Chapter II: Part 2

'The sentiment,' says the Doctor, 'that a being exists which never commenced existence, or what is the same thing, that a being exists which has existed from all eternity, appears to us to favour Atheism, for if one Being exist which never commenced existence--why not another--why not the universe? It weighs nothing, says the Atheist, in the eye of reason, to say the universe appears to man as though it were organised by an Almighty Designer, for the maker of a thing must be superior to the thing made; and if there be a maker of the universe there can be no doubt, but that if such maker were minutely examined by man, man would discover such indications of wisdom and design that it would be more difficult for him to admit that such maker was not caused or constructed by a pre-existing Designer, than to admit that the universe was not caused or constructed by a Designer. But no one will contend for an infinite series of Makers; and if, continues the Atheist, what would, if viewed, be indications of design, are no proofs of a designer in the one case, they are not in the other; and as such indications are the only evidence we have of the existence of a Designer of the universe, we, as rational beings, contend there is no God. We do not suppose the existence of any being, of which there is no evidence, when such supposition, it admitted, so far from diminishing would only increase a difficulty, which, at best, is sufficiently great. Surely, if a superior being may have existed from all eternity, an inferior may have existed from all eternity; if a great God sufficiently mighty to make a world may have existed from all eternity, of course without beginning and without cause, such world may have existed from all eternity, without beginning, and without cause.' [23:1]

These are 'strong reasons' for Universalism. They prove that Theists set at nought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the greater of two difficulties. Their system compels them to do so; for having no other groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was when there was no time--something existed when there was nothing, which something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly regarding rules of philosophising which have only their reasonableness to recommend them. They profess ability to account for Nature, and are of course exceeding eager to justify a profession so presumptuous. This eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on rejecting whatever is either opposed to, or unsanctioned by, experience, can possibly approve. It is plain that of the God they tell us to believe 'created the worlds,' no man has any experience. This granted, it follows that worship of such fancied Being is mere superstition. Until it be shown by reference to the general course of things, that things had an author, Himself uncreated or unauthorized, religious philosophers have no right to expect Universalists to abandon their Universalism. The duty of priests is to reconcile religion with reason, _if they can_, and admit their inability to do so, _if they cannot_.

Romanists will have nothing to do with reason whenever it appears at issue with their faith. All sects, as sects, play fast and loose with reason. Many members of all sects are forward enough to boast about being able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an overwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. Philosophy they call 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as to openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically false; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of philosophy have nothing in common. According to them, religious truths are independent of, and superior to, all other truths. Our faith, say they, if not agreeable to _mere_ reason is infinitely superior to it. Priests are 'at one' on the point. Dissenting and Protestant, as well as Romanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith. As priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is a stern and upright judge whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable to superstition. Its professors, who appeal to that judge, play a part most inconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of Origen Bachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real and only question between Atheism and Theism a question of fact; reducing it to these terms--'Is there reason, all things considered, for believing that there is a God, an intelligent cause of things, infinite and perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities?' [24:1]

Now, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of things' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the one difficulty involved in the hypothesis that things always existed. He has seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of supernatural mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of philosophising, the justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute. Having clearly perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too bad' as well as absurd, to call Universalists 'madmen' for lacking faith in the monstrous dogma that Nature was caused by 'something amounting to nothing' itself uncaused.

