Chapter III: Part 3

_Amb_.--You have mistaken me, Onuphrio, if you think I am shocked by your opinions; I have seen too much of the wanderings of human reason ever to be surprised by them, and the views you have adopted are not uncommon amongst young men of very superior talents, who have only slightly examined the evidences of revealed religion. But I am glad to find that you have not adopted the code of infidelity of many of the French revolutionists and of an English school of sceptics, who find in the ancient astronomy all the germs of the worship of the Hebrews, who identify the labours of Hercules with those of the Jewish heroes, and who find the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah in the history of the solar day. You, at least, allow the existence of a peculiar religious instinct, or, as you are pleased to call it, superstition, belonging to the human mind, and I have hopes that upon this foundation you will ultimately build up a system of faith not unworthy a philosopher and a Christian. Man, with whatever religious instincts he was created, was intended to communicate with the visible universe by sensations and act upon it by his organs, and in the earliest state of society he was more particularly influenced by his gross senses. Allowing the existence of a supreme Intelligence and His beneficent intentions towards man, the ideas of His presence which He might think fit to impress upon the mind, either for the purpose of veneration, or of love, of hope or fear, must have been in harmony with the general train of His sensations--I am not sure that I make myself intelligible. The same infinite power which in an instant could create a universe, could of course so modify the ideas of an intellectual being as to give them that form and character most fitted for his existence; and I suppose in the early state of created man he imagined that he enjoyed the actual presence of the Divinity and heard His voice. I take this to be the first and simplest result of religious instinct. In early times amongst the patriarchs I suppose these ideas were so vivid as to be confounded with impressions; but as religious instinct probably became feebler in their posterity, the vividness of the impressions diminished, and they then became visions or dreams, which with the prophets seem to have constituted inspiration. I do not suppose that the Supreme Being ever made Himself known to man by a real change in the order of Nature, but that the sensations of men were so modified by their instincts as to induce the belief in His presence. That there was a divine intelligence continually acting upon the race of Seth as his chosen people, is, I think, clearly proved by the events of their history, and also that the early opinions of a small tribe in Judaea were designed for the foundation of the religion of the most active and civilised and powerful nations of the world, and that after a lapse of three thousand years. The manner in which Christianity spread over the world with a few obscure mechanics or fishermen for its promulgators; the mode in which it triumphed over paganism even when professed and supported by the power and philosophy of a Julian; the martyrs who subscribed to the truth of Christianity by shedding their blood for the faith; the exalted nature of those intellectual men by whom it has been professed who had examined all the depths of nature and exercised the profoundest faculties of thought, such as Newton, Locke, and Hartley, all appear to me strong arguments in favour of revealed religion. I prefer rather founding my creed upon the fitness of its doctrines than upon historical evidences or the nature of its miracles. The Divine Intelligence chooses that men should be convinced according to the ordinary train of their sensations, and on all occasions it appears to me more natural that a change should take place in the human mind than in the order of nature. The popular opinion of the people of Judaea was that certain diseases were occasioned by devils taking possession of a human being; the disease was cured by our Saviour, and this in the Gospel is expressed by his casting out devils. But without entering into explanations respecting the historical miracles belonging to Christianity, it is sufficient to say that its truth is attested by a constantly existing miracle, the present state of the Jews, which was predicted by Jesus; their temple and city were destroyed, and all attempts made to rebuild it have been vain, and they remain the despised and outcasts of the world.

_Onu_.--But you have not answered my objections with respect to the cruelties exercised by the Jews under the command of Jehovah, which appear to me in opposition to all our views of divine justice.

_Amb_.--I think even Philalethes will allow that physical and moral diseases are hereditary, and that to destroy a pernicious unbelief or demoniacal worship it was necessary to destroy the whole race root and branch. As an example, I will imagine a certain contagions disease which is transmitted by parents to children, and which, like the plague, is communicated to sound persons by contact; to destroy a family of men who would spread this disease over the whole earth would unquestionably be a mercy. Besides, I believe in the immortality of the sentient principle in man; destruction of life is only a change of existence, and supposing the new existence a superior one it is a gain. To the Supreme Intelligence the death of a million of human beings is the mere circumstance of so many spiritual essences changing their habitations, and is analogous to the myriad millions of larvae that leave their coats and shells behind them and rise into the atmosphere, as flies in a summer day. When man measures the works of the Divine Mind by his own feeble combinations, he must wander in gross error; the infinite can never be understood by the finite.

