Chapter M: De Voltaire (4)

"Descartes had before Locke observed that the Peripatetics, intrenching themselves behind the obscurity of words, were not unlike a blind man, who, in order to be a match for his clear-sighted antagonist, should draw him into a dark cavern. 'Now,' added he, 'if this man can introduce light into the cavern, and compel the Peripatetics to fix clear ideas to their words, the victory is his own. In imitation of Descartes and Locke, I shall show that, both in metaphysics and morality, the abuse of words, and the ignorance of their true import, is a labyrinth in which the greatest geniuses have lost themselves; and, in order to set this particular in a clear light, instance, in some of those words which have given rise to the longest and sharpest disputes among philosophers: such, in metaphysics, are Matter, Space, and Infinite. It has at all times been alternately asserted that Matter felt, or did not feel, and given rise to disputes equally loud and vague. It was very late before it came into the disputants! heads to ask one another, what they were disputing about, and to annex a precise idea to the word Matter. Had they at first fixed the meaning of it, they would have perceived, if I may use the expression, that men were the creators of Matter; that Matter was not a being; that in nature there were only individuals to which the name of Body had been given; and that this word Matter could import no more than the collection of properties common to all bodies. The meaning of this word being determined, all that remained was to know, whether extent, solidity, and impenetrability, were the only properties common to all bodies; and whether the discovery of a power, such for instance as attraction, might not give rise to a conjecture that bodies had some properties hitherto unknown, such as that of sensation, which, though evident only in the organized members of animals, might yet be common to all individuals! The question being reduced to this, it would have appeared that if, strictly speaking, it is impossible to demonstrate that all bodies are absolutely insensible, no man, unless instructed by a particular revelation, can decide the question otherwise than by calculating and comparing the verisimilitude of this opinion with that of the contrary...."

Instructed by the errors of great men who have gone before us, we should be sensible that our observations, however multiplied and concentrated, are scarcely sufficient to form one of those partial systems comprehended in the general system; add that it is from the depth of imagination that the several systems of the universe have hitherto been drawn; and, as our informations of remote countries are always imperfect, so the informations philosophers have of the system of the world are also defective. With a great genius and a multitude of combinations, the products of their labors will be only fictions till time and chance shall furnish then? with a general fact, to which all others may be referred.

"What I have said of the word Matter, I say also of Space. Most of the philosophers have made a being of it; and the ignorance of the true sense of the word has occasioned long disputes. They would have been greatly shortened by annexing a clear idea to this word; for then the sages would have agreed that Space, considered in bodies, is what we call extension; that we owe the idea of a void, which partly composes the idea of Space, to the interval seen betwixt two lofty mountains; an interval which, being filled only by air, that is, by a body which at a certain distance makes no sensible impression on us, must have given us an idea of a vacuum; being nothing more than a power of representing to ourselves mountains separated from each other, and the intervening distances not being filled by other bodies. With regard to the idea of Infinite, comprehended also within the idea of Space, I say that we owe this idea of Infinite only to the power which a man standing on a plain has of continually extending its limits, the boundary of his imagination not being determinable: the absence of limits is therefore the only idea we can form of Infinite. Had philosophers, previously to their giving any opinion on this subject, determined the signification of the word Infinite, I am inclined to believe they would have adopted the above definition, and not spent their time in frivolous disputes. To the false philosophy of former ages, our gross ignorance of the true signification of words is principally owing; as the art of abusing them made up the greatest part of that philosophy. This art, in which the whole science of the schools consisted, confounded all ideas; and the obscurity it threw on the expressions, generally diffused itself over all the sciences, especially morality."

The following remarks show Helvetia's notions of the "love of glory":--

"By the word Strong-Passion, I mean a passion the object of which is so necessary to our happiness, that without the possession of it life would be insupportable. This was Omar's idea of the passion, when he said, 'Whoever thou art, that lovest liberty, desirest to be wealthy without riches, powerful without subjects, a subject without a master, dare to condemn death: kings will then tremble before thee, whilst thou alone shalt fear no person.'.... It was the passion of honor and philosophic fanaticism alone that could induce Timicha, the Pythagorean, in the midst of torture, to bite off her tongue, that she might not expose herself to reveal the secrets of her sect. Cato, when a child, going with his tutor to Sylla's palace, at seeing the bloody heads of the proscribed, asked with impatience the name of the monster who had caused so many Roman citizens to be murdered. He was answered, it was Sylla: 'How,' says he, 'does Sylla murder thus, and is Sylla still alive?' 'Yes,' it was replied, 'the very name of Sylla disarms our citizens.' 'Oh! Rome,' cried Cato, 'deplorable is thy fate, since within the vast compass of thy walls not a man of virtue can be found, and the arm of a feeble child is the only one that will oppose itself against tyranny!' Then, turning towards his governor, 'Give me,' said he, 'your sword; I will conceal it under my robe, approach Sylla, and kill him. Cato lives, and Rome is again free.' If the generous pride, the passion of patriotism and glory, determine citizens to such heroic actions, with what resolution and intrepidity do not the passions inspire those who aim at distinction in the arts and sciences, and whom Cicero calls the peaceable heroes? It is from a desire of glory that the astronomer is seen, on the icy summits of the Cordileras, placing his instruments in the midst of snows and frost; which conducts the botanist to the brinks of precipices in quest of plants; which anciently carried the juvenile lovers of ihe sciences into Egypt, Ethiopia, and even into the Indies, for visiting the most celebrated philosophers, and acquiring from their conversation the principles of their doctrine. How strongly did this passion exert itself in Demosthenes, who, for perfecting his pronunciation, used every day to stand on the sea-shore, and with his mouth full of pebbles harangue the agitated waves! It was from the same desire of glory that the young Pythagoreans submitted to a silence of three years, in order to habituate themselves to recollection and meditation; it induced Democritus to shun the distractions of the world, and retire among the tombs, to meditate on those valuable truths, the discovery of which, as it is always very difficult, is also very little esteemed; in fine, it was this that prompted Heraclitus to cede to his younger brother the throne of Ephesus, to which he had the right of primogeniture, that he might give himself up entirely to philosophy; which made the Athletic improve his strength, by denying himself the pleasures of love; it was also from a desire of popular applause that certain ancient priests renounced the same pleasures, and often, as Boindin pleasantly observes of them, without any other recompense for their continence than the perpetual temptation it occasions,... 'The cause,' says Cardinal Richelieu, 'why a timorous mind perceives an impossibility in the most simple projects, when to an elevated mind the most arduous seems easy, is, because, before the latter the mountains sink, and before the former mole-hills are metamorphosed into mountains.'"

