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Title: The Limits Of Atheism
       Or, Why should Sceptics be Outlaws?

Author: George Jacob Holyoake

Release Date: July 20, 2011 [EBook #36798]
Last Updated: January 25, 2013

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIMITS OF ATHEISM ***




Produced by David Widger





 




THE LIMITS OF ATHEISM  

Or, Why should Sceptics be Outlaws?  




BY G. J. HOLYOAKE.  





                    "It is historically true that a large proportion of Infidels
                    in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and
                    honour."—John Stuart Mill 'On Liberty,' p. 80.




LONDON: J. A. BROOK & CO., 282, STRAND, W.C 

1874. 

PRICE TWOPENCE. 

REVEREND RICHARD WILLIAM JELF, D.D., 

PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, WHO HAS LATELY ALARMED CONVOCATION  

BY CONNECTING 

THE 'ESSAYS AND REVIEWS' WITH ATHEISM  

THESE PAGES, 

WRITTEN IN ARREST OF THE  PARLIAMENTARY JUDGMENT WHICH PLACES THE WORD OF THE ATHEIST BELOW THAT OF  THE FELON, 

Are Respectfully Inscribed, 

BY

GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.  










PREFACE.  


The object of these pages* is not to defend the intellectual accuracy of  Atheism (which could not be attempted in this brief space), the object is  to explain its case, to vindicate its moral rectitude, and the right of  those who hold these views, to legal equality. There are two Atheisms in  literaturethe ancient one of mere negation; and the affirmative  form, whose relevant name is Cosmism, and of which Humboldt, in his  'Cosmos,' is a great illustrator, and Comte, in his 'Positive Philosophy,'  an expounder. The term Cosmism ought to supersede the misleading term  Atheism; just as Secularism has superseded the libellous term Infidelity.  Cosmism, as well as Secularism, expresses a new form of Freethought, and I  use the term Atheism, as the subject of a Lecture, for the first time  here. It is a worn-out word, used by Theists in hateful senses. I employ  it, as a title, to-day for political reasons, in order to show those who  make it a ground of civil exclusion, that it is a thing of law and limits:  that the reputed Atheism of English working men, so far as it prevails, is  no longer the old Atheism of mere negation, but the Cosmism of modern  science; neither dissolute, anarchical, nor impiousrecognises that  the universe is, without theorising why it is. Negative Atheism  says there is nothing beyond the universe. Cosmism says it cannot explain  anything beyond, and pauses where its knowledge ends.  
     *A report of a Lecture delivered in Bendall's Assembly
     Rooms, City Road, London, March 8rd, 1861.

Atheism questionsCosmism affirms. The language of Cosmism is that  of the poet in the 'Purgatory of Suicides':  
     'I do not say—there is no God,
     But this I say—I know not.'

I prefer Secularism, which concerns itself with the moral life of man, and  maintains a well-advised neutrality upon these speculative questions. My  sympathies are with 'Adam Bede,' that striking and greatest creation of  modern genius, in which the National Review recognised 'The  strong-headed, manly, sharp-tempered, secular carpenter, with his  energetic satisfaction in his work, and impatience of dreamers.' But as I  stated in the York Debate, in 1858, at which the Reverend Canons Hey and  Robinson presided, it is an act of self-defence in England to question the  assumed infallibility of Theismto prove that Atheists are entitled  to civil recognition, as persons having legitimate, actual, and  conscientious views, and who, therefore, ought not to be outlawed as they  are now. So long as sceptics of Theism are refused the right of  affirmation in courts of law, and their lives and property consequently  placed at the mercy of every ruffian and knave, so long will a Sceptical  propaganda be a parliamentary necessity, to justify these opinions, and to  spread them, that those who hold them may, like the Quakers, win by  pertinacity what is denied to reason. And while this state of things  lasts, I confess that I listen to arguments of opponents with distrust,  for I see in them, not so much the confutation of my opinions, as the  limitation of my freedom, and the justification of my political exclusion.  In the present state of theological liberty in England, for the alleged  Atheist to be silent, is to be a slave consenting to his own degradation.  

G. J. H.  

147, Fleet Street, London, E.C., April 13th, 1861.  