_Onu_.--As far as I can comprehend your reasoning, the priests of Juggernaut might make the same defence for their idol, and find in such views a fair apology for the destruction of thousands of voluntary victims crushed to pieces by the feet of the sacred elephant.

_Amb_.--Undoubtedly they might, and I should allow the justness of their defence if I saw in their religion any germs of a divine institution fitted to become, like the religion of Jehovah, the faith of the whole civilised world, embracing the most perfect form of theism and the most refined and exalted morality. I consider the early acts of the Jewish nation as the lowest and rudest steps of a temple raised by the Supreme Being to contain the altar of sacrifice to His glory. In the early periods of society rude and uncultivated men could only be acted upon by gross and temporal rewards and punishments; severe rites and heavy discipline were required to keep the mind in order, and the punishment of the idolatrous nation served as an example for the Jews. When Christianity took the place of Judaism the ideas of the Supreme Being became more pure and abstracted, and the visible attributes of Jehovah and His angels appear to have been less frequently presented to the mind; yet even for many ages it seemed as if the grossness of our material senses required some assistance from the eye in fixing or perpetuating the character of religious instinct, and the Church to which I belong, and I may say the whole Christian Church in early times, allowed visible images, pictures, statues, and relics as the means of awakening the stronger devotional feelings. We have been accused of worshipping merely inanimate objects, but this is a very false notion of the nature of our faith; we regard them merely as vivid characters representing spiritual existences and we no more worship them than the Protestant does his Bible when he kisses it under a solemn religious adjuration. The past, the present, and the future being the same to the infinite and divine Intelligence, and man being created in love for the purposes of happiness, the moral and religious discipline to which he was submitted was in strict conformity to his progressive faculties and to the primary laws of his nature. It is but a rude analogy, yet it is the only one I can find, that of comparing the Supreme Being to a wise and good father who, to secure the well-being of his offspring, is obliged to adopt a system of rewards and punishments in which the senses at first and afterwards the imagination and reason are concerned; he terrifies them by the example of others, awakens their love of glory by pointing out the distinction and the happiness gained by superior men by adopting a particular line of conduct; he uses at first the rod, and gradually substitutes for it the fear of immediate shame; and having awakened the fear of shame and the love of praise or honour with respect to temporary and immediate actions he extends them to the conduct of the whole of life, and makes what was a momentary feeling a permanent and immutable principle. And obedience in the child to the will of such a parent may be compared to faith in and obedience to the will of the Supreme Being; and a wayward and disobedient child who reasons upon and doubts the utility of the discipline of such a father is much in the same state in which the adult man is who doubts if there be good in the decrees of Providence and who questions the harmony of the plan of the moral universe.

_Onu_.--Allowing the perfection of your moral scheme of religion and its fitness for the nature of man, I find it impossible to believe the primary doctrines on which this scheme is founded. You make the Divine Mind, the creator of infinite worlds, enter into the form of a man born of a virgin, you make the eternal and immortal God the victim of shameful punishment and suffering death on the cross, recovering His life after three days, and carrying His maimed and lacerated body into the heaven of heavens.