The different motives that influence our conduct are thus stated:--

"A mother idolizes her son; 'I love him,' says she, 'for his own sake.' However, one might reply, you take no care of his education, though you are in no doubt that a good one would contribute infinitely to his happiness; why, therefore, do not you consult some men of sense about him, and read some of the works written on this subject? 'Why, because,' says she, 'I think I know as much of this matter as those authors and their works.' But how did you get this confidence in your own understanding? Is it not the effect of your indifference? An ardent desire always inspires us with a salutary distrust of ourselves. If we have a suit at law of considerable consequence, we visit counsellors and attorneys, we consult a great number, and examine their advice. Are we attacked by any of those lingering diseases, which incessantly place around us the shades and horrors of death? We seek physicians, compare their opinions, read physical books, we ourselves become little physicians. Such is the conduct prompted by a warm interest. With respect to the education of children, if you are not influenced in the same manner, it is because you do not love your son as well as yourself. 'But,' adds the mother, 'what then should be the motive of my tenderness?' Among fathers and mothers, I reply, some are influenced by the desire of perpetuating their name in their children; they properly love only their names; others are fond of command, and see in their children their slaves. The animal leaves its young when their weakness no longer keeps them in dependence; and paternal love becomes extinguished in almost all hearts, when children have, by their age or station, attained to independence. 'Then,' said the poet Saadi, 'the father sees nothing in them but greedy heirs,' and this is the cause, adds some poet, of the extraordinary love of the grandfather for his grandchildren; he considers them as the enemies of his enemies. There are, in short, fathers and mothers, who make their children their playthings and their pastime. The loss of this plaything would be insupportable to them; but would their affliction prove that they loved the child for itself? Everybody knows this passage in the life of M. de Lauzun: he was in the Bastile; there, without books, without employment, a prey to lassitude and the horrors of a prison, he took it in his head to tame a spider. This was the only consolation he had left in his misfortune. The governor of the Bastile, from an inhumanity common to men accustomed to see the unhappy, crushed the spider. The prisoner felt the most cutting grief, and no mother could be affected by the death of a son with a more violent sorrow. Now whence is derived this conformity of sentiments for such different objects? It is because, in the loss of a child, or in the loss of the spider, people frequently weep for nothing but for the lassitude and want of employment into which they fall. If mothers appear in general more afflicted at the death of a child than fathers employed in business, or given up to the pursuit of ambition, it is not because the mother loves her child more tenderly, but because she suffers a loss more difficult to be supplied. The errors, in my opinion, are, in this respect, very frequent; people rarely cherish a child for its own sake. That paternal love of which so many men make a parade, and by which they believe themselves so warmly affected, is most frequently nothing more than an effect, either of a desire of perpetuating their names, or of pride of command...... Do you not know that Galileo was unworthily dragged to the prison of the Inquisition, for having maintained that the sun is placed in the centre, and does not move around the earth; that his system first offended the weak, and appeared directly contrary to that text of Scripture--'Sun, stand thou still?' However, able divines have since made Galileo's principles agree with those of religion. Who has told you, that a divine more happy or more enlightened than you, will not remove the contradiction, which you think you perceive between your religion, and the opinion you resolve to condemn! Who forces you by a precipitate censure to expose, if not religion, at least its ministers, to the hatred excited by persecution? Why, always borrowing the assistance of force and terror, would you impose silence on men of genius, and deprive mankind of the useful knowledge they are capable of dispensing? You obey, you say, the dictates of religion. But it commands you to distrust yourselves, and to love your neighbor. If you do not act in conformity to these principles, you are then not actuated by the spirit of God. But you say, by whom then are we inspired? By laziness and pride. It is laziness, the enemy of thought, which makes you averse to those opinions, which you cannot, without study and some fatigue of attention, unite with the principles received in the schools; but which being proved to be philosophically true, cannot be theologically false. It is pride, which is ordinarily carried to a greater height in the bigot than in any other person, which makes him detest in the man of genius the benefactor of the human race, and which exasperates him against the truths discovered by humility. It is then this laziness and this pride, which, disguising themselves under the appearance of zeal, render them the persecutors of men of learning; and which in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, have forged chains, built gibbets, and held the torch to the piles of the Inquisition. Thus the same pride, which is so formidable in the devout fanatic, and which in all religions makes him persecute, in the name of the Most High, the men of genius, sometimes arms against them the men in power. After the example of those Pharisees, who treated as criminals the persons who did not adopt all their decisions, how many viziers treat, as enemies to the nation, those who do not blindly approve their conduct!"

