could be demonstrated, that we hold it to be injudicious, and religious faith to be impossible, when and ivhere the physical sciences bring such abundance of conviction to the mind, that positive knowledge and the demonstration of reality, supersede in the human organization when cultivated and developed, the urgent want of faith felt only in its more rude and more barren state of existence. It is far, however, from our intention to insult or vilify the priesthood of any age, nor can we incur their censure for thinking of their holy calling as we do — it is the law of mental continued progress they have now to grapple with, and welcome they are are to stop it if they can ; — their mission we believe to be accomplished from the moment that physical science can be taught to the people at large, and we see no salvation for them but in gradually discard- ing fictions from their pulpit, and expounding physical facts in competition with our Scientific lecturers whom 48 NEW KNOWLEDGE — NEW POWER. we look upon decidedly as the first priests of the new SANCTUARY of THOUGHT. One or two questions more and we have done with holy fictions.— Did not the priesthood of past ages pos- sess and monopolize all science'? Certainly, and their superior knowledge gave them superior power. Do the present priesthood of Europe possess now the knowledge that gives power *? Let the answer be made by the physical sciences, by the Mechanics Institutions, by the Stock Exchange, hy Steam, hy Machinery, hy Gas, by Rail-roads, by Atmospheric pressure and by Monopoly, for each and all of these are the true radical reformers of our time. It is our impression also, that he who devotes his life to "Seeking after God,'' as it is curiously termed, acts precisely like a madman, who supposing himself lost, would set off to look for himself, over the earth and through space: for, all the while, he is actually the self generator of the idea ivhich he pursues — it is merely attempting to realize or to personify a natural feeling * which feeling or impres- sion is nothing more than a quality, an instinct, a product, of some organized matter, performing certain functions according to a series of laws, constituting what is called human life :— an organized sensitive substance seeking for positive science before sufficient * " No doubt, says the Chinese Mandarin, that there is in nature a powerful principle of motion and order totally un- known to what is— but to make a Deity of that unknown prin- ciple, so as to say that the " universe is the creation of a God^' is nothing more than deifying human ignorance."* * Helvetius derhomme. Sect : 2. ch. 2. p. 96, 97. Tom. 3. LIFE IN DEATH. 49 culture, time and observation could manifest upon earth the superior intelligence of knowledge in reality. We must also protest against the mystic theory of life and death. The functions of life are such in man and woman (as well as in other animals*) that a certain period of time, or a too sudden modification of the substance from one state to another, (as for in- stance a sudden loss or gain, very bad or very good news abruptly made known,) may suspend them for ever in an instant; the organized matter, or the human substance, then ceases all functions, which, according to the laws of life, had produced 5e/^5lY^i;6 intelligence, reason, thought, instinct :— organic matter is then submitted to a s eries of other laws, which, while they manifest and constitute what is called dissolution, death, originate a fresh series of lives— a transfor- mation — a transmutation — a supply to some other organizing process ; thus it is, that through chemical agency, all is in all. Intelligence to perform such natural transforma- tions is, therefore, ever present in all matter, and may consequently be justly called a quality of matter, or one of its qualities amongst many others ; but because, forsooth, it escapes our notice, because the manifestation of intelligence, or mind, soul, spirit, (call it what you will) is not so evident to our senses in the act of the morbid dissolution of all organized * A mouse for instance has been found dead through grief, (itself unhurt) lying upon the trap, by which its five young had been suddenly caught and strangled ; some dogs have died of grief on their master's grave; pigeons show their grief in the most expressive manner ; female swans in a state of widowhood shew their grief by separating from the society of their species. G 50 SERVITUDE OF MAN. substances as it is in the act of sensitive life ; the ignorance of former times assumed, and interested motives still perpetuate the error, that, when the faculty of assimilation ceases in any human substance so as to cause death — a certain spirit or soul has actually departed from it. It had also been invented and assumed as fact, that such spirit or soul had been blown into matter by a " God, Creator and Governor' of the universe, and assumed besides, to complete a mystic system for the credulity of ignorance,— -that death was caused by the said creator actually calling back to him that spirit or soul in order to reivard or lyunish it, accord- ing to certain laws made by him — why then in the name of truth and common sense, not admit the same for all other animals, plants, crystals and metals, where and within which intelligence, soul, or spirit, is manifested, though in a different and lesser degree, and with which the power of growth and develop- ment ceasing, decomposition or death ensues, on the very same principles. * All such false and foolish notions serving as a hasis for the education of youth tend to perpetuate * " The powers of the magnet, and other electrical phenome- na are no less wonderful to our mind than human intelligence. The action of chlorine gas upon the metals, so as to produce, spontaneously, heat and light ; — the definite multiple and pro- portional combination of the atoms — their powers of choosing and refusing, as if each atom could see, and select one shape of atoms in preference to another, and count the exact number with which it can unite ; are all powers, qualities, properties no less astonishing than the actions of the beings called intelli- gent. "-T/i^ 7^^w/w^^o?^ of Philosophy, hyR. TFhaUy- Man- chester. ANCIENT DOCTRINES. 51 superstition — through superstition, fear and prostra- tion of inind-'-'and through prostration of mind, the perpetuation of the servitude of man. In the name of this advanced age, Vvhat useful knowledge, for instance, can we derive from the an- cient doctrine respecting *^ soul or mind," (p. 263.) is not the very word "doctrine;' become otiensive to all rational hearers, and besides, have we lost all power of ratiocination "? Is there no instinct left in the orijanic world for us to listen to "? — Can we not on the contrary, investigate, examine, and question our- selves with far greater facilities of observation, with far more positive knowledge of man's organization, and with far greater variety of improved means to direct the sagacity of our inquiries, than could possibly have been available by any of the philosophers of antiquity — however worthy of our praise and admi- ration, their " Doctrines" may be, considering the age in which those doctrines were conceived. Again in the name of all knov^ai positive facts, what can we now learn or teach from " ancient doctrine," respecting a '^Deity and matter'^" (p. 266.) Are then all modern notions about Matter and Deity of no value ? Are they already to be con- sidered obsolete ^? If so, are the ancients to be re- vived'? Is faith then to be reinforced according to the most ancient cosmogonies '? But faith has ever been blind and stationary, — whilst modern positive knowledge is all powerful and progressive. Physics are at last preparing to throw metaphysics overboard, to banish for ever superstition, that old tyrant who strikes terror into thought, Avhenever and wherever it gives any symptoms of becoming expansive. 52 so MORE NEED FOR WOIsDER. In order to study man, what have we to do at this period of human existence with any metaphysical hypothesis '^ Such early wanderings of bewildered imaginations might be tolerated in the ancient philo- sopher, who, comparatively, in profound ignorance of of the physical truths of geology — of comparative anatomy, of animal and vegetable physiology — of phrenology, and still more so, of the new system of ORGANIC chemistry, may easily be conceived to have been lost in amazement, when contrasting the superiority of human thought with the powers, quali- ties, or properties, of all other organized substances— but since his day, enough has been ascertained to warrant us to go onwards from the known, to what is yet unknown, without need for " ivonder.'' Such bookish reminiscenses are now uncalled for— because totally useless for promoting intellectual de- velopment ; to diffuse them again among the people can have no other tendency than to prove how far, even a Master mind, — such as that possessed by the author of the ''Discourse," — may not only be led into eiTors itself, but mislead others also, by pursuing the ancient and obsolete assumptions of matter and mind, independently and separately from each other — instead of grounding all his arguments on the now well-known physical facts, which compel our reason to consider human nature as nothinof more than a sensitive substance of the first order, so organized as to manifest a progressive development through suc- cessive periods of time, and to admit, at all periods, of numberless modifications through the variety of surrounding circumstances. WHAT IS HUMAN NATURE 1 53 In this conviction the study of man, by man, with none but useful and practical results in view, will be confined within a simple inquiry as to the nature of those circumstances the best adapted to his organi- zation, and the mode of satisfying each of its wants, without injury to another. Call him then " matter' or -^^^V^(^"_describe him again if you will, as a most "ivonderfur' -compound" of both,— this does not alter the fact, for, you never can have any thing to act upon but man and woman as they must appear to all unprejudiced observers i. e. natural sensitive substances, organized with faculties capable OF mental progress ; whilst, on the contrary, your tottering ''Eternal truths' would if possible eternally stigmatize the nobler of those faculties, hy continu- ing to sanction the most barbarous cruelties perpe- trated through the hatred actually taught, by Sectarian bigotism : witness Ireland * * " Our hearty wish is, that those dreadful days of bigotry, and of its inseparable associate, cruelty, may be obliterated from men's thoughts, or remembered only as examples to be hated and eschewed. The Presbyterian and Episcopahan are now as one," {as far as the power of both to crush thought in the hud,) —"differing in form rather than in principle ; equally tolerant of each oih^x^ mode of discipline, and equally haters of all tyranny, especially of that frightful monster of Politico—- KELiGious TYRANNY, which would, by meaus of blind igno- rance and SUPERSTITIOUS terror, make even the devout con- science of the disciple the motive and instrument of his crimes against those whom he is taught to believe his enemies:' (See the ''Times;' of January the 14th, 1836.— The same day's paper is also worth perusing for the curious remarks on a document purporting to be a memorial addressed to Lord J. Russell, by the Ministers and Elders of the united associate 54 MATTER IMMORTAL. No — no, — to -vvatch the march of that mental PROGRESS — to foresee, as far as possible, its influence upon society as a whole — and to administer to all the new wants, generated by new social modifications should, in spite of Episcocracy, be the only "Sacred'' duties of modern hgislatovs familiar with the physical world. In the name,'then, of liberal education and mundane HAPPINESS FOR ALL CLASSES, acknowledged now to be the only sound basis for the stability of mixed governments, — why republish " the ancient doctrine on the immortality of the soul, and a future state," (p. 273 and 281.) when it is taught and known almost every where, that all your " matte?''' is (for the human brain) equally immortal — being subject only to transformation or transfusion. That those "'ancient doctrines" and the dogmas of faith erected upon them, have done much good — no one denies, — but only as te^nporary and consola- tory notions ivell adapted in their day to ignorance ; when all the people poor, helpless, and patient, con- sented to believe they were doomed for ever to drag on a life of incessant toil, — either, in servile bondage, as it still exists in Turkey and Russia, or in moral degradation and increasing difiiculties under a Synod of the Secession Church of Scotland, signed by their Moderator, jldam Thoynpson. Now this reads well against bigoted cruelty and superstition^ but then comes an advertisement for — what think you reader ? Why, for a "Child's caul to be sold for 15 guineas, apply at William Street, Regent's Park," {Times of 28th Jan.) thus lend- ing itself to keep up a superstition as old as the Druids, and this in the would be thought to be the first paper of Europe ! ! ! MISSION OF SCIENCE. 55 more modern mixed system of mystified liberty ; — but now, that hmnan intelligence has taught mankind how to manage and coerce the physical world, how to direct all the elements, and the inexhaustible forces of nature ! — how to make them labour for HIM, upon all the substances within his reach : — now that moral unions guided by positive knowledge could make of this earth a sensitive ''paradise:" — * the human species has in reality little to learn, be- cause it has little to care about your mystifying im- mortality, or '' eternal bliss, " in a supposed or even in a " real" future state of individual existence after death. If the notions of a future state of bliss through the immortality of a portion, only, of man, have been so generally entertained in all parts of the earth, and have always actually belonged to a state of ignorance under every denomination and degree of superstition, they must only be viewed by philosophy as the pros- pective provision of a natural instinct in human or- ganization, secretly suggesting to a progressive sensi- tive substance, that a time would come when all mankind could be made more comfortable and more happy than they actually were. — Cry out as loudly as you please ''Utopia," "Utopia:" — human science, we contend, has the mission of realizing the secret orga- nic ivhisper, — the fondest hope of our nature — for, the obstacles to its realization upon earth are now but few and fragile — they only lie hidden under the tem- * "Paradise within the reach of all men without labour," by the power of machinery and nature, by T. A. Etzler, Pits- burgh, Pensylvania. — Eepublished by Brooks, 421, Oxford St. 56 POWER OF TIME AND THOUGHT. porary laws of inheritance in legislation, under pro- perty qualification, — imder a most ridiculous system of a shackled currency forcibly contracted when all around expands, and under the thick veil of mysti- cism that has too long disguised and still presumes to mask for ever, all the existing social vices, as if time and THOUGHT were not the irresistible reformers of all the most sacred usurpations and abuses.* Moreover, a discourse on theology, published in our own time should not have passed over in silence SUPERSITION, — that great grand mother of all theo- logies — and if the ancient doctrine about a Deity, "immortality of the soul," in a "future state" &c.are now to be illustrated for the people, the opinions of the ancients on Christianity or superstition, should also in equity be laid before them such, for instance, as a short note upon the 16th chapter of the charac- ters of Theophrastus — upon The fourteen articles of Plutarchus, on super- stition — upon Suetonius Tranquillus, -j- who designates the first Christians as "a race of men, of a new and per- nicious superstition," — upon * *' Your dignity is well assured, and your power is well set- tled: but the power and dignity and authority of no body of men either in these or in any other times, was never so settled or secured as to enable them with impunity to trifle with popular opinions,"— w/^«^^ opinions are generally the result of irresis- tible natural feelings^ whether generated hy superstition or hy reality. — Loi^d Melbourne's Speech to the Lords, from the Morning Chronicle, 30th July, 1835. t Ann. b. XV. ch. 44. MARTYRS, MOJs^KS, AND UELICKS. 