_Amb_.--You, like all other sceptics, make your own interpretations of the Scriptures and set up a standard for divine power in human reason. The infinite and eternal mind, as I said before, fits the doctrines of religion to the minds by which they are to be embraced. I see no improbability in the idea that an integrant part of His essence may have animated a human form; there can be no doubt that this belief has existed in the human mind, and the belief constitutes the vital part of the religion. We know nothing of the generation of the human being in the ordinary course of nature; how absurd then to attempt to reason upon the acts of the Divine Mind! nor is there more difficulty in imagining the event of a divine conception than of a divine creation. To God the infinite, little and great, as measured by human powers, are equal; a creature of this earth, however humble and insignificant, may have the same weight with millions of superior beings inhabiting higher systems. But I consider all the miraculous parts of our religion as effected by changes in the sensations or ideas of the human mind, and not by physical changes in the order of nature; a man who has to repair a piece of machinery, as a clock, must take it to pieces, and, in fact, re-make it, but to infinite wisdom and power a change in the intellectual state of the human being may be the result of a momentary will, and the mere act of faith may produce the change. How great the powers of imagination are, even in ordinary life, is shown by many striking facts, and nothing seems impossible to this imagination when acted upon by divine influence. To attempt to answer all the objections which may be derived from the want of conformity in the doctrines of Christianity to the usual order of events would be an interminable labour. My first principle is, that religion has nothing to do with the common order of events; it is a pure and divine instinct intended to give results to man which he cannot obtain by the common use of his reason, and which at first view often appear contradictory to it, but which when examined by the most refined tests, and considered in the most extensive and profound relations, are, in fact, in conformity with the most exalted intellectual knowledge, so that, indeed, the results of pure reason ultimately become the same with those of faith--the tree of knowledge is grafted upon the tree of life, and that fruit which brought the fear of death into the world, budding on an immortal stock, becomes the fruit of the promise of immortality.

_Onu_.--You derive Christianity from Judaism; I cannot see their connection, and it appears to me that the religion of Mahomet is more naturally a scion from the stock of Moses. Christ was a Jew, and was circumcised; this rite was continued by Mahomet, and is to this day adopted by his disciples, though rejected by the Christians; and the doctrines of Mahomet appear to me to have a higher claim to divine origin than those of Jesus; his morality is as pure, his theism purer, and his system of rewards and punishments after death as much in conformity with our ideas of eternal justice.

_Amb_.--I will willingly make the decision of the general question dependent upon the decision of this particular one. No attempts have been made by the Mahometans to find any predictions respecting their founder in the Old Testament, and they have never pretended even that he was the Messiah; therefore, as far as prophecy is concerned, there is no ground for admitting the truth of the religion of Mahomet. It has been the fashion with a particular sect of infidels to praise the morality of the Mahometans, but I think unjustly; they are said to be honest in their dealings and charitable to those of their own persuasion; but they allow polygamy and a plurality of women, and are despisers and persecutors of the nations professing a different faith. And what a contrast does this morality present to that of the Gospel which inculcates charity to all mankind, and orders benevolent actions to be performed even to enemies! and the purity and simplicity of the infant is held up by Christ as the model of imitation for His followers. Then, in the rewards and punishments of the future state of the Mahometans, how gross are all the ideas, how unlike the promises of a divine and spiritual being; their paradise is a mere earthly garden of sensual pleasure, and their Houris represent the ladies of their own harems rather than glorified angelic natures. How different is the Christian heaven, how sublime in its idea, indefinite, yet well suited to a being of intellectual and progressive faculties; "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the joys that He hath prepared for those who love Him."

_Onu_.--I confess your answer to my last argument is a triumphant one; but I cannot allow a question of such extent and of such a variety of bearings to be decided by so slight an advantage as that which you have gained by this answer. I will now offer another difficulty to you. The law of the Jews, you will allow, was established by God Himself and delivered to Moses from the seat of His glory amongst storms, thunder, and lightnings, on Mount Sinai; why should this law, if pure and divine, have been overturned by the same Being who established it? And all the ceremonies of the Hebrews have been abolished by the first Christians.