THE LIMITS OF ATHEISM  


Twenty years ago I stepped forward to defend the right of expressing  Atheism on the part of those who conscientiously held it. On Mr.  Southwell's imprisonment in Bristol, I took his place as Editor of the Oracle  of Reason, and shared his fate at Gloucester. Under the same  circumstances I would do it again to-morrow. In the expression of  speculative opinions there may be error and there may be outrage; but the  error is best corrected by discussion, and the outrage by cultivation; but  to prohibit the free publication of opinion is to strike at the root of  all intrepidity of thought and individuality of character; and against a  uniformity of profession, whether brought about by the tyranny of the  majority, by the policeman, or by the magistrate, I ever have, and ever  will, protest as unwise, dishonest, and degrading.  

Because Atheistical opinions were attacked by the law I defended them: I  defended the right to hold them without sharing them. And in all the  publications I have edited, I have accepted the responsibility of the  views of coadjutors and correspondents without conditions, and my name is  associated in consequence much more with other persons' opinions than with  my own. When the rights of conscience in Free-thought are attacked, to  discriminate is to condemn; and while persecution is attempted, I make it  a point of honour never to pass in appearance on to the side of the  persecutors. As soon as legal opposition to the publication of heretical  opinion ceased, I was the first to insist that the day of good taste must  commence. The moment fair play is permitted, all excuse for invective or  outrage ends. Violence, exaggeration, denunciation, are crimes against  Freethought the moment Freethought is permitted. Now that Sir George  Cornewall Lewis, on the part of the Government, has refused Sir John  Trelawny's request to alter the law which treats an Atheist as an outlaw,  which denies him the common right of legal protection, which exposes him  to plunder or assault without redress, which cedes to the Theist a  monopoly of veracity in courts of law, and places the word of every man  and woman, however honest, cultivated, and reputable, unable to make a  Profession of Faith, as below that of a convicted felon, I am most  reluctant to enter upon any explanation of my own views on the great  speculative propositions of theology, lest it should appear to others as  timidity, retreat, or disposition to compromise.. If a man had (which I  have not) a change of opinion to own, this is not the hour to make it. But  with respect to Affirmative Atheism, the necessity for newness of view is  chiefly felt by those who do not understand it. It is refused civil  recognition because it is conceived to be some lawless thing. The  consternation excited just now by the 'Essays and Reviews' is owing to an  apprehension that public opinion is tending to the negation of theology,  and that is concluded to be a state of intellectual lawlessness. To trace  any outline of the Limits of Atheism, may serve to give more intelligent  definiteness to the misgivings entertained concerning it, and lead earlier  to its legal recognition; and therefore alone I attempt it.  

Let us avoid verbiage if we can. Too many words are the locusts of the  mind, which darken the air of the understanding and eat up our meaning. I  believe that language is given us not to be usedexcept upon clear  compulsion.  

There are two terms which especially excite religious reprobation, and one  of them excites mine. I refer to Infidelity and Atheism.  

Infidelity is a term I detest. It implies that you believe enough to  subject you to reproach, and disbelieve enough to entitle you to be  damned. It signifies disbelief too inveterate to allow you to go back to  superstition, and too much timidity to carry your doubt to a definite or  legitimate result. I am for thoroughness and decision. If it be  criminality to disbelieve, I will put scepticism far from me. I will not  even tamper with doubt. But if it be lawful to reject from the  understanding whatever seems false, then I will disbelieve error as a  duty, and unhesitatingly doubt whatever is doubtful.  

Atheismobjectionable as it is from wanton negative associationsis  a far more wholesome term. It is a defiant, militant word. There is a ring  of decision about it. There is no cringing in it. It keeps no terms with  superstition. It makes war, and means it. It carries you away from the  noisome word-jugglery of the conventional pulpits, and brings you face to  face with nature. It is a relief to get out of the crowd who believe  because their neighbours do, who pray by rote, and worship through fear;  and win your liberty to wander in the refreshing solitude where the heart  may be honest, and the intellect free. Affirmative Atheism of the  intellect is a proud, honest, intrepid, self-respecting attitude of the  mind. The Negative Atheism of mere ignorance, of insensibility, of lust,  and gluttony, and drunkenness, of egotism or vanity, whose talk is  outrage, and whose spirit is blasphemy; this is the gross negation of God,  which superstition begets in its slavery, and nurtures by its terrors.  These species of Atheism I recognise only to disown and denounce them. Of  these the priest is the author who preaches the natural corruption of the  human heart, who inculcates the guilt of Freethought, the distrust of  reason, and despair of self-reliant progress. Utterly different from this  is the Atheism of reflection, which seeks for conclusive evidence, which  listens reverentially for the voice of God, which weighs carefully the  teachings of a thoughtful Theism; but refuses to recognise the officious,  incoherent babblement of intolerant or presumptuous men. Reflective  Atheism is simply a reluctant uncertainty as to the consciousness of  Nature, or as to the existence of a Power over Nature. As one who will  allow me the pleasure of calling him my friend, Mr. G. H. Lewes, said, all  reflective Atheism is suspensive.  