There is something. That truth admits not of being evidenced. It is, nevertheless, accepted. It is accepted by men of all religious opinions, equally with men of no religious opinions. If any truth be self-evident and eternal, here is that truth. To call it in question would be worse than idle. We may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be sceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt that there is something. The proposition falls not within the domain of scepticism. It must be true. To suppose it false is literally impossible. Its falsehood would involve contradiction, and all contradiction involves Impossibility. But, if proof of this were needed, we have it in the fact that no man, sage or simple, ever pretended to deny there is something. Whatever men could doubt or deny they have doubted or denied, but in no country of the world, in no age, has the dogma--there is something--been denied or even treated as doubtful. Here then Universalists, Theists, and Polytheists agree. They agree of necessity. There is no escape from the conclusion that something is, except we adopt the unintelligible dogma--there is nothing--which no human being can, as nothing amounts to nothing, and of what amounts to nothing no one can have an idea. To define the word something by any other word would be labour in vain. There is no other word in any language whoso meaning is better understood, and they who do not understand what it means, if such persons there be, are not likely to understand the meaning of any word or words whatever. Ideas of nothing none have. That there is something, we repeat, must be true, all dogmas or propositions being necessarily true whose denial involves an impossibility. What the nature of that something may be is a secondary question, and however determined cannot affect the primary dogma--things are things whatever may be their individual or their aggregate nature. Nor is it of the least consequence what name or names we may see fit to give things, so that each word has its fixed and true meaning. Whether, for example, we use for the sign of that something which is, the word Universe, or God, or Substance, or Spirit, or Matter, or the letter X, is of no importance, if we understand the word or letter used to be merely the sign of that something. Words are seldom useful except when they are the sign of true ideas; evidently therefore, their legitimate function is to convey such ideas; and words which convey no ideas at all, or what is worse, only those which are false, should at once be expunged from the vocabularies of nations. Something is. The Universalist calls it matter. Other persons may choose to call it other names: let them. He chooses to call it this one--and no other.

There ever has been something. Here, again, is a point of unity. All are equally assured there ever has been something. Something is, something must always have been, cry the religious, and the cry is echoed by the irreligious. This last dogma, like the first, admits not of being evidenced. As nothing is inconceivable, we cannot even imagine a time when there was nothing. Universalists say, something ever was, which something is matter. Theists say, something has been from all eternity, which something is not matter but God. They boldly affirm that matter began to be. They affirm its creation from nothing, by a something, which was before the universe. Indeed, the notion of universal creation involves first, that of universal annihilation, and secondly, that of something prior to everything. What creates everything must be before everything, in the same way that he who manufactures a watch must exist before the watch. As already remarked, Universalists agree with Theists, that something ever has been, but the point of difference lies here. The Universalist says, matter is the eternal something, and asks proof of its beginning to be. The Theist insists that matter is not the eternal something, but that God is; and when pushed for an account of what he means by God, he coolly answers, a Being, having nothing in common with anything, who nevertheless, by his Almighty will, created everything. It may without injustice be affirmed, that the sincerest and strongest believers in this mysterious Deity are often tormented by doubts, and, if candid, must own they believe in the existence of many things with a feeling much closer allied to certainty than they do in the reality of their 'Great First Cause, least understood.' No man's faith in the inconceivable is ever half so strong as his belief in the visible and tangible.

But few among professional mystifiers will admit this, obviously true as it is. Some have done so. Baxter, of pious memory, to wit, who said, _I am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty be greater than it is, because it is dishonour to be less certain; nor will I by shame be kept from confessing those infirmities which those have as much as I, who hypocritically reproach with them._ MY CERTAINTY THAT I AM A MAN IS BEFORE MY CERTAINTY THAT THERE IS A GOD.

So candid was Richard Baxter, and so candid are _not_ the most part of our priests, who would fain have us think them altogether _un_sceptical. Nevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'God is,' though they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually are, and that to disbelieve we are is a 'deadly sin.'

Could God be known, could his existence be made 'palpable to feeling as to sight,' as unquestionably is the existence of matter, there would be no need of 'Demonstrations of the existence of God', no need of arguments _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ to establish that existence. Saint John was right; 'No man hath seen God at any time', to which 'open confession' he might truly have added, 'none ever will,' for the unreal is alway unseeable. Yet have 'mystery men' with shameless and most insolent pertinacity asserted the existence of God while denying the existence of matter.

_The incomprehensible is not to be defined._ It is difficult to give _intelligible_ account of an Immense Being confessedly mysterious and about whom his worshippers admit they only know, they know nothing, except that

'He is good,
And that themselves are blind.'

Spinoza said, _of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the cause of the other_; and to me it seems eminently unphilosophic to believe a Being having nothing in common with anything, capable of creating or causing everything. 'Only matter can be touched or touch;' and as the Christian's God is not material, his adorers are fairly open to the charge of superstition. An unknown Deity, without body, parts or passions, is of all idols the least tangible; and they who pretend to know and reverence him, are deceived or deceivers.