57 Tacitus * who most impudently says that the Christians were '^ hated for their crimes," calHiig their faith '' a deadly superstition:"— upon Porphy- Rius (A.D. 270.) who bitterly insulted the Christ- ians;— upon the lawyer Ulpianus, (A. D. 222.) who wrote " de torquendLs Christianis ;" — upon — EuNAPius, A, D. 396,) who calls the holy relicks of the Saints, " The congregated heads and bones of those seized for their sins, whom civil judgment has punished." Who calls the divine martyrs : — " Wicked freemen who have been slaves (to opinion) and consumed with stripes (severely scourged) bearing the marks of their immorality in their images." And also calls the Christian Monks : — '♦ Men indeed according to the face (so far as the face is concerned) but their life is a swinish one." For one reason, however, we Christians ought to be less hostile to Plutarch than to the other writers of these times, because he has never written a syllable against us, and our religion ; whereas, almost all the other Pagan writers, have emulated each other in heaping abuse upon us. Such at least as condes- cended to notice us.f * Annal. b. XV. ch. 44. t We are not only reprobated by Tacitus, A. D. lOo—Plhiins and Trajanus, A. D. 106— Suetonius, A. D. 115— Marcus Antoni7ius, A. D. 170 — Lucianus, A. D. 176 — and especially by CeJsus, A. D. 176— but may also perhaps be al- luded to (generally with contempt) by Epictetus, A. D. 109 — Martialis, A. D. 95—JuvenaUs, A. D. lOO—ApuHus, A. D. 164-^and Arts fides, A. D. 176. H 58 "SEW TRAINING REQUIRED. The true friends of mental liberty — those who desire knowledge, education, and comforts, for all classes, should unite their efforts to introduce a new system of training the human animal, * by which Now, that every man is allowed to judge for himself, it is time we think, to have all these opinions reprinted with new and correct editions of our Bibles —so that all the people may be able to judge fairly. It is indeed shocking to think what little eft'ect our Miracles produced upon the following list of lite- rary men, no one of whom has made the most distant allu- sion to us or to our worthy " Messenger"' — though nearly all of them flourished about the first century of Christianity — viz: Pomponius Mola, A. D. 40 — Seneca, the philosopher, A. D. 60 — Petronius, Arbiter, A. D. 60— Annseus Lucanus,A.D. 63 — Aulus Persius, A. D. 60 — Plinius the naturalist, A. D. 70 — Papinius Statins, A. D. 90— Dio Prussceus, A. D. 98— Quintillianus, A. D. 100— Lucius Florus, A. D.llO— yElianus, A. D. 10— Ptol- emaeus, A. D. 130 — they must certainly all be d d " for not mentioning the miracles of our Saviour, "f * And first, transform all the Charity-Schools of our Towns into Prytaniums in the country for the Children of the peo- ple. The present instruction they receive is any thing but intel- lectual or moral ; on meeting these unhappy beings, driven two by two in long rows, they appear more like things coming out of some musty machine, than sensitive substances capable of being educated and cultivated ; their very dress is a dis- grace to our present knowledge of what is necessary for youth in order to combine health, comfort, and the natural grace be- longing to that age, when not distorted by the fixed and slavish dread of the rod. It is then a matter of the VAOst pressing necessity to deliver us from such exhibitions, and to allow the exercise of the fields and country air to the youth of all classes. f Life of Plutarchus compiled by Johanes Rualdus- -inserted in the Paris edition of Plutarch's Works by Antoine Etieune in 16-21.- -Cap. IX. CONFESS YOUR IGNORANCE. 59 the mind of youth should not be compelled to l)elieve any thmg that could not be demonstrated in so clear a manner as to be verified by their own subsequent investigations of nature. Let it be confessed under a more sincere and more rational system of education than is followed in our present schools, colleges, or universities, that — All human research and investigation up to this day, which have had for object to discover how life and intelligence began upon the earth, have not yet, given any positive results. That, all Mysteries, Oracles, Religions. Revelations and Sectarian controversies about the idea God, Spirit or .S'oi^/— have never been able to inform the human understanding precisely when, nor exactly how the organic world has been produced, but that the physical sciences being decidedly progressive, future generations must necessarily proceed onwards and acquire still more knowledge on the origin of HUMAN NATURE, and ou the ORIGIN and structure of the universe. That, no research or investigation of nature has ever yet given us a satisfactory proof or clear notion of the existence of a God, or Creator, separate from nature, or " supernaturar as it is whimsically termed. That, the intelligence manifested in the animal and vegetable world, or life itself, cannot yet be un- derstood otherwise than as '' qualities" of organized substances, precisely in the same manner as numbers and dimensions are qualities of inorganic ^'matter,'' audit is merely that quality— that instinct— abstract- 60 WHAT IS THEOLOGY*? edly considered which theologians have named the ''soiiiy That, theology is a vain illusory knowledge, de- serving only the name of science w^hen there was actually no other better adapted and more in harmony with the mental faculties of the human brain — since it merely aims at finding the origin of a qncdity isolated and independent of all the other qualities of '' matter^ That, all theologians, whether resting upon some supposed " revelation," or upon some system of nature, have confined themselves wdthin a circle of errors, by making or imagining the existence of a '' Being,'* out of that which the human brain must ahvays consider as nothing more than a property, a power, a quality of w^hat is visible and tangible — as w^ell might they imagine or personify noise or sound in the universe, independently of the sense of hearing, or colours independently of the organs of sight. That in short, human curiosity seeking as it were to satisfy itself from the beginning, deified all the un- known into one or many beings — w^orshiping names, mysteries, words, attributes, and qualities : each people according to the impression made on them by surrounding nature, so that if a God w^ere invented by horses, he would I'tin, or trot, upon four legs. * * Clemens Alexandriniis has preserved some verses of JCeno- phanes, which are thus translated by Voltaire^ (Dict^ Phil. art. Emblem, torn. 3. p. 90.) Chacim figure en toi ses attributs divers ; Les oiseaiix te feraient voltiger dans les airs. Les Boeufs te preteraient leiirs cornes menacantes, Les Lyons farmeraient de leiirs dents dechirantes, Les chevaux dans les chanipb te teraient galoper,-- ■ WHO NOW THE MARTYRS '? 61 The physical sciences have something so positive and so very attractive about them — so well adapted to bring a new conviction to the brain totally differ- ent from what is CciWed 2yersuasi on in fiction or ini/s- teries, that none but ignorant teachers^ or interested knaves, can really be surprised — or affect to be so, — when they witness in themselves, or in others, a total change of feelings operated by the conviction derived from reality — this new feeling is of a superior nature — it is more edifying, more noble, more becoming, to MAN, because it reveals the power of his mental facul- ties, which on the contrary the blind persuasion of mere faith tends to stifle, to torture, and finally to destroy, — whence it is the first duty of all the leading characters of the age, to abandon fiction and meta- physics as the basis of their thoughts regarding education, for the new scientific one, now required. A positive scientific basis for a national education, is no doubt far preferable to one purely literary, and still more so to one purely religious : after all, does not the extraordinary influence of science over the human substance to modify it, and the irresistible attractions of the mind towards new ideas and new knowledge, prove the physical sciences to be an instinct of nature calling for the foundation of a new religion, of a new social link, and the only real basis of useful learning? — we doubt it not, and a time will come when the publishers and sellers of the unstamped press now persecuted and hunted into dungeons by the police, shall be distinguished over all the great names of the day, as the martyrs of the 62 HINTS ON EDUCATION. new enlightened conviction from reality, and posterity shall testify its gratitude for those who felt it a virtuous duty to diffuse political and positive know- ledge in spite of the law\ We do not concur in opinion with those who would abolish the dead languages — they may continue to be taught so far only as they are necessary to understand the mechanism of the more modern ones — but when the whole time of youth is taken up with Etymology, Grammar, Syntax, and mysterious translations, they will only make overgrown children, totally strangers to the positive wants of social life — whereas the early study of the physical sciences, above all, that of phre- nology, of animal and vegetable physiology, and of organic chemistry (without the knowledge of which there can be no solid basis to morality,) can alone form observing and reflecting rational beings, who shall value liberty of thought — and citizens true to the principles of general utility. — * * Puhlic Schools — " On the first glance at the occupations of pupils in our public schools, every one is struck with the strange, not to say absurd, spectacle of young Englishmen being engaged from morning to night, through a succession of eight or ten years, in learning the language, manners, geography and antiquities of Athens and Rome — communities long ago extinct, and having but a very remote analogy to the political and social state of their own country. When this system was first introduced into our schools and colleges, at the revival of letters, and even so late as the end of the seventeenth century, such a system of education was defensible, on the principle of utility, and almost on that of necessity. All liberal knowledge, all scientific treatises, and almost every thing that was elegant in HINTS ON EDUCATION. 63 ** It has been said that among the youths of the day those who are the best students are not radicals or reformers . that MORALITY and virtue were simply yiatural WANTS of our organization to he felt only after its more indispensable and more imperious wants had been fully satisfied — in vain ^ Impossible I For,. Aristocratic power which tyrannizes over the people by conquest— priestcraft which tyrannizes now over mind by perpetuating the credulity of ignorance and modern financial despotism which tyrannizes over skill, industry, and labour, by the funding sys- tem on the plan of perpetual annuities : though still idolized, respected, and obeyed, as faith loyal faith mystical and faith national to the exclusive advan- tage of hardly one twelfth part of the popula- tion OF Europe, are yet but three successive usurpations over ignorance. Reflect only on what, and and who those are, that 124 INGRESS OF A NEW RELIGIOUS LIGtfT. are now sent for and repeatedly consulted by the civil power in cases of difficulty and emergency '^ Are they the augurs, the Prelates, the divines, or the orthodox of the day, as in times of yore when they alone possessed knowledge *? No ! no 1 those who now hold counsel with our rulers, are the practical men of industry, of trade, of science ; the manufacturer,, the farmer, the producer, the mechanic. Why, then, do not modern nations endeavour to compose exclusively their Lords and Commons of the most distinguished practical men of all useful trades, of all real knowledge, and of mental capacity '^ Why continue to be ruled by Episcopal fictions and by feudal precedents, when the knowledge of reality and utility is repeatedly knocking at the door — re- peatedly summoned to give evidence, and to supply the deficiency, of ignorance in power '^ *' But lo 1 the dim, feeble, unsteady, and flickering light of all the existing superstitions, or, as they are called, revelations, is gradually going out ; while a better light — a light more serene, diffusive, consistent, and exhilirating — ^the light of real science — the nem RELIGIOUS LIGHT, is comiug in, and will finally find an ingress into every human brain.* *' It cannot be repeated too often, even to the edi- tors of our liberal and radical press, that the hopes of * The Religion of the Universe, ly JR. Fellowes, — A well- written and now a most useful book ; not too much in advance of the age, and which, for that very reason, may be read with advantage and profit by all sincere believers. SPEAK ON PRACTICAL AMELIORATIONS. 125 mankind do not rest on the diplomatic leading arti- cles of this or that paper: What can such composi- tions have to do with the working classes, or with the reflecting mind of any class '? " Speak to the public about the well-being of those masses now bent down tinder the mystic chains of their own ignorance ; propose some new kind of county and parish associations, by which rates may be abo- lished, and yet poverty made intelligent and comfort- able ; tell us of the means by which moral worth may be produced and maintained ; talk to us of a brotherhood for exterminating individual ignorance and selfishness ; of self abnegation — of the pardon of public and private offences — of conciliating the dif- ferent interests — of the ameliorations of daily life ; how to substitute a conscience of moral rectitude for the confused mass of obsolete mystic laws — how to substitute rational schools for demoralizing prisons — how to abolish all penalties — ^how to put an end to legal and to private vengeance — how to procure land for communities of paupers^ so long as pauperism is to be a necessary consequence of a vicious system — how to transform by them, and for them, the most inferior lands into good alluvial soil.* * The poor's rates are at last somewhat reduced (1836), and crime has diminished ! But why ? Because of the thousands now employed, in digging and building for railroads, which railroads, by facilitating the transmission and the transmutation of soils, must increase a thousand fold the palatable products of the earth. Thus ever will one step made in practical pro- gress lead mankind onwards to still more useful discoveries. 126 WHAt ARE BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETIES V These, and many other objects of practical iitilityy would tend far more than diplomatic articles or reli- gious tracts to supply the waiits of the many, to satisfy intelligence, and to relieve the painful thoughts of some, who feel, and who reflect upon, the enormous amount of social injustice and mystification. In the mean time, no real progress has actually 'been made in rational education, nor can any be ex- pected, so long as the training of youth entrusted to our " malignanf orthodox priesthood, remains nearly the same to this day as it was two centuries ago. What are now the most exciting topics of religious aberration among all classes of the people'? MissioisARY, Bible, and Tract Societies, where shoals of sectarian disputants, still attract ignorant crowds, who run, like bedlamites; to hear and determine which of the contending fanatics shall best succeed to mystify them by expounding rehgious dogmas, J i/5^ as much intelligible as they are iiifallihle. '' Notwithstanding the ungenerous and sectarian views of those societies, and our firm persuasion of the speedy dissolution of the mystical fabric, which they assiduously support in Europe, we regard with pecuhar interest and satisfaction the work in which they are engaged. But it is to the foreign circulation alone that we wish to direct the reader's attention, as that is what we call the good department of the society's operations. Ahroad they are the move- ment party — innovators ; at home they are the STAGNANT party — supporters of errors and corrup- tion. The difference is infimte. THEIR EFFECT AT HOME AND ABROAD. 127 '' At home these tracts are by no means calculated for the spirit of our population ; no doubt they affect many and convert some ; Mahometan tracts would do the same. They convince some simple souls that they are great sinners, that the Hohj Ghost is very angry with them, and that the jatvs of hell are gap- ing to devour them. ^'This conviction being produced, the poor creatures read a chapter in the bible, pray upon their knees, look very sad, and go to church on a Sunday ; and this is called by the tract-men ' winning souls to Christ,' and ' plucking brands out of the burning furnace.' '' All this, we acknowledge, is effected, and Avhen it is effected upon dissolute characters, drunkards, debauchees, swearers, liars, &c. it is good, inasmuch as it is better for men and women to be troubling themselves with religious melancholy, than annoying the community with disgusting vices ; but when the simple, the cheerful, the light hearted, and innocent are caught by these nets of the arch-enemy of human happiness, we deplore the result. This is often the case ; more frequently, however, its stale advice and obsolete cant pass by the ears of the listless reader like the idle wind, which he regards not. '' Abroad, the tracts are among the people what the unstamped and radical press is amongst ourselves ; and the Priests might well be accused of a most glaring inconsistency in encouraging and practising rebellion and infidelity in other countries, Avhilst they reprobate, in unmeasured terms, the equally conscieiu 128 SECTARIAN PROPAGANDA FIDE. tious and successful innovators who oppose them at home. The argument against rebellion and innova- tion, therefore, comes with a very bad grace from the mouth of the Priest or Christian of any denomination, for, all parties belong to the new ' Propaganda Fide,' and aim a deadly blow at the old superstitions of the world. What else do we *? " Our aim is the same as theirs, and our justifica- tion the same, namely, our own conviction. But there is a mighty difference between us, for whilst they regard us with abhorence as enemies of their God, and as deserted by his spirit, we view them only as instruments of p' ogress abroad, and oi retard at home."