J. W.

FRANCES W. D'ARUSMONT.

The previous issues of this publication contain notices of the lives and writings of men of eminence in the world of Freethought. This number is devoted to a review of the career and works of a most talented and accomplished lady--a Freethinker and Republican. As a proof--if any proof were needed--that women, if adequately educated, are equally capable with men to become teachers and reformers, the works of the subject of present notice afford abundant evidence. The efforts now being made to procure an adjustment of the laws relating to women, whereby they will be protected in their property, and consequently improved in their social position, deserve the support of all classes; When females become independent, there will be less ignorance among women and more happiness among men.

Frances Wright, afterwards Madame D'Arusmont, was a native of Dundee. She was born on the 6th of September, 1795. She came of a wealthy family, who had been extensive holders of city property from the year 1500. Her father was a man of considerable literary attainments, and to his active antiquarian researches and donations the British Museum is indebted for many rare and valuable coins and medals. He died young, as also his wife, leaving three children--two girls and a boy. Frances was then but two years and a half old. At the wish of her grandfather, General Duncan Campbell, she was taken to England, and reared as a ward of Chancery, under the guardianship of a maternal aunt. She grew to be very tall in person, erect, and of a commanding figure; large eyes, and magnificent head, with a face somewhat masculine, but well formed, and decidedly handsome. Her brother was sent to India, at the age of fifteen, as a cadet in the East India Company's service, and was killed on the passage out in an encounter with a French vessel. Her sister passed her life with her, and died in Paris in 1831.

At an early age, Miss Wright gave evidence of great intellectual ability. The education she received was of a very superior kind. She diligently applied herself to the various branches of science, and to the study of ancient and modern letters and the arts, being impelled by a strong desire for knowledge. At the age of nineteen, she published her first work, "A Few Days in Athens." Her attention was early drawn to the sufferings of the lower classes, and on reflection she became convinced that some great vice lay at the foundation of the whole of human practice: She determined to endeavor to discover, and assist in removing it. She read Bocca's "History of the American Revolution," and resolved to visit that country, it appearing to her young imagination as the land of freedom and hope.--After having familiarised herself with the government and institutions of America, she sailed for New York 1818. She returned to England in 1820, and published a large volume, entitled "Views of Society and Manners in America." It was dedicated to Jeremy Bentham, and had a large sale. The work being translated into most of the continental languages, she became known to the prominent reformers of Europe.

In 1821, she made her first visit to Paris, and was there introduced to General Lafayette, who, having previously read her work on America, invited her to that city. A republican in all her views and hopes, she was highly appreciated by Lafayette and other eminent supporters of the liberal party in France.--She remained in Paris until 1824, when she returned to the United States, and immediately undertook a project for the abolition of slavery upon a plan somewhat different from any that then engaged the attention of philanthropists. For this purpose she purchased two thousand acres of land at Chickasaw Bluffe, (now Memphis, Tennessee), intending to make a good farm rather than a cotton plantation. She then purchased several slave families, gave them their liberty, and removed them to the farm, residing there herself to direct their labor. Commencing this novel undertaking with all that enthusiasm for which she was remarkable, she continued the experiment some three years and a half, when her health gave way, and, suffering under severe sickness, she made a voyage to Europe for her recovery. During her absence, the farm got involved in difficulties by the influence of her enemies; and finally, the whole project falling through, the negroes were sent off to Hayti at her expense.--She gave much time and money to the carrying forward of this experiment; and though it was a failure, it strikingly exhibited her strong sympathy and benevolence for an oppressed and degraded class of beings. Returning from Europe, she went to New Harmony (Indiana) to assume the proprietorship of a periodical the Harmony Gazette, which had been published under the direction of Robert Dale Owen. In 1828, leaving Mr. Owen in charge of the paper, she began a lecturing tour through the Union; and probably no man, and certainly no _woman_, ever met with such furious opposition. Her views, as announced in her paper, had made her generally known, and, being somewhat new and radically "anti-theological," brought down upon her head the rancor of religious bigotry. As no church or hall would be opened for her, she lectured in theatres; and her ability and eloquence drew great audiences. On one occasion, while preparing to lecture in a theatre at Baltimore, she was threatened with the destruction of her life if she attempted to speak. She calmly replied, that she thought she knew the American people, and for every riotous fanatic that might annoy her, a hundred good citizens would protect her, and she was not afraid to place herself in their hands. She judged rightly. She went to the theatre, which was crammed from pit to ceiling, and lectured to an admiring and enthusiastic audience. In other cities she was not always so fortunate; more or less rioting occurred, while the press, almost without exception, denounced her in the bitterest terms. Subsequently, her paper was removed to New York. Some years afterwards, she again made a lecturing tour, but this time she spoke on subjects of a political nature, and met with a better reception. In addition to lecturing, she conducted a political magazine, entitled the Manual of American Principles, and was also engaged with Mr. Kneeland in editing the Boston Investigator. She wrote a great deal, and upon many subjects. Among her many works is a tragedy called "Altorf," which was performed on the stage, the principal character being sustained by Mr. James Wallack. Her last work, of any considerable size, was entitled "England the Civiliser," published in London in 1847.