In this Christian country, where men are expected to believe and called 'Infidel' if they _cannot_ believe in a 'crucified Saviour,' it seems strange so much fuss should be made about his immateriality. All but Unitarian Christians hold as an essential article of faith, that in him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily; in other words, that our Redeemer and our Creator, though two persons, are but one God. It is true that Divines of our 'Reformed Protestant Church,' call everything but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting periodically upon the body and blood of Omnipotence. The pains taken by Protestants to show from Scripture, Reason and Nature, that Priests cannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the blood, of their God, are well known and appreciated. But the Roman Catholics are neither to be argued nor laughed out of their 'awful doctrine' of the real presence, to which they cling with desperate earnestness.

Locke wrote rather disparagingly of 'many among us,' who will be found upon Inquiry, to fancy God in the shape of a man fitting in heaven, and have other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' As though it were possible to think of shapeless Being, or as though it were criminal in the superstitious to believe 'God made man after his own image.'

That Christians as well as Turks 'really have had whole sects earnestly contending that the Deity was corporeal and of human shape', is a fact, so firmly established as to defy contradiction. And though every sincere subscriber to the Thirty Nine Articles must believe, or at least must believe he believes in Deity without body, parts, or passions, it is well known that 'whole sects' of Christians do even now 'fancy God in the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.'

Mr. Collibeer, who is considered by Christian writers 'a most ingenious gentleman', has told the world in his Treatise entitled 'The Knowledge of God,' that Deity must have some form, and intimates it may probably be the spherical; an intimation which has grievously offended many learned Theists who considered going so far an abuse of reason, and warn us that 'its extension beyond the assigned boundaries, has proved an ample source of error.' But what the 'assigned boundaries' of reason are, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' That if there is a God he must have _some_ form is self-evident and why Mr. Collibeer should be ostracized by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for preferring a spherical to a square or otherwise shaped Deity, is to my understanding what God's grace is to their's.

But admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the 'inconceiveable' would be an improvement upon them. Undoubtedly, the matter-God-system has its difficulties, but they are trifles in comparison with those by which the spirit-God system is encompassed; for, one obvious consequence of faith in bodiless Divinity is an utter confusion of ideas in those who preach it, as regards possibilities and impossibilities.

The universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something before it. By universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence all proceeds, and whither all returns. No truth is more obviously true than the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself, and consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects.

From such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is no rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much we may struggle to believe there was a time when there was nothing, we cannot so believe. Human nature is constituted intuitively or instinctively to feel the eternity of something. To rid oneself of that feeling is impossible. Nature or something not Nature must ever have been, is a conclusion to which what poets call Fate--

Leads the willing and drags the unwilling.

But does this undeniable truth make against Universalism? Far from it--so far, indeed, as to make for it. The reason is no mystery. Of matter we have ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas of something not matter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or indifferent. The Universe is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it as acts upon us is perfectly conceivable, whereas, any thing within, without, or apart from the Universe, is perfectly inconceivably.

The notion of necessarily existing matter seems fatal to belief in God; that is, if by the word God be understood something not matter, for 'tis precisely because priests were unable to reconcile such belief with the idea of matter's self-existence or eternity, that they took to imagining a 'First cause.'

In the 'forlorn hope' of vanquishing the difficulty of necessarily existing _Matter_, they assent to a necessarily existing _Spirit_, and when the nature of spirit is demanded from these assertors of its existence, they are constrained to avow that it is material or nothing.

Yes, they are constrained to make directly or indirectly one or other of these admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood, there is no middle passage; so between something and nothing, there is no intermediate existence. Hence the serious dilemma of Spiritualists, who gravely tell us their God is a spirit, and that a spirit is not any thing, which not any thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot distinguish between them) 'framed the worlds' nay, _created_ as well as framed them.

If it be granted, for the mere purpose of explanation, that spirit is an entity, we can frame 'clear distinct ideas of'--a real though not material existence, surely no man will pretend to say an uncreated Spirit, is less inexplicable than uncreated Matter. All could not have been caused or created unless nothing can be a Cause, the very notion of which involves the grossest of absurdities.