* * Tlie Shepherd, No 25, hy the Rev. J. E. Smith, Author of CAris^ and Anti- Christ, or Good a.nd Evil. — Cousi?is, 18^ Duke Street, Lincolns Inn. — The Shepherd contains under the title " System of Nature" an introduction to the philosophy of rationalism, the best adapted that we know of, to promote the mental emancipation of such biblical readers, as may wish to combine a little real thought with iheix pious meditation.. SERIOUS THOUGHTS GENERATED BY PERUSING LORD BROUGHAM'S DISCOURSE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY; PHRENOLOGY — . PSYCHOLOGY. BY A STUDENT IN REALITIES. PART III. ' Men chango with fuitune, manners change with clime. Tenets with books, and principles with time." — Pvpe. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, AND rUBLISHRD BY JOHN BROOKS. 421, OXFORD STREET. 1837. London ;— Bronu & Co. Printers, Alfred Place, Blackfriars* Road. ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS OF PART III. Theorem I. ....... Theorem II. ...... . Theorem III. ........ I^■TR0DUCTI0N to Part III. ..... Curious mystic charges against Dr. Hampden One Word to the liberal Critics Phrenology is the tomb of all Psychology ! Serious Thoughts, &c. &c. continued. Religion reconciled with Philosophy Prejudice and pusillanimity are generated by instruction in sectarian mysticism On Dr. Gedde's translation of Hebrew. Blind faith is the consequence of a natural instinct. Dr. Marsh (Bishop of Peterborough) on doubt Ignorance everywhere, and at all times, the same. Vulgar superstitions of our peasantry. Civil and political liberty emancipate thought. The beneficial influence of progressive civilization is to reduce, still more and more, instinctive supcrstitioiij and the mystic fear ol' evil- PAGE vi vii viii 129 136 110 115 118 119 150 152 153 154 155 156 157 IV ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. TAGS The day of public discussion on the origin and utility of mystic religion must come 158 Dr. Watson's conviction regarding a severe investigation of Christianity. . 159 Dr. Whately on the phenomenon of religions ; what he deems it incumbent on sceptics to do. . . 160 Mankind has been moulded by nature, a substance with organic dispositions to be spiritually trained upon earth 161 How to search for truth in the past and present . . 162 Attend on Sundays where you may put questions. . 164 Attend to the real facts on which all the sciences are agreed 166 The forcing our bibles into all Irish and other schools is to mystify Education into a sectarian question . 167 Old and new definition of the word Eeligion. , . 168 What must now be understood by the word . . 170 Civilization, however incomplete, has afforded security and leisure for research, observation, and judgment. 171 Real ascendancy belongs to the intellectual movement. 172 Universite Catholique 173 The sacred double duty to be now performed. . » . 174 No rational religious reform possible, without cultiva- ting the understanding of the people. . . .175 What a church reform should be, 300 years after a reformation . . . . . . . .176 A religious reform now implies mental reform. . . 177 Church reform — what it is not 178 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. V PAGB The first question of the age ? 1 79 To understand the gradual modifications of our religious feeling, is a home question for every human being. ib. Old religious symbols vanish ; but the religious feeling progresses . .181 Superstitions, religions, and heresies, are gene- rated by the same feeling. 183 Church critics. 184 Doubt universal ! 185 There are no wants, no feelings, no thoughts, no ACTIONS, that are not, at once, in the series of mental modifications, the effects of former impressions, and the antecedent facts to every subsequent one. . ib. To prevent the diffusing of real knowledge is to retard the progress of general CIVILIZATION. . . . 186 Confirmation, and ordination, require no proofs of mental capacity. 188 All the revenues of the Church lands, as well as others, called " Church property," are, in reality, an edu- cation fund for the ;peoplc! . . . . .189 All political or clerical opposition is but the manifestation of a law of nature, to mature all necessary reforms. 190 The invisible power that urges onwards the mental leaders of mankind, and that hurls down all their MYSTIC tyrants, is but the physical influence of pro- gressing intellectual wants on human organization . 191 Away then now with the Sybill's scroll ! . . . 192 VI THEOREM. I. " No sooner does a religious creed begin to print a 7'ca- soning catecliism — no sooner does political absolutism pub- lish an explanatory journal — than both hasten their down- fall ; the fact of their compulsory explanation being precisely what constitutes the triumph of real knowledge. Every religious system which rests upon fixed articles of faith must, if it regard its own existence, make authority, not ratiocination, its principle ; for, the moment that it has recourse to philosophy for assistance, its doom is cast — cest le commencement dc sa fin.'' Ail the endeavours of religion to defend herself— all her metaphysical verbiage — can produce no other effect than that of making her flounder still more in the mire of contradic- tion, and of plunging her into absurdities the most glaring — into difficulties the most inextricable.* * The serious import of our theorems has induced us to reproduce here those to part I. and II. of the new Sanctuaby. T H E O Pt E M. vii II. Since an organic instinctive wish for, and an inherent leant of, some knowledge, constitute the very reahty and essence of the rehgious feeling in ignorance of nature, Religions, pro2')eiiy so called, are not only completely out of the reach of destruction, hut are, ever heyond the apprehension of it. As, however, all things, impressions, and ideas, whether denominated physical, moral, or intellectual, are suhject to vicissitude and change, religious feelings and notions must, of necessity, ohey, in common with the rest, the natural law of human progressiveness. Consequently, all fixed dogmas, all articles of faith in mystic worship, as well as all opinions liable to contro- versy, which have hitherto mediated, or are now in actual progress of mediation for mankind, have undergone, or are undergoing, gradual and successive modifications ; changing naturally with the character of the age, and insensibly disappearing, until finally absorbed by the greater attraction of a new mediating influence, more in harmony with time and thought than the preceding one. Hence, nothing can be more futile, more unreasonable, and more fraught with prejudice or superstition, than the regrets, lamentations, and sectarian fears incessantly repeated by departing generations, respecting the eternity of their respective churches.* See pages 5, 34, 39, 44, 45, 52, 61, 72, and 76 to 80. viii THEOREM. III. Human thought is not confined to the spot where MAN may rest — its property is to interrogate the present, that the past may be understood, and the future foreseen. " It is not the mere picture of nature which will satisfy thought, it must have nature's history, and ail religions are in reality, an attempt to give an history of nature, but as the future is only an indefinite progression, so history is only an unlimited consequence. " Let us, therefore, be consistent in our studies, nor fear to push consequences as far as that infinity, by which alone we c^n fancy any limits to nature; — absurdity of reasoning is equally found in the point at which wif STOP, as in that at which we divaricate." To those who, influenced b y mystic fears, dread real knowledge, as infidelity, and who imagine they can dis- cover, in our view of religious faith, the taint of Atheism : — which is but a mental aberration opposed to supersti- tion, as one false reasoning is opposed to another, — we will say with Fontenelle : WB ARE TOO RELIGIOUS TO BE OF YOUR RELIGION. We cannot believe as you do, because we know of natural powers which far transcend your mystic Deities — ours imply no other mediation for man, than the natural intervention which all organised substances more or less depend upon, for their development, existence, and welfare ; they need no other sanctuary than the progressive influence of Thought and Science — no other gospel, than the universe ; and, lastly, they require no other worship, than the study of man and the universe through observation, research, comparison, reflection, and judgment.* * See, New System of Physiology by Raspail. — I. B. Baili.ieke, Regent Street. 219. NEW SANCTUARY OF THOUGHT AND SCIENCE. INTRODUCTION TO PART III; Addressed more particularly to the Religious Mjjstics who were kind enough to give us a friendly hint that it might he dangerous to publish new TRUTHS, We come in the name of no one ; we are enlisted under no banners, and we belong to no sect. We hesitate not to affirm of the whole of the hu- man species — without any distinction of caste, colour, sect, or creed — that while they remain in profound ignorance of nature, their sensitive organization will compel them, through irresistible impression, to be- lieve in some illustration or other, — to embody into some system or other — the whole of the things un- known; and that no other possible beginning of knowledge can be conceived. How, in fact, could they have been so long guided and governed by ignorance similar to their ow7i P and how could they have lived united as progressive so- cial beings (unprovided with either records or real knowledge) otherwise than through mystic bonds of a blind faith which, by dispensing persuasion to each and all, allayed the physical pangs of organic sensitiveness. Time, however, rolled on, and men found in nature a succession of objects which, at first exciting their fear, wonder, or admiration, were soon worshipped as supernatural powers, and became represented by the then rude art of the carver or the sculptor. Living 130 ANSWER TO OUR animals ! — imaginary monsters ! the elements, and even human passions and feelings ! — as in later times, the crucifix ! the crescent ! and eveiy other mystic symbol emblematical of knowledge to come, have acted as mysterious mediations, to supply the most urgent, primitive organic wants of man, whom it, at the same time, prostrated, hij no means then, cm wiivilling slave, at the foot of a thousand different mystic altars.* To the long night of blind credulity succeeded, at last, the day of real knowledge. It was exclusively reserved for human thought, applied to facts, to ge- nerate skill, industry, and science ; from industry and observation sprung experience, whose province it was, and still is, to lead men onwards from an ignorance of the realities of nature, to a gradually increasing acquaintance with, and true knowledge of them. No sooner does man possess this knowledge than he begins to be actually modified wdthin, and to feel the NEW DISPENSATION of real practical knowledge, now dawning on the horizon of intellectuality, as a new mediating influence acting on mankind through mental convictions. At this stage of pro- gressiveness all idols vanish from the human brain. We feel within ourselves that we have arrived at this stage ; hence it is that we come in the name of no one ; that we are enlisted under no banner ; and that we belong to no mystic sect. We speak /or the ignorant and /or the poor — not to the ignorant and to the poor — the difference is in- * For Lists of Deified things and feelings — see Appendix. MYSTIC FRIENDS. 131 finite ; our motto shall be, "' Away with all idols!" Happiness upon earth through a knowledge of re- alities ! food for the body, and for the brain ! It is the ignorance of nature which has been in all ages the real, though only the temporav}/ tyrant. " Know That we have studied in a nobler school Than the dull haunt of venal sophistry, Or of lewd guard-room ; o'er which ancient heaven Extends its arch for all, and mocks the span Of palaces and dungeons ; where the heart, In its free beatings, 'neath the coarsest vest, Claims kindred with nobler things than power Of kings can raise or stifle ; in the school Of MIGHTY NATURE, where we leamt to blush At sight like this, of thousands basely hushed Before a man no mightier than themselves."* Each great period of the history of man has had its mobile of action, its mediation, its worship, its faith — in short, its degree of knowledge, true or false ; and it was at all periods the harmony of human feel- ings with faith, or knowledge, that gave to each pe- riod its moral strength. To impose the mobile or the faith of one period as a principle of action when human thought and feelings require another, is a wilful hrcaking of all social ha)^ mom/. Ancient symbolical worship and mystic me- diation w^ere the strong social links of ignorance and vulgar brutality, and, for a time, the main spring of all heroic deeds. What character do they now assume in presence of * Sergeant Talfourd's '' Ion/' 132 ANSWER TO OUR the new and more positive knowledge of nature "? One of contention, resistance^ conservatism, and rage — ^more like the workings of despair than neglected usefulness. Where now shall we look for religious enthu- siasm ? where for one important and useful result due to the intense ardour of blind faith P or to the sincere fervour of any Christian worship ^ No where do we know, or have we heard, of a disciple '^'true to Christ ! " but w^henever a new religion, true for the age, is about to establish itself, the cry of the blind has been '' infidelity and blasphemy ! " *' When society is passing from one stage of civili- zation to another — when one moral cycle is completed and another is about to begin, no trumpet's voice is heard proclaiming it to the universe. But the tran- sition is not less real, because thus silently performed, and unmarked of the multitude. There are unerring signs and feelings whereby the change may be seen. The minds of all men are possessed with vague and general apprehensions of what is about to be. . . . Phi- losophers or prophets, the harbingers of future times, may be scorned or martyred, but they leave their tes- timony behind them."* old ethics and psychology are fast setting— and the dawn of a new era has begun ! ! ! But before that era arrive, the external aspect of things may oftentimes be such as to lead the superfi- cial to conclude that all change must be far distant. * See the whole Docti'ine of Final Causes, by W. I. Irons. (Rivmgton's.) MYSTIC FRIENDS. 133 ** There may be a strong revulsion in the general feeling — a sudden check to the onward progress of events, and even a recurrence to the abandoned opinions and maxims of former times. " The supei-iicial will be deceived, and will hastily conclude that, since the advancing tide of human things has ebbed once more, it will therefore never return ; while the next flowing of the w^aters may SWEEP AWAY SOME HUGH PROMENTORY THAT SEEMED eternal!" When a mystic mediation or a mysterious dis- pensation is no longer attractive, and ceases to be felt as meeting or satisfying a mental or spiritual WANT, it is the natural symptom that another period of mental progress has begun, and that a modification in religion, education, and politics is inevitable. Then it is that the eocclusive sup- port of authority to the old mediation should cease, and all 02)]}Osition to the new he openly with- drawn. A new mediating influence is not merely a thing to be told of, or even to be taught —it must be ge- nerally felt and gradually followed, as a new physical attraction would be ; but at no time can it be en- forced as a matter of duty in favour of any tefnjwml, or in opposition to any spiritual power. The new attractive influence now beginning to ])e felt as irresistible, is that of progressive real knowledge ; the fascinating power now acting on the brain of the rising generation, is far more a want of understanding nature by observation and demonstra- 134 ANSWER TO OUR tion, than it is the instinctive wish of our forefathers to continue to believe without palpable evidence or investigation. Let those who tremble state openly the reasons that make them fear. *' From the days of the Reformation until now, the Church of England had been looked to as the bulwark of the Eeformed Faith ! the head-quarters of the Protestantism of the world 1 She arose as from the sluml)er of ages, to shake off with giant strength the mass of weighty corruption that had accumulated in the darkness of ignorance. But, after all, the Reformation appears to have simply made over the mystic infallil^ility of the Popes to each individual Protestant ; every one 7nimics, on a small scale, the old sinritnal policy of the Triple Crown, and the thunders of the Vatican are now repeated daily by the thousand penny trumpets of sectarianism." The same devices for acting on the will of re- ciisants and keeping clear of their understanding. The same outcry about the supposed sin of unbelief. The same use of the fictitious crime of setting up REASON against mystic inspiration. " The same menaces of everlastiag ruin which kept Europe in awe for centuries, are still extant in the village church and the conventicle." ** The diiference is merely that Rome enjoyed a monopoly of infallibility ; its empire was undivided ; the pretension which it asserted, Christendom recog- nised — it presided over the unresisting >subject class. MYSTIC FRIENDS. 