Madame D'Arusmont died suddenly in Cincinnati, on Tuesday, December 14, 1852, aged fifty-seven. She had been for sometime unwell, in consequence of a fall upon the ice the previous winter, which broke her thigh, and probably hastened her decease; but the immediate cause of her death was the rupture of a blood vessel. She was aware of her situation, knew when she was dying, and met her last hour with perfect composure. A daughter, her only child, survives her.

In a small work entitled "Observations on Religion and Civilization," are given the following "Definitions of Theology and Religion: in the words and in the things signified. Origin and Nature of Theology:"--

"Theology from the Greek _theos, logos_, renders distinct the meaning of the subject it attempts to treat.--_Theos_, God, or Gods, unseen beings and unknown causes. _Logos_, word, talk--or, if we like to employ yet more familiar and expressive terms, prattle or chatter. _Talk, or prattle, about unseen beings or unknown causes_, The idleness of the subject, and inutility--nay, absolute insanity of the occupation, sufficiently appears in the strict etymological meaning of the word employed to typify them. The danger, the mischief, the cruelly immoral, and, if I may be permitted to coin a word for the occasion, the _unhumanizing_ tendencies both of the subject and the occupation, when and where these are (as they have for the most part ever been throughout the civilized world) absolutely protected by law and upheld by government, sufficiently appear also from the whole page of history. Religion, from the Latin _religio, religio_, renders with equal distinctness the things signified. _Religo_, to tie over again, to bind fast; _religio_, a binding together, a bond of union. The importance of the great reality, here so accurately shadowed out, appears sufficiently in the etymological signification of the word. Its utility will be evident if we read, with intelligence, the nature, the past history, the actual condition, and the future destiny of man. But now, taking these two things in the most strict etymological sense of the words which express them, it will readily be distinguished that the first is a necessary creation of the _human intellect_ in a certain stage of inquiry; the second, a necessary creation of the _human soul_ (by which I understand both our intellectual and moral faculties taken conjointly) in any and every state of human civilization. Theology argues, in its origin, the first awakening of human attention to the phenomena of nature, and the first crude efforts of human ingenuity to expound them. While man sees the sun and stars without observing either their diurnal or their annual revolutions; while he receives upon his frame the rain and the wind, and the varying elements, without observing either their effects upon himself or upon the field of nature around him, he is as the brute which suffers and enjoys without inquiring why it experiences light or darkness, pain or pleasure. When first he puts, in awkward language, to himself or to his fellow, the question _why does such an effect follow such a cause_? he commences his existence, if not as a reasonable being, (a state at which he has not yet arrived) at least _as a being capable of reason_. The answer to this first inquiry of awakening intelligence is, of course, such as his own circumscribed observation supplies.--It is, in fine, in accordance with the explanation of the old nurse to the child, who, asking, when startled by a rolling peal of thunder--'what makes that noise' was fully satisfied by the reply: 'my darling, it is God Almighty overhead moving his furniture.' Man awakening to thought, but still unfamiliar with the concatenation of natural phenomena, inevitably conceives of some huge being, or beings, bestriding the clouds and whirlwind, or wheeling the sun and the moon like chariots through the blue vault. And so again, fancy most naturally peoples the gloom of the night with demons, the woods and the waters with naiads and dryads, elves and fairies, the church-yard with ghosts, and the dark cave and the solitary cot with wizards, imps and old witches. Such, then, is theology in its origin; and, in all its stages, we find it varying in grossness according to the degree of ignorance of the human mind; and, refining into verbal subtleties and misty metaphysics in proportion as that mind exchanges, in its progress from darkness to light, the gloom of ignorance for the mass of terror."

The nature of belief in the unknowable, and the dire consequences arising from fanaticism, are ably depicted in the following passages, selected from Lecture IV., on "Religion:"--