_Whatever is produced, without any cause, is produced by nothing; or, in other words, has nothing for its cause. But nothing never can be a cause no more than it can be something or equal to two right angles. By the same intuition that we perceive nothing not to be equal to two right angles, or not to be something, we perceive that it can never be a cause, and consequently must perceive that every object has a real cause of its existence. When we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence, and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions except to prove the absurdity of that exclusion. If everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes, we must accept of the object itself or nothing as causes. But it is the very point in question whether everything must have a cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning ought not to be taken for granted_. [29:1]

This reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical demonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages has been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. It demonstrates that something never was, never can be, caused by nothing, which can no more be a cause, properly so called, than it can be something, or equal to two right angles; and therefore that everything could not have had a cause, which, the reader has seen, is the very point assumed by Theists--the very point on which as a pivot they so merrily and successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories and immaterial systems.

The universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must have been First Cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist of itself. Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! How, in consistency, can they declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft repeated dogma that God is uncaused. If God never commenced to be, _He_ is an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. [29:2] The difference on this point between Theists and Universalists is very palpable. The former say, Spirit can exist without a cause, the latter say Matter can exist without a cause. Whole libraries of theologic dogma would be dearly purchased by Hume's profound remark--_if everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes._

Saint Augustine, more candid than modern theologians, said 'God is a being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe and who is superior to all definitions.' Universalists, on the other hand, as candidly deny there is any such being. To them it seems that the name God stands for nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and error. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it the name without senseless faith in which there could be no superstition.

If Nature is all, and all is Nature, nothing but itself could ever have existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have been capable of causing. To cause is to act, and though body without notion is conceivable, action without body is not. Neither can two Infinites be supposed to tenant one Universe. Only 'most religious philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite God co-existent with an infinite Universe.

Universalists are frequently asked--What moves matter? to which question _nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. Matter moves matter. If asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' They tell us mind moves matter; but none save the _third sighted_ among them ever saw mind, and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter pushed about by it. They babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. Ask these broad-day dreamers where mind is _minus_ body? and very cutely they answer, body is the mind, and mind is the body.

That this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to No. 25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor, [30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'As to the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? We answer, magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so, body is the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked, 'Where is mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the mind and the mind is the body. Both these answers are true, or both are false; and it must be allowed--

Each lends to each a borrowed charm,
Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

Ask the 'Shepherd' where is mind without the body? and, if not at issue with himself, he _must_ reply, mind is the man and man is the mind.

If this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism--how, in Reason's name, can they be different, or how can the 'Shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them; yet he does so. He writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really believed there is such a part. Not satisfied, it would seem, with body, like Nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with Soul or Spirit, or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own showing, is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter performing vital functions. Idle declamation against 'facts mongers' well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of 'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement, that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism.

But we deny that magnetism is the magnet. These words magnetism and magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one and only thing called matter. The magnet is an existence, _i.e._, that which moves. Magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you please, phenomena. It is the effect of which magnetic body is the immediate and obvious cause.

To evade the charge of Materialism, said Dr. Engledue, we (Phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes use of the material to show forth its powers. What is the result of this? We have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of Materialism. We have two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded to, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary connection with it--producing material changes, yet immaterial--destitute of any of the known properties of matter--in fact an _immaterial something_ which in one word means _nothing_, producing all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised-not susceptible of proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism fetters and ties down physiological investigation--that man's intellect is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation--that we have no evidence of the existence of an _essence_, and that organised mutter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous manifestations of human and brute cerebration.

We rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine ourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its changes--and its aberrations from normal structure. [31:1]

The eccentric Count de Caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by some near relation and a pious Bishop, who hoped that under such trying circumstance he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual' blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with contempt. After a long pause he broke silence by saying, _'Ah, my friends, I see you are anxious about my soul;'_ whereupon they pricked up their ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made the Count added, _'but the fact is I have not got one, and really my good friends you must allow me to know best.'_

If people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_ Count, the fooleries of Spiritualism would at once give place to the philosophy of Materialism, and none would waste time in talking or writing about non-entities. All would know that what theologians call sometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary existence. All would know that the terms _immaterial something_ do in very truth mean _nothing_. Count de Caylus died as became a man convinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of our 'earthly tabernacle', the particles composing it cease to perform vital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of Eternal Being. Pietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim monster;' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable consequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of superstition. Count de Caylus was a Materialist, and no Materialist can consistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what superstitionists have every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.' Believers in the reality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper' Materialists. Obviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of God can be _bona fide_ Materialists; for 'God' is a name signifying something or nothing; in other terms matter or that which is not matter. If the latter, to Materialists the name is meaningless--sound without sense. If the former, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because it expresses nothing that their word MATTER does not express better.