135 « and pressed on their mental faculties with dangerous hen limbing powe rs'' '' Protestantism is now but a competition of in- fallibilities, and affords the kind of liberty which the Roman Empire sometimes enjoyed in its decline, from the existence of a dozen rival candidates for the purple : — sectional partialities with universal w^arfare." The only security which we enjoy as Protestants, is the single impotence of these rival tyrannies. The only quiet, is the equilibrium of their mutual resistance. The only equality is the surly and unrecognised equallity of discontented aspirants to authority. There is but one point of sympathy among those religious parties — one interest only can confederate them together : they unite to make war on all applica- tions of philosophy to question religion, they all demand the UNCONDITIONAL CAPITULATION OF REASON.* But 300 years have passed since all this w^as sanctioned by the public feeling as being mighty good and glorious, at the time, against the greater absurdities of Romanism — in their short-sighted and ignorant zeal they have themselves reminded us of it, but the PRINTING PRESS, which contributed so much to accelerate the. mighty crisis of a religious refor- mation, not having remained stationary, like the new mystic dogmas it had then to vphold and to diffuse, soon began to promote and realise a further develop- ment of the faculties of comprehension which have * London and Jresimbistcr Eevlciv, July 1830\ 136 ANSWER TO OUR gradually increased in power until, through geo- logy! ORGANIC chemistry! and phrenology! another era has determined upon A radical re- form OF THE reformation ITSELF. It cannot be denied that during these 300 years the pulpit and the press, have spread controversy and dissention where formerly the unanimity of igno- rance prevailed, hut this was only the necessary ordeal through which human society must p)(iss, to arrive at a far nobler state — the unanimity of real know^- LEDGE founded ON PHYSICAL TRUTHS, IN HARMONY WITH CULTIVATED MINDS. Why should real education be so much dreaded at Oxford and Cambridge '? if not that they fear the consequence of inquiry : — the preposterous preten- sions of our universities are nothing short of trans- forming articles made at the Eeformation into eternal rules of blind faith never to be questioned or ex- amined at any time, by any man, however superior he may prove himself to be in theological history, in real knowledge, and in mental capacity. The late mystic charges against Dr. Hampden — with whom all liberal minds sympathise, are little less than perjury in contradicting articles which he had subscribed — contumacy in impugning the authority of a church to which he belongs, and impiety in at- tempting to subvert Christianity itself ! Christianity, forsooth ! AS yet established no where ! " These are really very ludicrous and strange charges for the age we live in — one hardly knows whether to indulge in laughter at them, or lament RELIGIOUS FRIENDS. 137 in chanty, and pity the human beings ivho can so far 2)rostrate their honesty and reason as to j^^^t their names to the mystic jargon called a declaration^ left for signature at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, March 10, 1836, every sentence of which is (for this age) either a falsehood or a downright absurdity. " We rejoice most heartily, however, at the cir- cumstance which then brought forth this document — since it placed before a Vvhole public the pure expres- sion of intolerant feehngs which many thought ex- isted no where out of the sway of ancient Romanism. " Their denunciations against further inquiry are pronounced in a strain of dogmatical authority that resembles the thunder of the Vatican itself, though they proceed in all probability from divines who have often, ere this, bawled out ' No popery ' lustily enough. '' After all, vvhat are these Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England '^ Nothing more than the comments of men (upon what children are taught to believe) the words of God, writteyi hy other men. If they are in reality anything more, why then did we ever separate from Rome P and why brand the older Chuixh with opprobious names P'' In fact, religious paper war is arrived at such a pitch of mystic rancour, that Anglicanism must either openly assume the infallibility of Eomanism, or the State (her now reluctant paramour) proclaim the VOLUNTARY SYSTEM in all matters of blind faith. What must reason see in all this but evident symptoms of obstinate, though useless resistance to c 138 ANSWER TO OUR the growing power of thought and science over mystic faith — a vain and ridiculous attempt to stop further inquiry and to restrain liberty of conscience within narrower limits. " Where then is the vaunted Protestant principle of the right of private judgment in expounding the Scriptures '? " — say rather the organic feelings that gave them all their importance, for if one exposition he more than human, ail others not accordant with that one must be false.* But it is not so much this or that comment of Scripture which they are afraid of, as it is that they dread the spreading influence of the mental machi- nery, the progressive development of which tends evidently to reveal to mankind the new mediating power of human thought and science— the philo- sophy of rationalism, w^hich acknowledges cultivated reason to be the best guide and the best judge of everything in nature, including of course every one of the instinctive feelings that are the natural conse- quence of human organisation. Therefore, to the orthodox priesthood, and to our religious friends, we must say : — ^believe not that by preaching according to the purest and most refined mysticism, you have any chance of again restricting the public mind, to the narrow bounds its natural growth has long since burst. * See " Letter to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the appointment of the present Regius Professor of Divinity, by a Member of the University of Oxford." (Pellowes, Lud- gate -street, London.) RELIGIOUS FRIENDS. 139 Your Anti-Popery meetings in Exeter Hall and elsewhere — your Conservative dinners and speeches — are far more calculated, in the present day, to in- crease the spirit of inquiry into th.e origin of all things, than to increase^ as you seem to wish it, sectarian animosities unworthy of the age. To the Dissenting Protestants who hoast of their success in propagandism, we may say '' that the Roman Catholics have been equally, if not more, successful in England than any other sect ; for during the last half century Roman Catholic chapels have increased from about 30 and 40 to between 500 and 600! Many more are now building; and at Kidderminster and Dover, Protestant chapels have been sold to Roman Catholics, — besides nine English Roman Catholic colleges " ! * No philosophic mind can entertain the least appre- hension about the return of absolute Popery, or the temporary success of any mystic sectarians, provided the knowledge of reality continue to be daily more and more diffused among all classes of the people, by a national system of positive education ; for it must in time absorb all religious creeds into one great conviction — ^the fact of a new dispensation through human thought, industry, and science now^ me- diating for mankind; and the coming generation shall feel their '' spiritual ^cants'\fidly satisfied by a system of new knowledge, or new religion, continually progressing — modified only by the successive changes in philosophy. * See JJuhlin Qnartcrhj Bevien\ No. I. 140 ONE WORD TO THE ONE WORD TO THE LIBERAL CRITICS WHO HAVE NOTICED THE NEW SANCTUARY OF THOUGHT AND SCIENCE.*' The object of every liberal publication being to ad- vocate and diffuse a real and sound education among all classes of society, especially those industrious ones, to which the community is indebted for what- ever it possesses and enjoys, we cannot but regret, that in noticing our '' Serious Thoughts," you did not think proper to insert our conviction of the eternity of religions, as by so doing you would have qualified your extracts, and rendered them more palatable to that portion of the religious Vv^orld who do not, like most of their brethren, act solely from their instinC' five feelings, but who allow reason and reflection to have some share in forming their conclusions. Satisfied, Gentlemen, that in such noble endea- vours as yours, the first step is to remove the grounds of superstition and credulity, we are con- vinced that for this purpose no description of know- ledge is so efficient as phrenology — the physiology of the brain. Since 1811, when we read Dr. Gall's first work ' — the Progress of Phrenology in Society — ^the points in it most open to ridicule, its errors and exagge- The ATeiv Moral World, o/Sept. 10, 1831 ,• Metropolitan, Oct.l ; TFeeldy Herald, Nov.; Wiltsliire Independent, Dec. 15; Flimmx, Feb. 1, 1837; Star in the East, April, 1837 ; BelVs New TVeehly Messeyrger. LIBERAL CRITICS. 141 rations, have been observed by us with unremitting attention, and the results have been — an increased confidence in its truths in proportion to the bitter diatribes of its enemies — a conviction that it is the only science that can really be said to enable man to know himself, and to judge fairly his fellow MEN — and a certainty of its becoming, ere long, the grave of all psycology. Nor is the horror and hatred with which it is regarded by the inous deceiv- ers of mankind (how^ever conscientious and sincere some may be) a slight confirmation of its importance as far as regards the greater diffusion of knowledge and happiness among our fellow creatures. How shall we account for the dread in which the human brain is held by all the distributers of the mis- called " sjnritual food,'' if not by their conviction that, like the hand-writing upon the wall — the Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin — it pronounces the speedy downfall of their empire. — ''We are undone, for we shall soon be found out," is the whisper of their well- grounded fears. — Let them, however, be as angry as they will, it would ill become mankind to quarrel with their holy nurses ; we should treat them kindly and respectfully, but at the same time give them fully to understand that, knowledge enables man to v/alk alone in the path of rectitude and morality. That knowledge forces itself with irresistible power upon the notice of the tyrants of the earth, or that, at least, they are compelled to affect to recog- nise its influence, — is proved by the fact related in a French Journal, that even Metternich himself, the 142 ONE WORD TO THE Austrian arch-priest of absolutism, declared some time back, " his readiness to admit all such reforms as were really founded on scientific knowledge." Had radicalism and revolution, unaccompanied by knowledge, been adequate to the reformation of so- cial abuses, mankind would long since have been governed with greater justice and impartiality. — Consider only the two great struggles which the French nation made for liberty and, the rights of the industrious classes in the years 1790 and 1830. How much they promised, yet how little was realized ! And what was the cause of this disappointment ? — IGNORANCE, wliich lias always been, and still is in every country throughout the globe, the only true original sin. Can ignorance be trusted? — does it possess the power of reasoning or comprehending? No : the necessary consequence then is — the rod of iron of the dark ages. What but knowledge, ex- perience, and the powers of observation and com- parison, has produced tolerance? — and what is to- lerance, but faith cut doivn to the peace establish' ment P BUncl faith is to profound ignorance what real hioivledge is to intelligence ; ahsohitism is for hlind faith what liheralism is for knowledge ; and hence it is our conviction that all political convulsions and civil disturbances are caused hjXhe forms of Govern- ment and old established rules remaining still in force, at a time when so many new feelings have already shaken blind faith. Eeforms — that is, changes in these forms and fixed LIBERAL CRITICS. 143 rules (changes necessary to meet those which take place in human wants), become indispensable after a time for the maintenance of social harmony. If confusion arises, it is because, on the one hand, the people feel symptoms of neio wants without suf- ficient knowledge to understand how to gratify them ; whilst on the other, what are called the upper or learned classes, judging from and by the old law, and (not being modified like the people), cannot under- stand or conceive the neiv feelings. The great dif- ference between the feelings of those who command, and the feelings of those who must obey, proceeds from the different modification, operated hy the new knowledge, upon those wdio are in a social position to enjoy, and upon those who are in a social position to labour and to feel privations. To the former, knowledge suggests a confirmation of power ; to the latter, knowledge whispers that all is wrong, for, mental capacity once awakened can no longer brook that position in which p)rofound ignorance acquiesced without miir7mtr, or even ivithout regret. Eevolution under liberal chiefs, who (better in- formed than the masses) felt the new wants, have always failed, because the masses did not understand the neiv wants ; but when knowledge, generally diffused, shall have modified all the people, then will public opinion be so loud and so general, that happy changes will take place, ivithout leaders, and therefore without convulsion or bloodshed. Hence, reform in the education of the masses is the j^r^^ and most important duty of those who suffer from injustice towards others. 144 ONE WORD TO THE Allow US, Gentlemen, to express our regret — 1st. At your not noticing the Theorem of Part I. and II., which, by declaring " that religion never can be de- stroyed,'' greatly modified the character of the entire work ; and 21y. At the sarcastic anti-religious tone of some of your articles ; for we look upon superstition, idolatry, and all emblematical or symbolic worship, requiring blind faith, as sublime in themselves ; and so must all those who reflect seriously upon the power they have exercised over the human animal instincts, when knowledge by observation could not yet be generated among mankind as a new social element. Our sole wish is, if possible, to make all religions intelligihle to the human mind ; for nothing short of that can lead to a riddance of the priesthood of mysticism by a new scientific order of teachers ; or can compel the reverend body now instructing our children to address their sermons to their intelli- gence, rather than to their ideality, wonder, and veneration — the three human instincts upon which depend the religious feeling which produces blind faith in the total absence of real knowledge. Mystic religions depending solely upon time and circum- stance, are so true and so important as a beginning — as a first step in progressiveness — ^that abuse, ridicule, OY p)ersecution avail nothing where ignorance remains. " Blind faith " is the phenomenon to be examined as a mere question of natural history. The fact of all Christendom being agitated, in consequence of the resistance against most useful in- novations, by the priesthood of all establishments and LIBERAL CRITICS. 