_Amb_.--I deny that the divine law of Moses was abolished by Christ, who Himself says, "I came to confirm the law, not to destroy it." And the Ten Commandments form the vital parts of the foundation of the creed of the true Christian. It appears that the religion of Christ was the same pure theism with that of the patriarchs; and the rites and ceremonies established by Moses seem to have been only adjuncts to the spiritual religion intended to suit a particular climate and a particular state of the Jewish nation, rather a dress or clothing of the religion than forming a constituent part of it, a system of discipline of life and manners rather than an essential part of doctrine. The rites of circumcision and ablution were necessary to the health and perhaps even to the existence of a people living on the hottest part of the shores of the Mediterranean. And in the sacrifices made of the first fruits and of the chosen of the flock, we may see a design not merely connected with the religious faith of the people but even with their political economy. To offer their choicest and best property as a proof of their gratitude to the Supreme Being was a kind of test of devotedness and obedience to the theocracy; and these sacrifices by obliging them to raise more produce and provide more cattle than were essential to their ordinary support, preserved them from the danger of famine, as in case of a dearth it was easy for the priests under the divine permission to apply those offerings to the necessities of the people. All the pure parts of the faith which had descended from Abraham to David were preserved by Jesus Christ; but the ceremonial religion was fitted only for a particular nation and a particular country; Christianity, on the contrary, was to be the religion of the world and of a civilised and improving world. And it appears to me to be an additional proof of its divine nature and origin, that it is exactly in conformity to the principles of the improvement and perfection of the human mind. When given to a particular race fixed in a peculiar climate, its objects were sensible, its discipline was severe, and its rites and ceremonies numerous and imposing, fitted to act upon weak, ignorant, and consequently obstinate men. In its gradual development it threw off its local character and its particular forms, and adopted ceremonies more fitted for mankind in general; and in its ultimate views, it preserves only pure, spiritual, and I may say philosophical doctrines, the unity of the divine nature and a future state, embracing a system of rewards and punishments suited to an accountable and immortal being.

_Phil_.--I have been attentively listening to your discussion. The views which Ambrosio has taken of Christianity certainly throw a light over it perfectly new to me; and, I must say in candour, that I am disposed to adopt his notion of the early state of society rather than that of my Genius. I have always been accustomed to consider religious feeling as instinctive; but Ambrosio's arguments have given me something approaching to a definite faith for an obscure and indefinite notion. I am willing to allow that man was created, not a savage, as he is represented in my vision, but perfect in his faculties and with a variety of instinctive powers and knowledge; that he transmitted these powers and knowledge to his offspring; but that by an improper use of reason in disobedience to the divine will, the instinctive faculties of most of his descendants became deteriorated and at last lost, but that these faculties were preserved in the race of Abraham and David, and the full power again bestowed upon or recovered by Christ. I am ready to allow the importance of religion in cultivating and improving the world; and Ambrosio's view appears to me capable of being referred to a general law of our nature; and revelation may be regarded not as a partial interference but as a constant principle belonging to the mind of man, and the belief in supernatural forms and agency, the results of prophecies and the miracles, as one only of the necessary consequences of it. Man, as a reasoning animal, must always have doubted of his immortality and plan of conduct; in all the results of faith, there is immediate submission to a divine will, which we are sure is good. We may compare the destiny of man in this respect to that of a migratory bird; if a slow flying bird, as a landrail in the Orkneys in autumn, had reason and could use it as to the probability of his finding his way over deserts, across seas, and of securing his food in passing to a warm climate 3,000 miles off, he would undoubtedly starve in Europe; under the direction of his instinct he securely arrives there in good condition. I have allowed the force of your objections to that part of my vision relating to the origin of society, but I hope you will admit that the conclusion of it is not inconsistent with the ideas derived from revelation respecting the future state of the human being.

_Amb_.--Revelation has not disclosed to us the nature of this state, but only fixed its certainty. We are sure from geological facts, as well as from sacred history, that man is a recent animal on the globe, and that this globe has undergone one considerable revolution, since the creation, by water; and we are taught that it is to undergo another, by fire, preparatory to a new and glorified state of existence of man; but this is all we are permitted to know, and as this state is to be entirely different from the present one of misery and probation, any knowledge respecting it would be useless and indeed almost impossible.

_Phil_.--My Genius has placed the more exalted spiritual natures in cometary worlds, and this last fiery revolution may be produced by the appulse of a comet.