"Admitting religion to be the most important of all subjects, its truths must be the most apparent; for we shall readily concede, both that a thing true, must be always of more or less importance--and that a thing essentially important, must always be indisputably true. Now, again, I conceive we shall be disposed to admit, that exactly in proportion to the indisputability of a truth, is the proof it is capable of affording; and that, exactly in proportion to the proof afforded, is our admission of such truth and belief in it. If, then, religion be the most important subject of human inquiry, it must be that also which presents the most forcible, irrefragable, and indisputable truths to the inquirer.--It must be that on which the human mind can err the least, and where all minds must be the most agreed. If religion be at once a science, and the most true of all sciences, its truths must be as indisputable as those in any branch of the mathematics--as apparent to all the senses as those revealed by the chemist or observed by the naturalist, and as easily referred to the test of our approving or disapproving sensations, as those involved in the science of morals.... Is religion a science? Is it a branch of knowledge? Where are the _things known_ upon which it rests? Where are the accumulated facts of which it is compounded? What are the human sensations to which it appeals? Knowledge is compounded of _things known_. It is an accumulation of facts gleaned by our senses, within the range of material existence, which is subject to their investigation.... Now let us see where, in the table of knowledge, we may class religion. Of what part or division of nature, or material existence, does it treat? What bodies, or what properties of tangible bodies, does it place in contact with our senses, and bring home to the perception of our faculties? It clearly appertains not to the table of human knowledge, for it treats not of objects discoverable within the field of human observation. 'No,' will you say? 'but its knowledge is superhuman, unearthly--its field is in heaven.' My friends, the knowledge which is not human, is of slippery foundation to us human creatures. Things _known_, constitute knowledge; and here is a science treating of things unseen, unfelt, uncomprehended! Such cannot be _knowledge_. What, then, is it? Probability? possibility? theory? hypothesis? tradition? written? spoken? by whom? when? where? Let its teachers--nay, let all earth reply! But what confusion of tongues and voices now strike on the ear! From either Indies, from torrid Africa, from the frozen regions of either pole, from the vast plains of ancient Asia, from the fields and cities of European industry, from the palaces of European luxury, from the soft chambers of priestly ease, from the domes of hierarchal dominion, from the deep cell of the self-immolated monk, from the stony cave of the self-denying anchorite, from the cloud-capt towers, spires, and minarets of the crescent and the cross, arise shouts, and hosannas, and anathemas, in the commingled names of Brama, and Veeshnu, and Creeshna, and Juggernaut; heavenly kings, heavenly queens, triune deities, earth-born gods, heaven-born prophets, apotheosized monarchs, demon-enlightened philosophers, saints, angels, devils, ghosts, apparitions, and sorceries! But, worse than these sounds which but stun the ear and confound the intellect, what sights, oh! human kind! appal the heart! The rivers of earth run blood! Nation set against nation! Brother against brother! Man against the companion of his bosom! and that soft companion, maddened with the frenzy of insane remorse for imaginary crimes? fired with the rage of infatuated bigotry, or subdued to diseased helplessness and mental fatuity, renounces kindred, flies from social converse, and pines away a useless or mischievous existence in sighings and tremblings, spectral fears, uncharitable feelings and bitter denunciations! Such are thy doings, oh! religion! Or, rather, such are thy doings, oh! man! While standing in a world so rich in sources of enjoyment, so stored with objects of real inquiry and attainable knowledge, yet shutting thine eyes, and, worse, thine heart, to the tangible things and sentient creatures around thee, and winging thy diseased imagination beyond the light of the sun which gladdens thy world, and contemplation of the objects which are here to expand thy mind and quicken the pulses of thy heart!... I will pray ye to observe how much of our positive misery originates in our idle speculations in matters of faith, and in our blind, our fearful forgetfulness of facts--our cold, heartless, and, I will say, _insane_ indifference to visible causes of tangible evil, and visible sources of tangible happiness. Look to the walks of life, I beseech ye--look into the public prints--look into your sectarian churches--look into the bosoms of families--look into your own bosoms, and those of your fellow beings, and see how many of our disputes and dissensions, public and private--how many of our unjust actions--how many of our harsh judgments--how many of our uncharitable feelings--spring out of our ignorant ambition to rend the veil which wraps from our human senses the knowledge of things unseen, and from our human faculties the conception of causes unknown? And oh! my fellow beings! do not these very words _unseen_ and _unknown_, warn the enthusiast against the profanity of such inquiries, and proclaim to the philosopher their futility? Do they not teach us that religion is no subject for instruction, and no subject for discussion? Will they not convince us that as beyond the horizon of our observation we can know nothing, so within that horizon's the only safe ground for us to meet in public?... Every day we see sects splitting, creeds new modelling, and men forsaking old opinions only to quarrel about their opposites.

"I see three Gods in one, says the Trinitarian, and excommunicates the Socinian, who sees a God-head in unity. I see a heaven but no hell, says the Universalist, and disowns fellowship with such as may distinguish less. 'I see a heaven and hell also, beyond the stars,' said lately the Orthodox friend, and expelled his shorter-sighted brethren from the sanctuary. I seek them both in the heart of man, said the more spiritual follower of Penn, and straightway builded him up another temple, in which to quarrel with his neighbor, who perhaps only employs other words to express the same ideas. For myself, pretending to no insight into these mysteries, possessing no means of intercourse with the inhabitants of other worlds, confessing my absolute incapacity to see either as far back as a first cause, or as far forward as a last one, I am content to state to you, my fellow creatures, that all my studies, reading, reflection, and observation, have obtained for me no knowledge beyond the sphere of our planet, our earthly interests and our earthly duties; and that I more than doubt whether, should you expend all your time and all your treasure in the search, you will be able to acquire any better information respecting unseen worlds and future events than myself."