145 all sects, is the best proof that their time is at aii end ; religious enthusiasm, however, must be met by argu- ment — not by passion, doubt, or ridicule. Phrenology (or the physiology of the human brain) is the toinh of all psychology, and as such must become the new ])asis of all thought and action, by forming a new CONVICTION through a real knowledge of human organic instincts, and of those inogresswe social wants which time alone can produce and modify according to circumstances. Let the priesthood receive all due thanks and remunerations for past services, but let real knowledge ]3e so diffused and appreciated, that the clerical body shall be compelled to allow that all they have hitherto taught us as truths 7iever to he questioned by time, are errors — although venial ones, on their part, because arising necessarily from \hdx 2^rofessional training. If we be not mistaken, there are now more than one young curate ready to ascend the pulpit to break through the mystic trammels inqjosed upon them by EPiscocRACY, and to push onwards the holy spirit of in- quiry into all things, spite of the " Oxford malignantsr How long must the press remain shackled by the superstition and bigotry of ignorance, when the '' spiritual wants" of the people, and the kings go- vernment, declare it to be free '? We hail the success of the '' Star in the East,'^* as a new l^eacon to guide emancipated minds, to en- courage the free study of nature, and to recommend a * A new liberal paper, published in Wisbech, Cambridge- shire — one of the few whose object is rather the difliision of new truths and rational education than pecuniary profits. ]) 146 ONE WORD TO THE Public Department of education, before which all teachers may be examined as to their real knowledge of man, and their independence of mind, before they dare presume to meddle with the intellectual faculties of youth. Our sense of the word reality has not been understood as we intended it should be. We do not use the word '' realities " in any sense connected with appearance or impression of outward o])jects — ^l3ut as regarding the facts revealed by scientific observation ; '' facts/' which in their turn, time may prove to be eiTors. Our knowledge of human physiology is now a reality, geology is a reality, as compared with evan- gelical faith on '' creation." Blind faith is a real fact, a reality — a chapter of the natural history of man ; m\^ psychology is in reality but one of the circumstances in which man may find himself placed ; it is but a branch of his natural history. Animal instincts are real facts. Those who pre- sume to govern mankind, are bound to study tnan in his organization : but to study him precisely as they would any other animal, in health, in sickness, and in death. It is true that 300 years ago the Reformation broke the seals of the Bible, and this was one step in advance for intellectuality and inquiry ; but it Avas no more than one step, mid jyrogressiveness never stops. Since that time the phrenologist has done more — he has broken open the box of psycliology ! and like the man in the fal)le of the " golden eggs," found nothing like what psychologists expected. But as it LIBERAL CRITICS. 147 was psychologists only who had inquired into the Biljle at the lleformation, a 7ieiv inquiri/ remains now to he performed by phrenology ! /. e. l:)y the knowledge of realities, and not by the dream and visions of psy- chology. Do you understand us now '? This is not deny- ing- — ^it is merely showing that all '' errors " have in their time been the manufacturers of truths for us. When MAN shall have subdued, controlled, and directed the electric fluid and magnetism as he does now fire and water, then will the power of human THOUGHT and science be better understood as being ivithout Vmits, than they can yet be admitted to be by the vulgar ignorance of our gentry. For the pre- sent the great desideratum is to make all kinds of superstitions, old and new, intelligible as a physical law of the human brain towards increasing unlimited knowledge ; and we mean to undertake no less. It may prove but an attempt, yet we believe it to be a useful one in the present social dilemma between THOUGHT and things. '' Let not the freedom of inquiry be shackled by any indirect influence. If it multiplies contentions ]}etween the wise and virtuous, it exercises the charity of those who contend. If it shakes for a time the belief that is rooted only upon prejudice, it will tend to settle it upon the broad basis of convic- tions; and must finally introduce philosophy into THE TEMPLE."* * "White's Bdiiipton LcctuiTs. 148 llELIGIONS RECONCILED RELIGIONS KECONCILED WITH PHILOSOPHY. " All great and useful changes which have been accomplished in the world — since piihlic opinion he- came the ruler of it — have been accomplished by attempting things which, for years or generations after the first attempt, had not the remotest chance of success." This has been said some twenty years ago — but the last twenty years of peace and reflection on the past, as compared with the present, have done more to cool the passions of men and promote sound judg- ment among the people, than twenty times twenty years ever did before ! We, therefore, do not hesitate to enter at once boldly, and without the fear of man, into the intellec- tual examination of a subject, from which, to this day reason has been most barbarously excluded by the common consent of priest and people ; and if we can succeed in making any portion of the latter under- stand the reality of the former's mission, as well as that of their mystic religions, w^e shall have done all that is in our power, to assist in accomplishing one of those great and beneficial chiinges for future (jene- rations^ which w^e consider most useful for the real progress of humane rational civilization — the re- conciliation OF RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY! WITH PHILOSOPHY. 149 PREJUDICES AND PUSILLANIMITY ARE GENERATED BY INSTRUCTION INTO SECTARIAN MYSTICISM. " Will the people of these Islands — sagacious, free, noble spirited in all things else — for ever and ever be drivellers in religion only?" — Rev. G. Arimtrong^s Bible Controversy, 1828, p. 94. When Dr. Geddes published his prospectus for a new translation of some mystic books (1786), origin- ally written in the Hebrew tongue, and on the '' eternal truth " of which all Christian sects ground their blind faith — he adverted, in the progress of his work, to the opposition he then met with, in de- scribing which, the following words of Milton would have aptly suited his purpose : — " I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When strait a barbarous noise environs me. Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs." With the Eoman Catholics the Doctor was a heretic, under more forms than ever Proteus could assume ; and with those who affected to style them- selves loyal Protestants, he w^as called an ojyposi- tionist, a democrat, a republican, a Paineist, a leveller, djianti-aristocrat — and, to sum up all, a violent Foxite ! — an enemy to God and man ! — disaffected to Govern- ment, and hostile to the British constitution, as by law established ! This last accusation, be it remarked, is not the least curious: for, the distinguishing cha- 150 ON DR. GEDDE's racter of our constitution (thanks be to the physical LAW of PROGRESSiVENESs) is to promulgate and enforce, annually, a huge volume of new Statutes and of old ones repealed, so that, "" as by law estab- lished " means actually, if it have any meaning at all, the constitutional right of incessant changes a7id modifications hy new Statute laws ! To each of these specific charges (though we see not what they have at all to do with translating Hebrew), the Doctor with much ability and spirit replied ; and after having made an explicit profession of his political creed, he then sums up his religious belief: — ■ " What I find to have been taught by Christ and his apostles, that, I deem a point of genuine primi- tive catholicity : but whatever bears not this cha- racter, is, with me, no Catholic principle. Christi- anity was originally a very simple yet accomplished beauty; but under the paint and patches of posterior times, her lineaments are barely discernible ; and such a load of useless ornaments has been added to her vesture that little appears of its pristine simplicity. O, prelates ! 0, pontifs ! what have ye to plead in excuse. " Honest open-eyed Catholic reader, I trust I have convinced thee, that I am an orthodox Catholic Christian. But even if I were as arch a heretic as ever dogmatised, might I not, for all that, be capable of giving a good translation of the Bible "? Did the pretended or real heresy of Origen make his bibli- cal researches less valuable? Aqlil.e and Theo- TRANSLATION OF SCRIPTURE. 151 DOLiM were obdurate Jews ; — Symmachus was an Ebionite : yet their versions of the Old Testament w^ere sought, read, and praised by the Christian fathers ; nay, partly received into the Greek exem- plars of the Scripture. " The great Erasmus was strongly suspected of heresy; yet his labours on the New Testament were approved by a knowing Pope, and applauded by the learned world, — a few bigots excepted. Sacy was reputed a rank Jansenist, and for his Jansenism was immersed in the Bastile; yet his French version of the Bible, partly made in that dungeon, has been long in high estimation in the Galilean church. Without presuming to compare myself to any of those cele- brated men, I surely may be allowed to say that I may make a good translation, and that if I do make a good translation, the imputation of heterodoxy cannot render it a bad one." In short, all that may be said on Scripture and faith must stand upon its own merit ; and if it have none, it ivill soon fall, ivitliout the help of Episcopal iinintelligihle fidminations ! Now these, and all such labours about the compa- rative excellence and purity of the text, are totally foreign to modern philosophy. It might be very in- teresting, no doubt, in the Doctor's days, when ti- morous scepticism, daring to question the translation only, laboured hard, though in vain, to seek for un- changeable eternal truths, or even common sense to suit every age, in the original itself. In every age, and every clime, it is ignorance only, that will have it so — such is the inevitable law of human nature. 152 FAITH, A NATURAL INSTINCT. '' The common cry was e'er religion s test; The Turk's is, in Constantinople best : Idols in India, popery at Rome, And our own worship only true at home : ^nd true hut for a tune : 'tis hard to know How long we 2?lease it shall continue so : This side to day, and that to-morrow bums ; So all are God- Almighty's in their turns."* But our thoughts are much more serious^ we do not see any useful result in quotmg satire any further, for althouQ^h we miQ:ht nrove the historical basis of o Ox Christianity to be never so absurd and ridiculous, or even totally false, we should not in the least disprove the fact of many other religions, still more ridiculous, or equally wrong as to their ei^^r;??Yj/, having everywhere inspired faith to primitive ignorance ! and although Pindar^ De Foe, Dryden, Swift, Voltaire, Lord Ches- terfield, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Rochester, Churchill, the Earl of Chatham, Tom Paine, Lord Byron, and a score of others, may have sharpened their wits to at- tack and ridicule the mystic doctrine and ceremonies of the faithful : — nevertheless, the instinct for some superstitions or other, more or less reduced into a sys- tem of faith being a positive jj>/i'7/5?V^/ fact, the most interesting and the most useful of all questions to be solved, is decidedly: — Whether faith in superstition has yet been well tmderstood and rationally ecVj^lained by 2>hilosophers P Such appears to us to be now the important question for human thought to investi gate and to solve. It will be said that investigation frequently leads * Dryden. DR. MARSH ON DOUBT. 153 to doubts, where there were none before: well, and what then'? '' So much the better/' do we reply with Dr. Marsh (Bishop of Peterborough), "'for if a thing is false it ought not to be received; if a thing is true, it can never lose in the end by inquiry, — on the contrary, the conviction of that man who has perceived difficul- ties and overcome them, is always stronger than the mere persuasion of him who never heard of their ex- istence." Is not doubt the essence of wisdom?* If the public mind were stirred up to inquiry in matters of religious faith, a spirit of earnestness * " Doubt is the beginning of wisdom." — Aristotle, *' Doubt is the school of truth." — F, Bacon. Quevedo de Villegas says oi douht, " De todas las Cosas mas seguras la mas segura es el dudar." — " Of all the things which are secure, the most safe is douht.'' *' It is related of Mede, that he had all his scholars come to him at his chambers in the evening ; and the first question he put to them was, ' Quid dubitas?' — ' what doubts have you met with in your studies to-day?" for he supposed that to doubt nothing and to understand nothing, was just the same thing. — This was right, and the only method to make young men exercise their rational powers, and not to acquiesce in what they learn mechanically and by rote, with an mdolence of spirit which prepares them to receive and swallow implicitly whatever is offered them." — He proof of Brutus^ hy Morgan. *' Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass, before they can enter into the temple of wisdom ; therefore, when we are in doubt, and puzzle out the truth by our own exertion, we have gained something that will stay hy us, and which will serve us again. But if to avoid the trouble of search, we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such know- ledge will not remain with us ; we have not houglit, but only lorrowed it." — Rci\ C. C. Colton, E 154 IGNORANCE EVER THE SAME. would be communicated to them ; and whether belief or unbelief should be the resuh, the opinions would be entertained upon rational and consciencious principles. The people call themselves free ! Society claims a high degree of civilization ! the words '*' education,'' '* mental culture,'' are in every one's mouth ! One million and a half of children are said to be instructed at the public expense ! and^ nevertheless^ a belief in the ''marvellous" or '' si(per?iatural," i.e. in that v^hich never had any existence out of the aiiimal instincts of the human brain — wdiich has been characteristic of our species in profound ignorance, from the earliest ages to which our records extend — still continues to mar education even in this, our own more en- lightened time! This is the important and curious fact of natural history, before which the scientific world should pause and reflect seriously, ere they labour further to diffuse the results of their inquiry into the realities of nature as a source of knowledge useful to the people, for since a predominant hlind faith in any supposed ex- istence separate from nature, is a constant food for instinctive superstition — ^it must render almost null and void their praiseworthy efforts to diffuse the knowledge of reality among a people whose curious vanity, to this very day, is to repeat to each other, and to prove to the world, by their printed works and public speeches, how proud they are of heing more priest-ridden from the cradle to the grave, than anij other nation equally civilized. SUPERSTITION OF OLll PEA^ANTUV. 155 That human nature in profound ignorance is^ in this respect, the same in the nineteenth century as it was in the ninth, or at any earlier period, Ave have humiUating and conclusive evidence in the temporary success of Joanna Southcote, Prince Hohenloe, and other deluded fanatics. To the shame of our clergy and of our legislature, be it said, blind faith in sorcery and in devils, is still common with many of our country people. There is hardly a village in which a ivitch or gypsei/, some sort of Fj/fhoness or other, is not to be found whom the ignorant must consult w^hen the har- vest is damaged — the cattle diseased — the children taken ill — or when there is no money to pay the rent ! A peasantry for ever, thus kept in ignorance, must remain /br ever poor in mind and comparatively miser- able ; even the modicum of instruction they receive in. childhood is better suited to perpetuate the instinct of ignorance, and to lead them to accuse "" evil spirits'' of bringing disease and want upon them, through false notions of some " infernal agencij, " than it is to induce them, through observation and reflection, to seek in the very nature of their social relative position, the true causes of their moral and mental degrada- tion, in order to know how to remove tjiem. It is easy for the rich and better educated classes of society to refrain from accusing the devil : his Satanic Majesty chvclls beneath their consideration — they despise such vulgar notions, and laugh most heartily at the poor man's terrors. This is the result of the natural law of circumstances, and faith 156 LIBERTY EMANCIPATES MIND. in a genius for evil, as well as faith in a genius for good, must lose their influence on society, in propor- tion as the condition of the lower classes is physically, mentally, and morally improved.* *' Their wide domains the warriors sold ; And where old Tyranny had domineer'd Freedom was given for necessary gold ; Thence o'er the champaign rose, by slow degrees, A race of independent swains, whose sires Where slaves, but little to the burden'd beast Prefer' d in estimation — Oft for them The Reverend Flamen from their Lord obtained The boon of liberty. Unthinking priests, Forbear ! — Ye little think what mibom woes, From this indulgence, threat the Lordly Pile Of SUPERSTITION ; tlio' it proudly raise Its pinnacles among the curtained clouds ********* And seem all ruin to defy — Time will come When it shall moulder to the base ! You loose The trammels of the body : soon the slave Will fling away the trammels of the mind, Nor need your help ! " Rev. H. Boyd. * '' How, in an artificial society, is it possible to look to religion alone for our entire comprehension of all morals ? — Religion is founded in one age and one country ; it is trans- mitted, with its body of laws, to another agQ and coimtry, in which vast and complicated relations have grown up with time, which those laws are no longer sufficient to embrace." — Bulwer's England and the Englhli. B. iii. C. 6. 