_Amb_.--Human fancy may imagine a thousand manners in which it may be produced, but upon such notions it is absurd to dwell. I will not allow your Genius the slightest approach to inspiration, and I can admit no verisimility in a reverie which is fixed on a foundation you now allow to be so weak. But see, the twilight is beginning to appear in the orient sky, and there are some dark clouds on the horizon opposite to the crater of Vesuvius, the lower edges of which transmit a bright light, showing the sun is already risen in the country beneath them. I would say that they may serve as an image of the hopes of immortality derived from revelation; for we are sure from the light reflected in those clouds that the lands below us are in the brightest sunshine, but we are entirely ignorant of the surface and the scenery; so, by revelation, the light of an imperishable and glorious world is disclosed to us; but it is in eternity, and its objects cannot be seen by mortal eye or imaged by mortal imagination.

_Phil_.--I am not so well read in the Scriptures as I hope I shall be at no very distant time; but I believe the pleasures of heaven are mentioned more distinctly than you allow in the sacred writings. I think I remember that the saints are said to be crowned with palms and amaranths, and that they are described as perpetually hymning and praising God.

_Amb_.--This is evidently only metaphorical; music is the sensual pleasure which approaches nearest to an intellectual one, and probably may represent the delight resulting from the perception of the harmony of things and of truth seen in God. The palm as an evergreen tree and the amaranth a perdurable flower are emblems of immortality. If I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blest, I should image it by the orange grove in that sheltered glen, on which the sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the trees are at the same time loaded with sweet golden fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such objects may well portray a state in which hope and fruition become one eternal feeling.

_Onu_.--This glorious sunrise seems to have made you both poetical. Though with the darkest and most gloomy mind of the party I cannot help feeling its influence, I cannot help believing with you that the night of death will be succeeded by a bright morning; but, as in the scene below us, the objects are nearly the same as they were last evening, with more of brightness and brilliancy, with a fairer prospect in the east and more mist in the west, so I cannot help believing that our new state of existence must bear an analogy to the present one, and that the order of events will not be entirely different.

_Amb_.--Your view is not an unnatural one; but I am rejoiced to find some symptoms of a change in your opinions.

_Onu_.--I wish with all my heart they were stronger; I begin to feel my reason a weight and my scepticism a very heavy load. Your discussions have made me a Philo-Christian, but I cannot understand nor embrace all the views you have developed, though I really wish to do so.

_Amb_.--Your wish, if sincere, I doubt not will be gratified. Fix your powerful mind upon the harmony of the moral world, as you have been long accustomed to do upon the order of the physical universe, and you will see the scheme of the eternal intelligence developing itself alike in both. Think of the goodness and mercy of omnipotence, and aid your contemplation by devotional feelings and mental prayer and aspirations to the source of all knowledge, and wait with humility for the light which I doubt not will be so produced in your mind.

_Onu_.--You again perplex me; I cannot believe that the adorations or offerings of so feeble a creature can influence the decrees of omnipotence.

_Amb_.--You mistake me: as to their influencing or affecting the supreme mind it is out of the question, but they affect your own mind, they perpetuate a habit of gratitude and of obedience which may gradually end in perfect faith, they discipline the affections and keep the heart in a state of preparation to receive and preserve all good and pious feelings. Whoever passes from utter darkness into bright sunshine finds that he cannot at first distinguish objects better in one than in the other, but in a feeble light he acquires gradually the power of bearing a brighter one, and gains at last the habit not only of supporting it, but of receiving delight as well as instruction from it. In the pious contemplations that I recommend to you there is the twilight or sober dawn of faith which will ultimately enable you to support the brightness of its meridian sun.

_Onu_.--I understand you, but your metaphor is more poetical than just; your discipline, however, I have no doubt, is better fitted to enable me to bear the light than to contemplate it through the smoked or coloured glasses of scepticism.

_Amb_.--Yes, for they not only diminish its brightness but alter its nature.

DIALOGUE THE THIRD. THE UNKNOWN.

The same persons accompanied me in many journeys by land and water to different parts of the Phlegraean fields, and we enjoyed in a most delightful season, the beginning of May, the beauties of the glorious country which encloses the Bay of Naples, so rich, so ornamented with the gifts of nature, so interesting from the monuments it contains and the recollections it awakens. One excursion, the last we made in southern Italy, the most important both from the extraordinary personage with whom it made me acquainted and his influence upon my future life, merits a particular detail which I shall now deliver to paper.