He invented the phrase Suspensive Atheism to describe the only form of  opinion which he knew I maintained. The thoughtful Atheist wishes to  perceive the whole truth of Nature, he hesitates unwillingly, and waits  longingly for more light.  

Let us dismiss at once that crude and evasive state which affects Atheism,  and, at the same time, denies it; which says no Theist has defined Deity,  and therefore the disbelief in it is an impossibility.  

Affirmative Atheism may be wrong, but it is at least intelligible. It has  a definite foundation, or it could claim no position, and would deserve  none. It must go upon facts if it would maintain a place in the kingdom of  thought, and it finds these facts in Positivism. The mind that has  wandered in the torrid zones of error, thirsts ardently for the cooling  draughts of positive truth. It is this sentiment which causes Freethought  to take the form of Secularism, and exchanges the verbal distractions of  conflicting creeds for the clear criterions of moral truth. It is the same  wise impatience of metaphysical unrealities which leads to Affirmative  Atheism, and explains it. A series of material and mental facts arrest the  attention of one taking an unbiased and independent view of the universe,  of time, and space, and matter.  

There are two classes of thinkersone who commence with ignoring  Nature, seeking in something outside it for the origin of it, and who look  upon the infinite processes of the worlds which people space, with the  dull astonishment accorded to mere agencies, rather than with the native  wonder and awe which the consciousness of original powers awakensthese  are Theists.  

The other class are those who regard matter as the very garment of the  unknown God, to whom every spray, and pebble, and flower, and star is a  marvel, a glory, and an inspiration; who, comprehending not an external  cause of nature, recognise its existence, its surpassing affluence, its  multitudinous marvels, and give them the first place in their wonder,  study, reverence, and lovethese are Affirmative Atheists.  

To believe in Nature, in its self-existence, its self-subsistence, its  self-action, its eternity, infinity, and materiality, and in that only, is  Affirmative Atheism.* Reflective Atheism is pure inability to, realise the  fact of the consciousness of the universe, or to conceive the existence of  a Being over it.  

To believe in something besides natureis Theism.  

To believe in the consciousness of natureis Pantheism.  

The explanation of Affirmative Atheism* here given, involves many  considerations which I am not going to discuss. It is not my province here  to defend, but to state the case. A definition is a map, but it is not the  journey. A definition is a high road through a subject, and a high road  should be a straight road: it may run out of the way of some populous  towns and beautiful scenes, but it gives the means of quickest transit  through a territory, from which the country can be viewed, and the  traveller determine its general features.  
     * This might stand for a definition of Cosmism, which term I
     employ at substantially reciprocal with Affirmative Atheism,
     and as its substitute, if I may employ it in its modern and
     wider sense than defined by Pythagoras.

If we have said enough for this purpose, we may attempt to trace the  limits of our subject. The road through every high question lies over  precipices. Every great question has its Mont Blancs. The higher you climb  the deeper the chasms on the right hand and on the left. The Roman  Catholic makes worship an art, and abject submission a duty. To relieve  you of anxiety he deprives the mind of initiation and freedom. The  Protestant concedes you private judgment, and surrounds you by a social  despotism lest you should use it. He substitutes a creed for the Church.  The Church is a cell, and the creed is a cage. The cage is lighter, more  airy, and less repulsive than the cell, but the imprisonment is complete  in both.  