157 THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF PROGRESSIVE CIVILIZATION IS TO REDUCE MORE AND MORE INSTINCTIVE SUPERSTITION AND THE MYSTIC FEAR OF EVIL. Look only far back into the great past, and you will see, even in the mystic character of the different religious dogmas which mankind have followed at sundry periods, how the supposed power attributed by human instinct to '' evil spirits " has gradually been reduced by each successive system of bliiid faith — and if so, must we not admit their being under the natural law of continued mental progress. The primitive mystic conception of profound ignorance ^ave full and complete power to the '' evil spirit,'' and that power has ever since been estimated in an inverse ratio to that of mental culture. At a later period in the doctrine of the Parses, Ahriman, the principle of evil or darkness, and Oromaze or Ormuzd, theimnciple of good and light, are supposed by instinctive superstition to be contend- ing for this world with equal powers — pretty much, indeed, like Tories and Whigs are contending to this day for the satisfaction of ruling over the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The principles have been universally the same in all ages of human progress, — '' darkness against light,'' or '' ignorance against knowledge," or '' error against truth," It is the words only, and the out- 158 RELIGIONS MUST BE DISCUSSED. ward ceremonial manifestations of the modified feel- ings that have changed. Later still, by the Christian dogmas, the '' evil spirit" is finally made subservient to a God of mercy ; hence we are disposed to believe that, as human sensi- tiveness will become more acute, and knowledge more keen ! — as a liberal education in realities shall supersede every-where the mystification by priests ! — as misery and credulity shall disappear with ignorance ! — a time must follow when the human brain shall no more feel the want of creating a succession of evil and good '' supernatural spirits," because it will not only find in nature itself, through observation, research, and comparison, those veri/ powers which ignorance attributed to such spirits, but learn how to control them. Education, therefore, directed by teachers of a new order (such as shall not be interested in perpe- tuating instinctive superstition) is the only true and solid foundation that can effectively support a radical reform in the church, and promote further changes in the religious prejudices of the people — the only one by w^hich such reform can first become ac- ceptable by, and subsequently really useful to them. The present age is one of severe and unsparing scrutiny. The day of public discussion on religion must come ; all things denote that the time is at hand when the national mind shall direct itself, with intense and fearless earnestness, to inquire whether Christianity, or any other form of symbolical worship, be of a God, and never to be understood by man, or a necessary DR. watson's conviction. 159 consequence of human organization, and, therefore, capahle of being made intelligible to the human brain through a positive knowledge of the mental progressiveness of that organization. The belief, the veneration, the obedience of the men of these days are no longer subjected to the authority of ages, or of great names ; ancient institu- tions, opinions, and feelings, are put upon their trial by awakened public opinion, to stand or fall, accord- ing as they shall, or not, be able to abide the test of a keenly searching reason and enlightened morality. It is now forty years since Dr. Watson ex- pressed his conviction that Christianity would soon undergo a more severe investigation than it has ever yet done : — '' My expectation," said he, " as to the issue, is this : Catholic countries will become Pro- testant, and the Protestant countries ivill admit of fii rth e r refo rmatlo n . * The fact is, that the same minute, rigid, and long continued investigation which established the princi- ples of physical science, has never yet been applied in public discussions thoroughly to sift the real founda- tion of religious faith; and upon what grounds should it not be so applied'? Dr. Whately thus states what it is incumbent on a man to do, who doubts of the eternal truth of Christianity: — ''The religion exists" — says the Divine — " that is the 2'>hciwmenon ; those who will not * Charge delivered to the Clergy of Laiidaff, in June, 1795, pp. 449-150. 160 WHAT IS INCUMBENT ON SCEPTICS'? allow it to come from a God are bound to solve THE phenomenon in some other hypothesis less open to objection ; they are not, indeed, called upon to prove that it actually did arise in this or that way, but to suggest (consistently with acknowledged facts) some probable way in which it may have arisen, recon- cilable with all the circumstances of the case." Now, blind faith being a phenomenon commion to all the human species, we shall generalise this, and apply it to all mysterious dogmas, under whatever name and ceremonies the religious feeling may have manifested itself among mankind. It must be plain to every one, that the opinions on all religious dogmas, entertained by those ivho view mental progressiveness as a ])hysical law, must be to- tally different from the opinions entertained by those, who will not admit of the truth of that law of nature; — w^e, who rank with the former, must insist on the great importance of the two physical facts which pre- sent themselves on the threshold of the proposed investigation. First, that although mankind without any ex- ception, as far as we know, have, from the earliest period, been disposed to believe in doctrines imply- ing promises, it is true, but which have been pro- ductive of no immediate or evident results, for any given time of their existence — yet they have also, to all appearances, universally adhered to the laws im- posed, with the instinctive fondness, tenacity, and power of absolute blind faith ; investing that monitor of ignorance with every attribute of real knowledge. NO MYSTIC TRUTH IS ETERNAL. IGl Secondly, that to this day each different creed, and each sect of any creed, still entertain their pecu- liar, though very limited notions upon these oft-abused words, " a great eternal truths No creed or sect having ever admitted as part of their '' eternal truths,'' the least observation and comparison of any natural facts, illustrating the reality of hurnan progressive faculties upon earth. — Such observations and com- parison, alone, evincing the j9%.s7ca/ origin and the end of all the fond mysteries which have so long, and so well, mediated for profound ignorance. Deny after this, if you can, that mankind has been moulded by nature a substance with organic dispositions to be sjyiritiiaUj/ trained upon earth, and that all mystic religions are but a first trainiiig ; yes, not even excepting the superstition of the Thugs in India.* These two facts — the subjugation of ignorance by religious faith, and the reluctance of that faith to take any cognizance of human progressivity — constitute for us, a most SACRED W^ARRANT AGAINST THE ETERNITY of MYSTERIOUS DOGMAS Or SYMBOLICAL WORSHIPS. They are all by nature essentially temporary, and it is in that positive character of real but evanescent utilitg that we regard them as most sublime and most admirably consistent with the natural circumstances in which they were not only useful but actually indis- pensible as a beginning. Let us endeavour to understand, once for all. See Edinburgh Ecvicw. cxxx. p. 357. F 162 HOW TO SEARCH FOR TRUTH why blind faith in mysteries and miracles is every where, and at all times, so very nice and so puncti- lious ? Whence these expressions of serious doubts and alarm at the least symptoms of scrutiny, when a true spirit of investigation and research seems to stalk round about its hallowed sanctuary '^ Why is blind faith so ridiculously apprehensive of being overwhelmed by the accumulated torrents of new knowledge swelling beneath the surface of mystic usurpations ^ To all these queries, we know of one general answer — equally applicable to all kinds and all shades of superstitious infatuations. It is this : — If a refutation or confirmation of your doubts on the eternal truth of your religious faith be looked for in the scriptural " records'' of your religion, you never will come to any rational final solution,* because, not * " Whoever expects to find in the Scriptures a specific direction for every moral and rehgious doubt that arises, loolcs for more than he will meet with. And to what a magnitude such a detail of particular precepts would have enlarged the sacred volume, may be partly imderstood from the following consideration : — The laws of this country, including the acts of legislature, and the decision of our Supreme Courts of Justice, are not contained in fewer than about 100 folio vohnnes ; and yet it is not one in ten attempts that you can find the case you look for in any law-book whatever ! to say nothing of these numerous points of conduct, concerning which the law pro- fesses not to prescribe or determine any thing. Had, then, the same particularities enumerated in human laws — so far as they go — been attempted in the Scriptures throughout the whole extent of morality, it is manifest they would have been by IN THE PAST AND PRESENT. 163 only one life and one book, but ten thousand lives and ten thousand books are not enough to ex- amine and verify what is to be imderstood by the word '* eternity'' — it would be the blind leading the blind, from generation to generation. — Search for truths, in the past and present, among the continued series of a gradual development of these powers of human thought, knowledge, science, and civi- lization, which are now known to have succeeded to the profound ignorance of barbarism. It is in every respect a natural law that has com- pelled mankind, in primitive ignorance of subsequent natural truths, to sacrifice their all, and, in many in- stances, life itself, rather than renounce its faith in error. Now how can the fact of such sacrifice be un- derstood by reason, unless we admit that blind faith in error must have been for ignorance itself, a state of knowledge superior for its animal life, to one w^ithout any superstition at all ; for, the same human organiza- tion, capable as we now know of possessing real science, must have had from the beginning some spiritual basis, be it considered ever so absurd by future generations. All mystic religions are but a tem- porary monitor. Whenever some inquiry follows, and a little real knowledge comes in, doubt starts up ; and why ? because real knowledge, however so little, has at all times the same power over blind faith, as much too bulky to be either read or circulated; or rather, as St. John says — ' even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written,' — ivhat better ]J7'oof do we need of the cruel absurdity of all your legislation from prece- dents ! / " — Paleys Moral FhUosopliy. 164 ATTEND ON SUNDAYS, WHERE blind faith had before over the human animal when without any system of superstition, which observation confirms the fact of spiritual progressiveness upon earth. Let then further inquiries be pursued in earnest freedom ; and faith and doubt will soon both give way to make room for new convictions generated by the observation and comparison of realities. But, to feel those new convictions, the working people must be en- couraged to follow, on Sundays, our truly reverend lec- turers on reality in the New Sanctuaries of Thought and Science : to them you may ask questions — to them you may say, I wish to understand ; they do not instruct you in a faith through miraculous wonders and beatifi- cation, but they educate and develope your intellectual faculties through illustration and demonstration ! you do not merely believe without understanding, but you feel that you know through intellectuality. Are, then, none but mystic priests — no two of whom agree in opinion on matters of faith — ^to be for ever and ever the only expositors of this or of that truth '? — ^impossible ! — absurd ! * They have but one science — " Divinity,'" and that * " The great problems respecting the nature, the moral relations, the life and expectation of the human being are in this countiy chiefly in the hands of party theologians, to whom they have been consigned under the idea that, even though this class might have less reason, ' they had certainly more Scripture,' than other men ; and there these problems will remain, without the faintest hopes of progress towards a recog- nised solution, until some common method of investigation shall be agreed on, and the relative rights of reason and of Scripture duly defined and maintained." YOU MAY PUT QUESTIONS. 165 has the rare merit of being mystic, i.e. unintelligible from beginning to end. They have but one book — the Bible — which no one priest dares to expound differently from what the founder of his party, or sect, has declared to be orthodox. No question here is tolerated — a law has been made to punish the audacious inquirer who dares presume, that he may be allowed to understand anything concerning his faith. Your duty is to be '' crammed,'' — to believe, and "be saved," if you can believe, or to be ''damned'' if you cannot ; and this system is sanctioned and sup- ported by all the crowned heads of Europe as a proper ''religious instruction" in the nineteenth century of spiritual existence ! — a system which superior know- ledge diffused by time, has proved to be " founded in fraud, enforced by persecution ; with terror for its spring, and mental degradation for its object; dark, despotic, and oppressive, it assumed to itself exclusive privileges, and rising (through the igno- rance of the people) above all temporal authority, called itself 'the church.' " * In consequence of religious toleration — that first and avowed defalcation of original faith — sectarian differences have not a little tended to disunite the people, and the true spirit of Christianity — '''love ONE another" — is by all forgotten. The people are actually more instructed by their priests in mys- tical sectarian reasons for hating each other than * Lady Morgan. 166 ATTEND TO THE REAL FACTS ON tliey are^ to improve the feelings of conciliation and charity. ""What one of them will call a 'great truthj another will term d, ' great falsehood ;' the Catholic will have seven ' sacraments,' — the Pro- testant only four ; while the Quaker wall fling the w^hole seven over board, and the Pope into the bar- gain ; yet, each will call his doctrine a 'great truth J and the doctrine of the rest \false heresies I ' What the Catholic will call scriptural and divine, the Pro- testant will denominate ' idolatrous and damnable ; ' in short, no two of them will agree on any one 'truth J save and except the all important one to themselves — that tithes must be paid to priests of some kind, and that all shall be liable to pay them, whether they want the priest or not. This is the only great truth all parties will agree on." "" Such are the chosen vessels through Avhom the Irish heart is to be softened, and the Irish character at present regenerated ! " But, mark our words : — So long as legislative wisdom, bending the knee to Ejnscocract/, will force your Bibles into Irish schools, so long must you fail in your endeavours of educating the people of Ireland; because that inquisitorial act of the legislature tends to mystify education into a sectarian question, and thus increases the enmity, both of priests and people. OLD AND NEW DEFINITIONS OF THE WORD RELIGION. In the midst of all these contending opinions and shades of faith, let us inquire a little into the real meaning that can be given to the word religion, (no WHICH ALL SCIENCES AGREE. 1G7 longer the old binding mystic link it was, when under one faith), for now everything must be intelligible to the people. Many writers of some weight have at- tempted to define the word, but to understand them if possible, we must substitute the word '' unknown^ for that of God, or Deity. Lavater : '' faith in the supernatural invisible ' imknoivn' " La Bruyere defines religion, ''the respectful fear of the ' unknown.' " Yauven ARGUES .* '' the duties of men towards the ' unknown ' " By Du Marsais it is defined — '' the worship of the 'unknown^ and the practice of all virtues." Bailly calls it plainly, '' the worship of \}i\Q un- known, piety — Godliness, humility before the ' un- known' " Voltaire : " a morality common to all mankind — the remedy of the ' soul ;' in short, all that strongly binds the feelings and the opinion of the 2)eopley Dr. Johnson : " Virtue founded upon reverence of the ' unknown,' and expectation of future rewards and punishments." RiVAROL, defines religion: '' the science of serv- ing the ' nnknow7i!'' Maury : "the philosophy of misfortune." KoTZBUE says, "it is the philosophy of the people," i. e. " of ignorance." Bees defines it, " The worship or homage that is due to the ' unknown ' as creator preserver — and with Christians, as redeemer of the world." 