Dr. Young held in horror the Materialist's 'universe of dust.' But there is nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be dust. A _dusty_ universe, however, _shocked_ the poetic Doctor, whose writings analogise with--

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

A universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and he accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining one, and called its builder 'God.'

The somewhat ungentle 'Shepherd' cordially sympathises with Dr. Young in his detestation of the Materialist's universe of dust, and is sorely puzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance of 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed anything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move something. Verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening counsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates so soundly.

The names of Newton and Clarke are held in great esteem by all who are familiar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. As a man of science, there is no individual, ancient, or modern, who would not suffer by comparison with Sir Isaac Newton; while common consent has assigned to Dr. Samuel Clarke the first place among religious metaphysicians. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to cite any other Theists of better approved reputation than these two, and therefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as they ranked among the most philosophic of Theists, it might be expected that their conceptions of Deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and definite.--Let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those conceptions were.

Newton conceived God to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere, not only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his substance.--Again, 'All things are contained in him and move in him, but without reciprocal action' (_sed sine muta passione_) God feels nothing from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any resistance from his universal presence. [33:1]

Pause, reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of Deity is either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--God is _one_. Very good--but one _what?_ From the information, 'He is the same for ever and everywhere,' we conclude that Newton thought him a Being. Here, however, matter stops the way; for the idea of Being is in all of us inseparably associated with the idea of substance. When told that God is an 'Immense Being,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think of such a Being; but in vain. Reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the moment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet marvellous to relate, Newton did distinctly declare his Deity 'totally destitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why He cannot be either seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why he ought not to be adored under any corporeal figure!

The proper function of 'Supernaturality or Wonder,' according to Phrenologists, is to create belief in the reality of supernatural beings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. Most likely then, such readers of this book as have that organ 'large' will be delighted with Newton's rhodomontade about a God who resists nothing, feels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only contains all things, but permits them to move in His motionless and 'universal presence;' for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the lips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book.

By the same great _savan_ we are taught that God governs all, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord and sovereign of all things: that it is in consequence of His sovereignty He is called the Lord God, the Universal Emperor--that the word God is relative, and relates itself with slaves--and that the Deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of God, not over his own body, as those think who look upon God as the soul of the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a plain man who had not been informed it was concocted by Europe's pet philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had given birth to it. That there is no creature now tenanting Bedlam who would or could scribble purer nonsense about God than this of Newton's, we are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Being, creator of all the worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an infinitely larger scale, the same sort of game as Nicholas of Russia, or Mohammed of Egypt, plays upon a small scale. There cannot be slavery where there is no tyranny, and to say, as Newton did, that we stand in the name relation to a universal God, as a slave does to his earthly master, is practically to accuse such God, at reason's bar of _tyranny_. If the word God is relative, and relate itself with slaves, it incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and Deity is by such reasoners degraded into the character of universal slave-driver. Really, theologians and others who declaim so bitterly against 'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish 'infidels', who speaks or write of their God, should seriously consider whether the worst, that is, the least superstitious of infidel writers, ever penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that God they effect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of Newton's.

If even it could be demonstrated that there is a super-human Being, it cannot be proper to clothe Him in the noblest human attributes--still less can it be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest Him with odious attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves. Besides, how can we imagine a God, who is 'totally destitute of body and of corporeal figure,' to have any kind of substance? Earthly emperors we know to be substantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it not sheer abuse of reason to argue as though the character of God were at all analogous to theirs; or rather, is it not shocking abuse of our reasoning facilities to employ them at all about a Being whose existence, if we really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and allowed to be so by those very men who pretend to explain its character and attributes? We find no less a sage than Newton explicitly declaring as incontestible truth, that God exists necessarily--that the same necessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all action--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, an yet this same sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges God is _totally unknown to us_.

Now, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right Newton could pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here selected from his writings, with respect to a Being of whom, by his own confession, he had not a particle of knowledge. Surely it is not the part of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to him, and yet that is precisely what Newton did, when he wrote concerning God.