The philosophical romance, "A Few Days in Athens," though the first of Miss Wright's works, and written when she was very young, displays considerable power and eloquence. It is the most pleasing of all her writings. It is intended to portray the doctrines of Epicurus, and gives a picture of the Gargettian, in the "Gardens of the Academy," surrounded by his pupils, calculated to counteract many of the popular and erroneous notions entertained of that philosopher's teachings. The following dialogue between Epicurus and his favorite, Theon, will afford the readers of the "Half-Hours" an opportunity of judging how far Miss Wright has conveyed a truthful idea of Epicurus's ethical philosophy:--

"On leaving you, last night," said Theon, "I encountered Cleanthes. He came from the perusal of your writings, and brought charges against them which I was unprepared to answer."

"Let us hear them, my son; perhaps, until you shall have perused them yourself, we may assist your difficulty."

"First, that they deny the existence of the Gods."

"I see but one other assertion that could equal that in folly," said Epicurus.

"I knew it," exclaimed Theon, triumphantly, "I knew it was impossible. But where will not prejudice lead men, when even the uptight Cleanthes is capable of slander?"

"He is utterly incapable of it," said the Master; "and the inaccuracy, in this case, I rather suspect to rest with you than with him. To _deny_ the existence of the Gods would indeed be presumption in a 'philosopher; a presumption equalled only by that of him who should _assert_ their existence."

"How!" exclaimed the youth, with a countenance in which astonishment seemed to suspend every other expression.

"As I never saw the Gods, my son," calmly continued the Sage, "I cannot _assert_ their existence; and that I never saw them, is no reason for my _denying_ it."

"But do we believe nothing except that of which we have ocular demonstration?"

"Nothing, at least, for which we have not the evidence of one or more of our senses; that is, when we believe on just grounds, which I grant, taking men collectively, is very seldom."

"But where would this spirit lead us! To impiety!--to Atheism!--to all, against which I felt confidence in defending the character and philosophy of Epicurus!"

"We will examine presently, my son, into the meaning of the terms you have employed. When you first entered the Garden your mind was unfit for the examination of the subject you have now started: it is no longer so; and we will therefore enter upon the inquiry, and pursue it in order."

"Forgive me if I express--if I acknowledge," said the youth, slightly recoiling from his instructor, "some reluctance to enter on the discussion of truths, whose very discussion would seem to argue a doubt, and"--

"And what then!"

"That very doubt were a crime."

"If the doubt of any truth shall constitute a crime, then the belief of the same truth should constitute a virtue."

"Perhaps a duty would rather express it!" "When you charge the neglect of any duty as crime, or account its fulfilment a virtue, you suppose the existence of a power to neglect or fulfil; and it is the exercise of this power, in the one way or the other which constitutes the merit or demerit. Is it not so?"

"Certainly."

"Does the human mind possess the power to believe or disbelieve, at pleasure, any truths whatsoever."

"I am not prepared to answer: but I think it does, since it possesses always the power of investigation."

"But, possibly, not the will to exercise the power. Take care lest I beat you with your own weapons. I thought this very investigation appeared to you a crime?"

"Your logic is too subtle," said the youth, "for my inexperience."

"Say, rather, my reasoning too close. Did I bear you down with sounding words and weighty authorities, and confound your understanding with hair-drawn distinctions, you would be right to retreat from the battery."

"I have nothing to object to the fairness of your deductions," said Theon. "But would not the doctrine be dangerous that should establish our inability to help our belief; and might we not stretch the principle, until we asserted our inability to help our actions?"

"We might, and with reason. But we will not now traverse the ethical _pons asinorum_ of necessity--the most simple and evident of mortal truths, and the most darkened, tortured, and belabored by moral teachers. You inquire if the doctrine we have essayed to establish, be not dangerous. I reply--not, if it be true.--Nothing is so dangerous as error--nothing so safe as truth. A dangerous truth would be a contradiction in terms, and an anomaly in things."

"But what is a truth?" said Theon.

"It is pertinently asked. A truth I consider to be an ascertained fact; which truth would be changed to an error, the moment the fact, on which it rested, was disproved."

"I see, then, no fixed basis for truth."

"It surely has the most fixed of all--the nature of things. And it is only an imperfect insight into that nature which occasions all our erroneous conclusions, whether in physics or morals."

"But where, if we discard the Gods and their will, as engraven on our hearts, are our guides in the search after truth?"