168 OLD AND NEW DEFINITIONS OF Walker defines it, '"Virtue as founded upon reverence of the 'unhioivn,' and expectations of rewards or punishments ; a system of divine faith and worship, as opposed to other systems." De Breiiam calls it — ''the perfection of morality." De BoNALD calls religion — a '' social inter couse between man and the ' unhioitm.'" According to Robert Fellows, (author of the Religion of the Universe) religion is made to consist in a blind acquiescence in the mere assertion, or autho- ritative mandates of priests or councils — a prostration of the understanding. In the " Church of E7igland Quarterly Review,'' it is said : " Religion means the reading of a law to the people, as practiced among the Jews of old; and that, such law relates to a form of iDorship, to be paid to some imlmoum!^ Lord Brougham, in the introduction to his Dis- course, defines religion " the subject of the science, called theology',' and then defines "theology, the knowledge and attributes of the luiknoivn." There- fore, according to his lordship, religion is the subject of the knowledge and attributes of the unhioum. Therefore, an instinctive seeking after knowledge; and if so, we agree, all the physical sciences being for us but a further seeking after the same religious knowledge. Whatever may have been the literary reputations of the above authorities, we look upon each of these definitions as very incomplete, save our interpreta- tion of the last. They are more a description of the effects produced by worship — of the consequence THE WORD RELIGION. 169 of religious training, than the rigid analysis of reli- gion itself. We see, however, in these attempts to define the meaning of the word '' religion," a fact important to our views — that without the instinctive want of some acquaintance with the unhiown, there could have heen no mystic religion — ^that it is a knowledge for the ''people in ignorance'' — a consolation for " misfortune in ignorance^ The lack of a more precise explanation in all these great men's definitions, must be accounted for, partly by the fear of man, and partly by the very limited knowledge of human nature diffused in their time — a knowledge always imperfect, when studied abstractedly and apart from the fundamental laws of human progressiveness — the only characte- ristic feature of the human brain in contradistinction to all other sensitive organised substances — the only absolute difference between man and other animals. We may now, however, proceed to define religion rationally and without fear, but with a more correct knowledge of man. We must first, how^ever, deter- mine what are the natural antecedent facts to the establishment of any system of mystic hioivledge. We shall find upon observation and reflection that, a WANT generated within us by the organs on which depends ideology— dX\ our notions in the marvellous, — our pr oneness to worship and venerate not only persons, but even their notions, are the antecedent facts to all religions — moreover, that, G 170 WHAT MAY NOW BE UNDERSTOOD as all ideality and marvelosity have had for objects, MANKIND and the universe: man's religious feeling IS, in reality, mi organic want of ascertaining how he came to he P why he feels as \e does P and also the origin and structure of the world ; but that as ignorance cannot be supposed to have known at once, and by mystic revelation only, the real phy- sical organization of the human species, nor the real structure of the globe, yet the organic want of being satisfied on these points is so universally urgent and so imperative, as to have compelled ignorance, everywhere, to believe in any stories or systems attempting to explain both— and it is all such systems, blindly invented though wisely com- bined, which, coupled with a condition of existence, have been called religions.* We, therefore, submit the following definition of the " WORD," as one more rationally true for this age than any other: — ^ Religions are systems of '' ^noraV and physical science which, under human circumstances the most unfavorable to mental progress and civihzation, have satisfied, however,' everywhere, for the time being, the organic want of mankind, to pursue and explain all things unknown— i. e. the first natural cravings of man for obtaining real convictions. It was for profound ignorance that all such sys- tems were first established, yet in that state of mp- posed knowledge, the human species has passed from * See Theorrni to Part I., also pages -10, 45, 89, and 95. BY THK WORD RELIGION. 171 savage life to barbarism, and from barbarism to comparative, though still, but very partial civili- zation. Civilization, however incomplete, has af- forded SECURITY AND LEISURE FOR RESEARCH, OBSERVATION, REFLECTION, AND JUDGMENT. Time and thought investigated nature, and whilst mystic religions, to some extent, protected man against man! — the h?iman brain, impressed by nature, produced the real system of the physical sciences, the knowledge of which generated the new feelings of mental convictions from natural FACTS, resting on the demonstrations of a reality in harmony with human reason ; demonstrations and convictions, which, it must he remarked, 7io primitive d^gmm of faith ever needed or required. The intellectual civilization of mankind is the consequent fact of human progressive sensitiveness. Increased human sensitiveness is the consequent fact of increasing mental development. Mental progressiveness is the consequent fact of the phgsiml union between the human brain and our external senses, which, properly speaking, are l)ut the feelers of the brain. Hence the grand result, the ultimate consequence of the union between the human brain and its feelers is a progressive diffusion of science and civilization among mankind; and we believe the time to be now arrived when " they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, by 172 REAL ASCENDANCY BELONGS saying, ' know the Lord ! know the Lord!'" for all will soon be convinced of the omnipotence of pro- gressive THOUGHT, when free to diffuse real scientific revelations for the benefit of all. The present state of the little real knowledge already diffused, apparentli^m opposition to all mystic religions, a state which causes so much rancour, blind fury, sectarian calumny, and paper warfare, demands a system of national education capable of openly en- couraging free inquiries into the organization of an animal who always did, and still must, believe in some superstition or false knowledge, when most mhumanly left in profound ignorance of itself and of the universe, though mystically made to believe that ihe world was made for him. But mark this— the religious party which feels a sincere wish to assume or to preserve a real ascen- dancy over all others in the world, must be one which, BLENDING RELIGION WITH REAL AND USEFUL KNOW- LEDGE, shall join in Xh^ intellectual movement and po- litical spirit of the age; which, addressing itself to the mental powers of man rather than to his blind cre- dulity, shall demonstrate, by human science only, the realities of nature, and gradually purify its doctrine of all fiction— one which, acknowledging openly the religious feeling of organic sensitiveness to be an in- stinctive wish to acquire sound knowledge, shall, at all times, continue to teach what is really worth know- ing at each successive period of mental progress, and thus transfuse a philosophical training into a 7iew religious tuition. TO THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT. 173 *' 'Tis not for the farce of a hasty prayer, Forgotten as soon as said, Nor fast, nor worship, at glittering shrine, With a crouching form and a face divine, That man alone was made. *' All this may be done by the veriest wretch That the day e'er smiled upon. With a brow of heaven, but a heart of hell, Whose life of curse and of crime could tell Of many a dark deed done." * To the Protestant mystics of all denominations, we should recommend to look at what is now going on both here and abroad among a new Literary Society! — to read the "Universite Catholique," conducted by a union of religious and scientific men of France and Belgium, — a new work, begun as late as January, 1836, They do not yet openly confess, it is true, the power of the new mediation of thought and sci- * As it is far from our intention to offend any of our religious contemporaries, an instance of a wretch, at once cruel and religious, may be given in that of William the Conqueror. — One of the writers of the Saxon Chronicle designates him as being " a very stern man, and so hot and passionate, that no man durst gainsay his will ; as one who took money by right and unright, falling into great avarice, and loving greediness withal, not recking how sinfully his officers got money of poor men, or how many unlawful things they did. He was, however^ religiously inclined, after the fashion of his age ; and whatever might be the schemes of ambition and the butcheries in which he was engaged, he never failed to hear the mass of his private chaplain in the morning, and to say his prayers at night." — ■ See the Pictorial History of Et) gland, part v. p. 391. London^ C. Knight, 2'2, Ludgate Street, a work far superior, in all re- spects, to any now used in schools and colleges. 174 THE 8ACRED DOUBLE DUTY ence, hut they acknowledge the falling off of the old, and they act under the influence of the new. — We contend for nothing more. " They have undertaken the accomplishment of a double duty. First, — they propose to cultivate the various branches of useful knowledge in such a manner as to disengage them from the erroneous conceptions which have been confounded with them, and thus to favour the movement which is to restore the true spirit of religion by a double work of purification — science of its exaggerations, and religion of all its mys- tic absurdities. To accomplish this, it suffices to treat of science in a spirit not hostile to that of true reli- gion; and of religion, in a spirit not hostile to the reality of the science." Secondly, — They must join to this understanding, another task — a task of social organisation, founded on the fact, that it is religious faith which has generated philosophy — that, a Catholic hierarchy tvhen educated into ALL the science (as it should be J, contains the ral- lying point of order and of mental progress; that. Catholic charity combined with the results of the po- sitive sciences can alone resolve, in a manner complete and durable, the most important problems of legal charity and social science. Now this is the only modification of Catho- licism THAT CAN MEET THE WANTS OF THE AGE; a system no more like the old Pojush temporal tyranny so lately held up in 7nystic terror at Eoceter Hall, than the exhilarating brightness of day, is like the timoioufc gloom of night ; and it becomeb evident that TO BE NOW PERFORMED. 175 unless the Protestant hierarchy assimilate their church sermons to something like the lessons given at our Mechanics' Institutions — and are henceforth to he or- dained as scientific lecturers for diffusing real know- ledge and all the practical sciences — the new Catholic philosophy on one side, and the lay-teachers on the other, must eventualli/ sivamp all our mystic parsons, leaving Protestant symbols and mysteries far, far behind, to dwindle away into nothing among a few unredeemable bigots and all the old women of the present generation. But to bring about so desirable a reconciliation between religion and philosophy, two things are required of all civilized Governments. First, — They must have the power of reforming the hierarchy of their respective churches. Secondly, — It is indispensable that they should perfectly understand the true meaning of a rational ** church reform " in the nineteenth century of spi- ritual regeneration, and the fourth of a religious reformation ! As to the means, — nature forbids them to ac- complish it otherwise, than by cultivating in earnest the understanding of all the people.* * "We offer no violence, and spread no nets for the judg- ment of men : but lead them on to things themselves, and their relations ; that they may view their own stores, what they have to reason about, and what they may add or procure for the common good. * * * * And thus we hope to establish a true and legitimate union between the instinctive and the rational faculties." — Lo7'd Bacon. 176 REAL CHURCH REFORM NOW WHAT A CHURCH REFORM SHOULD BE AFTER A REFORMATION. At a time when the question of a '' church re- form" is at a stand still before the legislature,* and when such a reform is quasi exclusively entrusted to Archbishops and Bishops, it behoves every man who has ever given it a '' serious thought," to impart to his fellow beings the conviction he entertains on a subject so intimately connected with the history, and with the organic feelings of the whole human race. In a country where churchmen are almost exclu- sively the instructors of youth, the question of a church reform involves two subjects of investigation vastly different from each other : on the one hand, we have the notorious abuses of a body of priests established in the dark ages as a hierarchy — ^their departure from the original constitution, as well as from the intention of its founders ; — on the other, * " We say * stand still,' because all their time is taken up in dodging one another. The Lords put off the IrisJi Corpo- ration Bill, in order to see what the Commons intend to do with the Irish Tithe Bill: the Commons retort by putting off the Irish Tithe Bill until they see what the Lords intend to do with the Irish Corporation Bill. The parties who profit by this innocent and becoming play, are those who desire that nothing should be done." — The Guide, a London Paper, No. 8. IMPLIES MENTAL REFORM! 177 we have to examine what real advantages and what utility is now to be derived by the people, through the great influence which the priesthood continues to exercise, as directors of any system of education for them. We maintain that, so far as our senators have expressed their opinions, there is not one — no, not even one, in either House of Parliament, who ap- pears to be aware of the magnitude of the question of a church reform, when coming three centuries after a religious reformation I If anything has been done, or is doing, it refers to a part only of the first subject, ^. e. to the abuses of power — to a reduction of income — to resi- dence — pluralities, and to what it has l^een agreed to denominate the '' duties of the clergy ! " — ^now, with us, those anomalies in the spiritual avocation of a priesthood are of little or no importance whatever, in comparison to the second subject: viz. the real advantages and the utility noiv to be derived by the people from the continuance of priests, not only as an establishment or hierarchy,* but as individuals in the capacity of religious instructors ot mi/stic teachers in blind faith ! * This word means not only the Church Government imder which om* " glorious constitution" is to he for ever preser'oed by most Itohj " conservatives^'' from any innovation^ but also, the ^' holy orders of angels ! " which, in heaven, consist of nine, viz. — Serapliims / Chericbims ! Thrones I Dom'mions f Frincipalities ! Powers! Virtues! AngeU ! Arcliangels! — all the nine in heaven ! ! % 178 CHURCH REFORM — WHAT IT IS NOT If we are henceforward to be governed as intel- ligent beings by intellectuality, and not merely as believers, by hlind faith, the reality of a church reform requires, one would think, to know first, WHAT IT IS THAT CANNOT ! AND WHAT IT IS THAT CAN BE REFORMED ! These are preliminary questions, which, not being familiar to every mind, we shall endeavour to explain. All old religions are a mystic compound of various — ^though long continued errors, and of na- tural truths-^ — I. e. of the various symbols, and of the natural feelings which have adopted or embraced such symbols to satisfy the organic instinctive want. The word — refomi — therefore, applied to such a compound, can surely never mean to exa- mine into, and correct, that part of it which, in time, has been acknowledged to be error ! fiction ! or falsehood ! for, once known to be error, it may be discarded or abolished from the institution, or it may be allowed to die a natural death, as '' alchemy " and '' astrology',' once in great esteem, have died away, and disappeared from the thoughts of men. Since error once known as such, never can be made again to appear reality, it never can be reformed, although it may certainly have been made, for a time, to appear less cruel, less absurd, and less prepos- terous. As to the natural truths — as to the feelings w^hich have induced the instinctive credulity of ignorance to AND THE FIRST QUESTION OF THE AGE. 179 adopt various symbols, it is quite another question: — investigation and inquiry here become most interest- ing and most useful ; for it is, hi reality, changes in our feelings which make a church reform