So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we now to the Theism of Dr. Samuel Clarke.

He wrote a book about the being and attributes of God, in which he endeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all eternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one unchangeable and independent Being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and independent Being, which has existed from all eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth, that 'what is the substance or essence of that Being, which is necessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it possible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent Being must of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;' sixth, that 'He must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original cause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'God is not a necessary agent, but a Being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth, that 'God is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as He is supreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a Being infinitely just, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral perfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.'

These are the leading dogma contained in Clarke's book--and as they are deemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of Theists, we will briefly examine the more important important of them.

The dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already shown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the real difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_. Matter exists, and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or annihilation, the Materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal something. Newton as well as Clark thought the everlasting Being destitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion, divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_, they did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not matter, again we ask, what can it be? Of bodilessness or incorporiety no one, even among those who say their God is incorporeal, pretend to have an idea. Abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is, but whether it be?_ Well, we have no objection to parties taking that position, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who think fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or incorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned facts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is. It has always struck the author as remarkable that men should so obstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary existence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but certainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having nothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. Matter is everywhere around and about us. We ourselves are matter--all our ideas are derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse character of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the possibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace the incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a necessarily existing Being, who is without body, parts, passions, or positive nature!

The second dogma informs us that this always-existing Being is unchangeable and independent. One unavoidable inference from which is that Deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the universe--for a moveable Being must be a changeable Being, by the very fact of its motion; while an independent Being must be motiveless, as it is evident all motives result from our relationship to things eternal; but an independent Being can have no relations, and consequently must act without motives. Now, as no intelligent _human_ action can be imagined without necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning from analogy, it seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent Being, Clarke was so sure must ever have existed, could have created the universe, seeing he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create it.

The third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a thing or Being, which has existed from eternity without any eternal cause of its existence, must be self-existent: but of course that dogma leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something _not_ matter, is self-existent, just where it found it.

The fourth dogma is not questioned by Universalists, as they are quite convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or essence of an immaterial Being.

The other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than repetition or expansion of the preceding one. Indeed, much of the foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to illustrate, so completely and clearly theistical absurdities. The only dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for if that fall, the rest must fall with it. If, for example, the reader is convinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_ but eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence by a Being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes a Universalist--for if matter always was, no Being could have been before it, nor can any exist after it. It is because men in general are shocked at the idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they do readily embrace the idea of a God, forgetting that if the idea of eternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal Being who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient to shock all sense of the _possible_.

The man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at least the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no reasonable man need envy.

Of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but when Dr. Clarke tell us of an intelligent Being, not _part_ but _creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or, in point of fact, _any_ conception of such Being. When he explains that it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent Being.

We can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive what those people can be dreaming of who talk as familiarly about the extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame of his spirit-lamp. The unsatisfactory character of all speculations having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes without necessity_--another rule of philosophising, for which we are indebted to Newton, but to which no superstitious philosophiser pays due attention. Newton himself in his theistical character, wrote and talked as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule.

The passages given above from his 'Principia' palpably violate it. But Theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet.

A distinguished modern Fabulist [38:1] has introduced to us a philosophical mouse who praised beneficent Deity because of his great regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of wings, so that if they who have none, should by cats happen to be exterminated, how easily could our 'Heavenly Father,' out of the bats re-establish our exterminated species.

Voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.' If she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of Deity would have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. The wisdom of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the Theologian who knew not how sufficiently to admire God's goodness in causing large rivers almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns.

To jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant assumption, and to Deify errors on no other authority than their own heated imagination, has in all ages been the practice of Theologians. Of that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our Fabulist. Clothed in no other panoply than their own conceits they deem themselves invulnerable. While uttering the wildest incoherencies their self-complacency remains undisturbed. They remind one of that ambitious crow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper, strutted so proudly about with the Peacock's feathers in which he had bedecked himself.--Like him, they plume themselves upon their own egregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains.

Let any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design, and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. That argument has for its ground-work beggarly assumption, and for its main pillar, reasoning no less beggarly. Nature must have had a cause, because it evidently is an effect. The cause of Nature must have been one God, because two Gods, or two million Gods, could not have agreed to cause it. That cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things are double one against another, and He has left nothing imperfect. Men make watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood, hemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore God made nature out of no material at all. Unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena we behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something unnatural. Not to believe in a God who designed Nature, is to close both ears and eyes against evidence, therefore Universalists are wilfully deaf and obstinately blind.