"Our senses and our faculties as developed in and by the exercise of our senses, are the only guides with which I am acquainted. And I do not see why, even admitting a belief in the Gods, and in a superintending Providence, the senses should not be viewed as the guides provided by them, for our direction and instruction. But here is the evil attendant on an ungrounded belief, whatever be its nature. The moment we take one thing for granted, we take other things for granted; we are started in a wrong road, and it is seldom that we gain the right one, until we have trodden back our steps to the starting place. I know but of one thing that a philosopher should take for granted; and that only because he is forced to it by an irresistible impulse of his nature; and because, without doing so, neither truth nor falsehood could exist for him. He must take for granted the evidence of his senses; in other words, he must believe in the existence of things, as they exist to his senses. I _know_ of no other existence, and can therefore _believe_ in no other: although, reasoning from analogy, I may _imagine_ other existences to be.--This, for instance, I do as respects the Gods. I see around me, in the world I inhabit, an infinite variety in the arrangement of matter--a multitude of sentient beings, possessing different kinds and varying grades of power and intelligence--from the worm that crawls in the dust, to the eagle that soars to the sun, and man who marks to the sun its course. It is possible, it is moreover probable, that, in the worlds which I see not--in the boundless infinitude and eternal duration of matter, beings may exist, of every countless variety, and varying grades of intelligence, inferior and superior to our own, until we descend to a minimum and rise to a maximum, to which the range of our observation affords no parallel, and of which our senses are inadequate to the conception. Thus far, my young friend, 1 believe in the Gods, or in what you will of existences removed from the sphere of my knowledge. That you should believe, with positiveness, in one unseen existence or another, appears to me no crime, although it may appear to me unreasonable; and so, my doubt of the same should appear to you no moral offence, although you might account it erroneous. I fear to fatigue your attention, and will, therefore, dismiss, for the present, these abstruse subjects."

"But we shall both be amply repaid for their discussion, if this truth remain with you--that an opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offence, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction.--It is a truth; or it is an error: it can never be a crime or a virtue."--[Chapter xiv.]

Miss Wright was a poetess, as well as a politician and writer on ethics. In her "Fourth of July" address, delivered in the New Harmony Hall, in 1828, in commemoration of the American Independence, is the following:--

"Is there a thought can fill the human mind
More pure, more vast, more generous, more refined
Than that which guides the enlightened patriot's toil?
Not he whose view is bounded by his soil--
Not he whose narrow heart can only shrine
The land, the people that he calleth mine--
Not he who, to set up that land on high,
Will make whole nations bleed, whole nations die--
Not he who, calling that land's rights his pride,
Trampleth the rights of all the earth beside.
No! He it is, the just, the generous soul,
Who owneth brotherhood with either pole,
Stretches from realm to realm his spacious mind,
And guards the weal of all the human kind--
Holds freedom's banner o'er the earth unfurl'd,
And stands the guardian patriot of a world!"

J. W.

EPICURUS

Epicurean.--One who holds the principles of Epicurus--
Luxurious, contributing to luxury.

Epicurism--The principles of Epicurus--Luxury, sensual
enjoyment, gross pleasure.

The words with which this page is headed may be found in the current and established dictionaries of the present day; and it shall be our task to show that never was slander more foul, calumny more base, or libel more cowardly, than when it associated the words luxury and sensuality with the memory of the Athenian Epicurus. The much-worn anecdote of the brief endorsed "The Defendant has no case, abuse the Plaintiffs Solicitor," will well apply here. The religionists had no case, the Epicurean Philosophy was impregnable as far as theological attacks were concerned, and the theologians have, therefore, constantly and vehemently abused its founder; so that, at last, children have caught the cry as though it were the enunciation of a tact, and have grown into men believing that Epicurus was a sort of discriminating hog, who wallowed in the filth which some have miscalled pleasure.

Epicurus was born in the early part of the year 344, B. C, the third year of the 109th Olympiad, at Gargettus, in the neighborhood of Athens. His father, Neocles, was of the Ægean tribe. Some allege that Epicurus was born in the island of Samos; but, according to others, he was taken there when very young by his parents, who formed a portion of a colony of Athenian citizens, sent to colonize Samos after its subjugation by Pericles. The father and mother of Epicurus were in very humble circumstances; his father was a schoolmaster, and his mother, Chærestrata, acted as a kind of priestess, curing diseases, exorcising ghosts, and exercising other fabulous powers. Epicurus has been charged with sorcery, because he wrote several songs for his mother's solemn rites. Until eighteen, he remained at Samos and the neighboring isle of Teos; from whence he removed to Athens, where he resided until the death of Alexander, when, disturbances arising, he fled to Colophon. This place, Mitylene, and Lampsacus, formed the philosopher's residence until he was thirty-six years of age; at which time he founded a school in the neighborhood of Athens. He purchased a pleasant garden, where he taught his disciples until the time of his death.

We are told by Laertius, "That those disciples who were regularly admitted into the school of Epicurus, lived together, not in the manner of the Pythagoreans, who cast their possessions into a common stock; for this, in his opinion, implied mutual distrust rather than friendship; but upon such a footing of friendly attachment, that each individual cheerfully supplied the necessities of his brother."

The habits of the philosopher and his followers were temperate and exceedingly frugal, and formed a strong contrast to the luxurious, although refined, manners of the Athenians. At the entrance of the garden, the visitor of Epicurus found the following inscription:--"The hospitable keeper of this mansion, where you will find pleasure the highest good, will present you with barley cakes and water from the spring. These gardens will not provoke your appetite by artificial dainties, but satisfy it with natural supplies. Will you not, then, be well entertained?" And yet the owner of the garden, over the gate of which these words were placed, has been called "a glutton" and "a stomach worshipper!"

From the age of thirty-six until his decease, he does not seem to have quitted Athens, except temporarily. When Demetrius besieged Athens, the Epicureans were driven into great difficulties for want of food; and it is said that Epicurus and his friends subsisted on a small quantity of beans which he possessed, and which he shared equally with them.