desirable. None can deny that wherever and whenever the HUMAN BRAIN has been excited, impressed, and de- veloped by the convictions which real knowledge bestows, it has universally ceased to be longer sus- ceptible of being mystified by an officious priesthood - — however much all the priests of the earth may and must have once been, not only much wanted, but really useful, and therefore generally respected and beloved h\) the natural instinct of primitive ignorance. TO UNDERSTAND THE CHANGES IN OUR RELIGIOUS FEELING IS A HOME QUESTION FOR EVERY HU- MAN being; because organic feelings or human instincts are the physical facts, on which equally depend all the reli- gions of the earth; and natural facts should now seriously occupy the time of intellectual legislators. This, then, is for us, and we hope, equally for all unprejudiced minds, not only the marrow of a church reform question for England, but the very first ques- tion of the age for the progressive civilization of all Christendom, as well as for that of all nations. It is, in reality, the true essence of all natural " THEOLOGY." — It is that, which we have looked for in vain, in '' Lord Brougham's Discourse," and as it was our bitter disappointment at not finding it there, which generated our '' Serious Thoughts," should any good result from our present or future 180 OLD SYMBOLS VANISH, endeavours to explain the human instinctive wants of ignorance, and to bring all superstitions under the control of reason, through human observation, com- parison, and judgment, so as to reconcile religion to philosophy, let the praise be due to his lord- ship's '' Discourse of Natural Theology," as being the antecedent fact to the new *' Sanctuary of Thought and Science." We do not intend to enter here, at full length, into the inquiry necessary to prove the possible reform or natural change of an organic feeling ; suffice it to say, for the present, (as all inquirers capable of freedom of thought must be fully aware of) that such reform or change for the better, beins the result of natural modifications in a '' sensi- tive organised substance,'' — it depends far more on the relations of time and circumstances which con- stantly influence that substance, than it possibly can do upon mere theological dicta or mere acts of parliament, spoken or passed in profound ignorance of human progressive sensitiveness. Nature is a DANGEROUS ENEMY TO CONTEND WITH, and the most absolute political executive has always proved itself 2)0iverful or 2^oiverless against existing feelings or interests, according as its mandates followed or resisted the intellectual wants of this, or of that age. But so long as ignorance and prejudice are admitted to the Poll, honesty and intelligence must be de- feated. Thinking as we do that, after eighteen cen- turies of the " Christian System," of deceiving the vulgar, it is not too soon to ascertain by inquiry. BUT THE FEELING PROGRESSES! 181 how far it may prove judicious, expetlient, or wise, to enforce the continuance of an institution, having no Dther result, than the perpetuation of popular igno- rance to explore credulity, or the maintenance of a fruitful superstition, — we must express our regret that no man has yet appeared to call the serious attention of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and of both our legislative assemblies, to that which is THE ONLY TRUE BASIS OF ALL MySTIC ChURCHES, — i. e. the lihysical fact, the natural influence, and the true end of the religious feeling ; in the hope that observation and reflexion might once for all be di- rected into the proper channels for ascertaining the real object and useful purposes of the instinctive mys- tic WANTS of an ignorant flock : it being now well known to all keen observers of men and things, that ignorance itself, far from being the normal state of man, is but a temporary deficiency, an in- stinct OF UNCULTIVATED HUMAN NATURE, AND NOT THE NATURAL CONDITION of MANKIND. Hcnce originate all the difficulties of the present day between the pretension ofthejyriest to i^erpetuate credulitij, and the natural claims of the awakened understanding ; hence, only, the real necessity of a Church reform. The present churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland, taken all in all, are, we repeat it, as much a question of time, as ever were before them. Fetichism, Druidism, Paganism, or Catholicism ; each and all have been '' eternal truths;' for the generation that lived under them. It has always been the character oi blind faith to consider its creed " etemar-^yct, as 182 SUPERSTITION, RELIGION, AND HERESIES^ we have said before, none have ever been thought true beyond the time they tvere in harmony ivith the degree of mental powers that could or ivould countefumce each in its turn* and we now ask in all candour and sincerity — Is not their successive disappearance from spiritual society (though as yet but a partial disappearance for some) so many recorded proofs of the gradual j)rogressiveness of the religious feelings of mankind P In fact. What is now called '' superstition V Is it not the religious laws, worship, and cere- monies of our fore-fathers, no longer in harmony with our present better feelings ? What is now called " religion'^'' Is it not the mystic laws, worship, and ceremo- nies of the day assented to by large majorities kept in ienorance of the natural sciences ^ What is now called infidelity, heresy, and blas- phemy ? Is it not the increasing symptoms of innovation in matters of faith, and the manifested influence of a new MEDIATION, expressed as yet but by a small minority whose feelings being changed by a pure and progres- sive knowledge in harmony with their mind, (there- fore superior for them, to the knowledge allowed or diffused by the jyresoit ''eternal truths :)" cannot sympathise with old and stationary dogmas of blind faith, but who, nevertheless, pursue most religiously, all the real knowledge to be attained. * See page 116. ORIGINATE FROM THE SAME FEELING ! 183 What is then, the true understanding of the words '' superstition,'' '' religion J' " heresy',' and hJaspJiemy P In reality they all are one and the same feeling — a natural instinctive want : only, that it is expressed by one or the other of these words, conformably as it may be excited to manifest itself, in relation to i\\Q2)ast, to ih^ present, or to the future. Finally, why is it so ? Simply because the progressiveness of human intellectuality has always had the povrer of modifying human instincts, just as by the same law, civilization has always subdued barbarism. Hence, since mystic *' religions'' have been and still remain exclusively indispensable to, as they are inseparable from, a profound ignorance of nature, may we not ask on what grounds can a mystic instruction in any degree of established superstition, be main- tained by church authority in every one of our schools, colleges, and universities, w^hen a general system of rational education by the far superior means of the natural sciences, professes upon sure data, to prevent any class of society from remaining in that ignorance of itself, and of nature, for which only, in- struction in any system of superstition is deemed in- dispensable f No! no! it is vain for priestcraft to hope; clerical authority is too weak against mental progress, and powerless to protect them from the laws of nature which pronounce their doom. We appeal to the last struggling efforts of their downfall — the '' Church 184 CHURCH ,CRITICS. of England Magazine/' (a '' very cheap weekly perio- dical"), and the '' Church of England Quarterly Review/' than which a more absurd religio-furioso- jargon never w^as yet published at any period of clerical rage and mystic denunciation ! * But, nevertheless, we must thank them for their vain efforts ; these works of blind holy despair, illus- trate what was predicted long before their appearance, when we said: — '' All the endeavours of absolute mystic religion to defend herself; all her metaphysi- cal verbiage can produce no other effect than that of making her flounder still more in the mire of contra- diction, and of plunging her into absurdities the most glaring — ^into difficulties the most inextri- cable! "t The reverend body should know that, when a church has ceased to be temporally absolute, her spiritual influence is better preserved over her mystic friends by a dignified silence towards her sincere and serious opponents, than by vituperations against them. Since, however, their ignorance of the natural in- fluence of a progressive religious feeling leads them, blindfold, to anathematize indiscriminately all innova- tors : the virtue now most in request, is the moral courage that teaches how to disdain the insults and calumnies directed by the old priesthood against all * See their furious Review of Lord Brougham's Discourse of Natural Theology, No. 1. f See *' Theorem to Part 11. of the New Saiictuai-y of Thought and Science.'' DOUBT UNIVERSAL. 185 radical reformers, and against all rational systems of education. Sincere believers, be it known, are not so nume- rous as some still seem to think. Most people are now quite satisfied in being merely thought to he such : so that they pass for religious in the estima- tion of others, their object is attained. It is curious to follow and to examine how far the ** religious world" (so called) resolves itself into mutual humbug and mystification. We hold that all men and women have their doubts — that all are more or less sceptics in their own mystic religions ; but that such is still, with many, the direct or indirect influence of priestly power over mind and over things, that there are few who dare openly avow their perplexity of thought and feeling in matters of bliiid faith ; and it is tofa^ those perplexing doubts, l^y calling upon the reasoning faculties to subdue instinctive natural super- stition, that a "' church reform " should be directed. We feel no impediment, no timorousness — our only difficulty is in making ourselves sure that w^e shall be understood equally hy the faithful, hy the infidely and even hy the '' atheist,'' should this last word, void of sense, still retain any rational meaning with any one. THERE ARE NO WANTS, NO FEELINGS, NO THOUGHTS, NO ACTIONS, THAT ARE NOT AT ONCE IN THE SERIES OF CHANGES, THE EFFECT OF FORMER IMPRESSIONS, AND THE ANTECEDENT FACTS TO EVERY SUBSEQUENT ONE. Thus we see, by comparing the records of the past 186 TO LIMIT KNOWLEDGE with the facts of the present time, that every thing connected with the wants of the human species, has of necessity conformed gradually to a progressive natural influence, which we call "mental develop- ment,'' since our reflecting faculties feel in a painful discordance at certain times with impressions which, at former periods, were in perfect harmony with human thought. As things now are, churchmen of all sects, by en- deavouring to confine knowledge among the people to such notions only as may combine and agree with the mystic persuasion — it is their interest to jjr^acA — contribute not a little to retard for all classes the blessings of a more general civilization than Europe can at present boast of; they strive to maintain all the people under the fears natural to credulous indigence ; but all men are not equally credulous, nor equally comfortable ; and the twenty thousand com- mitted for crime annually in England and Wales, are, we believe, the proportion out of fifteen millions of more or less ignorant persons, who feel neither so credulous, nor are so comfortably situated as the rest. Our churchmen seem to take no notice of these annual committals — increased, during thirty years, from four thousand to twenty thousand, notwithstand- ing the voluntary emigration of about two hundred thousand people during the same period. They merely ask for more and more mystic churches. They seem not to know that besides an increased population, nature generates new wants as civiliza- tion progresses ; and that these new wants must be supplied by real education, which is but anothei IS TO RETARD CIVILIZATION. 187 word for a greater supply of more true spiritual food for inteUectuaUtj/ iha^n mere human instincts required. From their very curious interpretation of the words " spiritual food for the peoj^lej' one must in- deed suspect they never had in view any thing else but the interests of their church, i. e. of themselves. From the matter and manner of the teaching they continue to dole out to the people, not only week after week, but century after century — in the same mystic jargon (though not with all the same ceremonies), that was practised in the most remote periods of '' sacred history," must it be supposed that they have not yet acquired the most distant notions of the natural effect of human inventions and discoveries upon human capacity — the most remarkable of which is an increased want of '' spiritual food," in proportion as the mental machinery has been aivakened, by the application to social life of these humcm inventions and discoveries. But the principal fault lies wdth parents and teachers — and chiefly arises from the lamentable fact that nearly all teachers are mystic churchmen, mostly ignorant of all things it is noiv most urgent should be generally taught and diffused.* They certainly can teach the mathematics, divi- nity, and the dead languages,-]- but what then "? what have men to do with the notions the two latter * " Shall the future intelligence of Europe have to reproach England that her government found, in the prejudices and ignorance of her people, the most serious obstacles to useful reforms ?" f See Note to page 62 and 63. 18& CONFIRMATION AND ORDINATION REQUIRE convey^ in the present stage of progressing civiliza- tion? and what with the first, without all the physical knowledge of which mathematics merely form the basis ? Were the priests sufficiently skilled in all the modern arts and sciences — above all, could they teach the elements of useful real knowledge, as well as only give the means of acquiring it, — parents who now wish (for the most part we hope) that the intel- lect ualiti/ of their children, male and female, should be cultivated by real education ! rather than merely their human instincts hy mysticism — would regard our public and private schools with very different feelings. Since the reformation, the superior knowledge of realities, acquired and diffused by other men, having outstripped the priest — their examination, as to capa- city, i. e. their '' conjirmation' and '' ordiiiation/' HAS ACTUALLY BECOME A MERE FARCE ! siuce it ascertains only their capability of teaching one thing (divinity), now, all but useless, in the way it is taught, (except so far as it maintains their order) whilst it takes no cognisance at all of their capacity to teach any of the really useful and practical sci- ences which constitute the spiritual glory of this age ! All churchmen being compelled to mystify cre- dulity, either through incapacity, or for the pui*pose of concealing the new^ truths considered by them dangerous for the people to know, education must now find its way to our public and private schools through some other channels. Government, in fact, seems, in some degree, to be aware of the present deficiency of the priesthood ^O PROOFS OF MENTAL CAPACITY. 189 as teachers of the people ; and, considering what they once were, there can be no greater stigma upon the churchmen of the day than the bill now before parliament, intended to take pa7't of the church funds for the purpose of education. Is it not telling them in so many words, '' you have not done your duty as teachers to the people — you have neglected them, and in consequence of that neglect on your part, we are compelled to establish normal schools, to form new teachers, as well as a department of real educa- tion distinct from your order, and totally independent of any mystic influence, before whom henceforth all schoolmasters and teachers of the people, shall be examined as to their capacity in all hranches of real and useful knowledge ; and since ALL THE REVENUES OF THE CHURCH, MISCALLED '" CHURCH PROPERTY," ARE, IN REALITY, AN EDUCATION FUND FOR THE PEOPLE, * we shall, of course, take from that fund whatever may be required to accomplish and fulfil the most ♦ " In fine — the plain fact is, that what is called church 2)ro- verty, is really the nation's education fund, which is pocketed by those who neither do the work, nor will allow others to do it — and who should be paid off forthwith, that we may have efficient instructors in real knowledge for the entire popula- tion ! — ' Education is the whole service of the church ' — the time will come when every church in the world will be a school-room. This is the only church reform worth having : to reduce salaries — to break up the purses — to visit the poor, and make them talk Welch in Wales ! is neither conservation nor reformation, but only miserable patchwork." — Foys Repu- sitory for June, 1836, p. 384. 190 NO EDUCATION FUND WANTED. important object of education, as it must now he understood, and as originally intended*?" All opposition to so just and so wise an appli-