These are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody knows, would palm upon us as demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God.

By artfully taking for granted what no Universalist can admit, and assuming cases altogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our natural theologians find no difficulty in proving that God is, was, and ever will be; that after contemplating His own perfections, a period sufficiently long for 'eternity to begin and end in,' He said, let there be matter, and there was matter; that with Him all things are possible, and He, of course, might easily have kept, as well as made, man upright and happy, but could not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due regard to his own glorification. Wise in their generation, these 'blind leaders of the blind' ascribe to this Deity of their own invention powers impossible, acts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus erecting doctrinal systems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance; deifying their own monstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery, madness, and crime.

The writer who declared theology _ignorance of natural causes reduced to system_, did not strike wide of the true mark. It is plain that the argument from design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to neither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to system. An argument to be sound must be soundly premised. But here is an argument whose primary premise is a false premise--a mere begging of the very question in dispute. Did Universalists _admit_ the universe was contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not _deny_ there must have been at least one Being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no analogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe made without hands out of nothing. Universalists are unable to perceive the least resemblance between the circumstance of one intelligent body re-forming or changing the condition of some other body, intelligent or non-intelligent, and the circumstance of a bodiless Being creating all bodies; of a partless Being acting upon all parts; and of a passionless Being generating and regulating all passions. Universalists consider the general course of nature, though strangely unheeded, does proclaim with 'most miraculous organ,' that dogmatisers about any such 'figment of imagination' would, in a rational community, be viewed with the same feelings of compassion, which, even in these irrational days, are exhibited towards confirmed lunatics.

The author, while passing an evening with some pleasant people in Ashton-under-Lyne, heard one of them relate that before the schoolmaster had made much progress in that _devil-dusted_ neighbourhood, a labouring man walking out one fine night, saw on the ground a watch, whose ticking was distinctly audible; but never before having seen anything of the kind, he thought it a living creature, and full of fear ran back among his neighbours, exclaiming that he had seen a most marvellous thing, for which he could conceive of no better name than CLICKMITOAD. After recovering from their surprise and terror, this 'bold peasant' and his neighbours, all armed with pokers and other formidable weapons, crept up to the ill-starred ticker, and smashed it to pieces.

The moral of this anecdote is no mystery. Our clickmitoadist had never seen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing one for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal. Readers who may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves whether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they would feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals in process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and if as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or less analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have acted very much as he did.

Supposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an analogy between 'the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the universe,' is it not evident that Spinoza's axiom--of things which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the others--is incompatible with belief in the Deity of our Thirty-Nine Articles, or, indeed, belief in _any_ unnatural Designer or Causer of Material Nature. Only existence can have anything in common with existence.

Now, an existence, properly so called, must have at least two attributes, and whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter. The two attributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension. Take from matter these attributes and matter itself vanishes. That fact was specially testified to by Priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths of Materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from their recognition.

According to this argument, nothing exists which has not solidity and extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in one state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a butterfly, and in other states other forms. The _essence_ of grass, or the _essence_ of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their several forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more be explained than can the _essentiality_ of _human_ nature.

But the Universalist, because he finds it impossible to explain the action of matter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and various energies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it _naturally_ and therefore _necessarily_ acts thus energetically. No Universalist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but of the _fact_ that bread does nourish it he is well assured. He understands not how or why two beings should, by conjunction, give vitality to a third being more or less analogous to themselves, but the _fact_ stares him in the face.

Our 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything. But unfortunately their explanations do, for the most part, stand more in need of explanation than the thing explained. Thus, they explain the origin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely mysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not to be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt, moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and, in short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. Well might Godwin say _the rage of accounting for what is obviously unaccountable, so common among philosophers of this stamp, has brought philosophy itself into discredit_.

There is an argument against the notion of a Supernatural Causer which the author does not remember to have met with, but which he considers an argument of great force--it is this. Cause means change, and as there manifestly could not be change before there was anything to change, to conceive the universe caused is impossible.