The better to prosecute his studies, Epicurus lived a life of celibacy. Temperate and continent himself, he taught his followers to be so likewise, both by example and precept. He died 273 B. C, in the seventy-third year of his age; and, at that time, his warmest opponents seem to have paid the highest compliments to his personal character; and, on reading his life, and the detailed accounts of his teachings, it seems difficult to imagine what has induced the calumny which has been heaped upon his memory.

We "cannot quote from his own works, in his own words, because, although he wrote very much, only a summary of his writings has come to us uninjured; but his doctrines have been so fully investigated and treated on, both by his opponents and his disciples, that there is no difficulty or doubt as to the principles inculcated in the school of Epicurus.

"The sum of his doctrine concerning philosophy, in general, is this:--Philosophy is the exercise of reason in the pursuit and attainment of a happy life; whence it follows, that those studies which conduce neither to the acquisition nor the enjoyment of happiness are to be dismissed as of no value. The end of all speculation ought to be, to enable men to judge with certainty what is to be chosen, and what to be avoided, to preserve themselves free from pain, and to secure health of body, and tranquillity of mind. True philosophy is so useful to every man, that the young should apply to it without delay, and the old should never be weary of the pursuit; for no man is either too young or too old to correct and improve his mind, and to study the art of happiness. Happy are they who possess by nature a free and vigorous intellect, and who are born in a country where they can prosecute their inquiries without restraint: for it is philosophy alone which raises a man above vain fears and base passions, and gives him the perfect command of himself. As nothing ought to be dearer to a philosopher than truth, he should, pursue it by the most direct means, devising no actions himself, nor suffering himself to be imposed upon by the fictions of others, neither poets, orators, nor logicians, making no other use of the rules of rhetoric or grammar, than to enable him to speak or write with accuracy and perspicuity, and always preferring a plain and simple to an ornamented style. Whilst some doubt of everything, and others profess to acknowledge everything, a wise man will embrace such tenets, and only such as are built upon experience, or upon certain and indisputable axioms."

The following is a summary of his Moral Philosophy:--

"The end of living, or the ultimate good, which is to be sought for its own sake, according to the universal opinion of mankind, is happiness; yet men, for the most part, fail in the pursuit of this end, either because they do not form a right idea of the nature of happiness, or because they do not make use of proper means to attain it. Since it is every man's interest to be happy through the whole of life, it is the wisdom of every one to employ philosophy in the search of felicity without delay; and there cannot be a greater folly, than to be always beginning to live.

"The happiness which belongs to man, is that state in which he enjoys as many of the good things, and suffers as few of the evils incident to human nature as possible; passing his days in a smooth course of permanent tranquillity. A wise man, though deprived of sight or hearing, may experience happiness in the enjoyment of the good things which yet remain; and when suffering torture, or laboring under some painful disease, can mitigate the anguish by patience, and can enjoy, in bis afflictions, the consciousness of bis own constancy. But it is impossible that perfect happiness can be possessed without the pleasure which attends freedom from pain, and the enjoyment of the good things of life. Pleasure is in its nature good, as pain is in its nature evil; the one is, therefore, to be pursued, and the other to be avoided, for its own sake.--Pleasure, or pain, is not only good, or evil, in itself, but the measure of what is good or evil, in every object of desire or aversion; for the ultimate reason why we pursue one thing, and avoid another, is because we expect pleasure from the former, and apprehend pain from the latter. If we sometimes decline a present pleasure, it is not because we are averse to pleasure itself, but because we conceive, that in the present instance, it will be necessarily connected with a greater pain. In like manner, if we sometimes voluntarily submit to a present pain, it is because we judge that it is necessarily connected with a greater pleasure.--Although all pleasure is essentially good, and all pain essentially evil, it doth not thence necessarily follow, that in every single instance the one ought to be pursued, and the other to be avoided; but reason is to be employed in distinguishing and comparing the nature and degrees of each, that the result may be a wise choice of that which shall appear to be, upon the whole, good. That pleasure is the first good, appears from the inclination which every animal, from its first birth, discovers to pursue pleasure, and avoid pain; and is confirmed by the universal experience of mankind, who are incited to action by no other principle than the desire of avoiding pain, or obtaining pleasure. There are two kinds of pleasure: one consisting in a state of rest, in which both body and mind are undisturbed by any kind of pain; the other arising from an agreeable agitation of the senses, producing a correspondent emotion in the soul. It is upon the former of these that the enjoyment of life chiefly depends. Happiness may therefore be said to consist in bodily ease, and mental tranquillity, When pleasure is asserted to be the end of living, we are not then to understand that violent kind of delight or joy which arises from the gratification of the senses and passions, but merely that placid state of mind, which results from the absence of every cause of pain or uneasiness. Those pleasures, which arise from agitation, are not to be pursued as in themselves the end of living, but as means of arriving at that stable tranquillity, in which true happiness consists. It is the office of reason to confine the pursuit of pleasure within the limits of nature, in order to the attainment of that happy state, in which the body is free from every kind of pain, and the mind from all perturbation. This state must not, however, be conceived to be perfect in proportion as it is inactive and torpid, but in proportion as all the functions of life are quietly and pleasantly performed. A happy life neither resembles a rapid torrent, nor a standing pool, but is like a gentle stream, that glides smoothly and silently along.