Mere Atheism inculcates freedom and intrepidity of the understanding, but  may land you in negation, in dogmatism, in denunciation, in irreverence.  These are the chasms that lie in the path of mere Atheism. The traveller  who passes into these is lost. To avoid this danger we must keep within  the limits naturally prescribed to Affirmative Atheism, which are:  

1. Positivism in Principle.  

2. Exactness in Profession of Opinion.  

3. Dispassionateness in Judgment.  

4. Humanism in Conception.  

1. The Positivist conception of Atheism exhibits the limits which modern  thought has impressed upon it. Affirmative Atheism asserts the realism of  Nature; Theism denies it. Theism refuses to recognise the self-existence,  the self-action, the self-subsistence, eternity, and infinity of the  universe. Theism is the negation of Nature. It is a species of impiety  towards nature, and supplants, by an artificial superstition, the  instinctive reverence of the human heart.  

Modern Atheism is falsely regarded as a mere negation, as a species of  criminal vacuity of the understanding. To correct this idea is to win for  these opinions attention if not assent. The negation of any error is  useful, but it should be followed by its complement of positive truth. All  mere negative subjects are like the lime and pebbles swallowed by farm  fowl to assist digestion, but it fares ill with the fowl if they get  nothing but stones to digest; if no corn or barley follows to be operated  upon. Now, questions of Atheism and Scepticism are the digestive stimuli  of the mind; positive principles supply the corn and barley which sustain  the mental system and preserve its life. If we give ourselves up to  negative subjects merely, we come to resemble the theologians who, as  Talleyrand said, 'pick a great many bones for very little meat.'  

Old Atheism shows that the alleged proofs of the existence of a Deity are  inconclusive, untenable, or self-refutatory. As a discipline of the  intellect, as a questioning of that theistical speculation which has  always been arrogant and tyrannical towards dissentients, there is good in  negative Atheism. But it is more important if made to subserve practical  objects. Mere negative Atheism has no ulterior objects it untenants the  mind, and this may not be in all things beneficial. The slave may be more  healthy who is forced to take exercise, and he may have more physical  enjoyment of life than the indolent freeman, who is sedentary by choice,  and diseased through inactivity and overfeeding.  

You may pluck up weeds, and the rank herbage be more fruitful of miasma  than the weeds; or if the plucked up weeds produce no harm, the ground may  be left useless until crops are made to grow upon it. So of the weeds of  worship which spring up in the priest-ridden mind. Reverence may be  cultivated by superstition, good conduct maybe enforced by terror; if  superstition and terror be exploded, the reverence and good conduct must  be cared for and be better directed. Freethought is no half work, it has  much to do.  

It is delusive to pull down the altar of superstition and not erect an  altar of science in its place. To pack up the household gods of  superstition and leave the fireside bare, will hardly do.. Affirmative  Atheism must teach that nature is the Bible of truth, work is worship,  that duty is dignity, and the unselfish service of others consolation.  

There is nothing wholly bad. Superstition has in it some elements of good.  I no more believe in perfect error than in perfect truth. Error, like  truth, is hardly ever found pure; error is mixed with good, and truth  alloyed by evil. The mind must have something to feed upon, and if it  cannot have truth, it will have superstition; and though superstition,  like some diet, is very hard of digestion, and very innutritious, it is  better to feed upon that than die. True, it keeps the mind thin, but it  keeps it alive, and it is better to be a skeleton than a corpse. Now it is  true that some intellects, like some animals, eat by instinct the right  kind of food, but being healthy are not fastidious, and if you give them  bad food they don't object to it and don't care for it. If they take it,  their digestion is so good that it does not hurt them. But there are other  people who pine for the knowledge of nature, and cannot subsist unless a  large proportion of their mental aliment consists of definite principle.  When these are not supplied by religious teachers, and Christianity by any  intolerance prevents it being supplied by others, such natures expire in  an intellectual sense, and Christianity ought to be regarded as guilty of  wilful murder. And in the case of Atheism, those persons who are  accustomed to take superstition, and are deprived of that, and no attempt  is made to supply its place by more wholesome sustenance, are no doubt  injured. Negative Atheism guilty of this neglect may be said to be guilty  of manslaughter, and it would be murder were the neglect accompanied, as  in the case of Theism, by intolerance. Beware of reckless iconoclasticism.  

Mere negations give all advantage to superstition; error seems wisdom and  wealth when truth is silent.  

2. The logic of Affirmative Atheism begins in self-confession. Not to see  anything where there is nothing to be seen is the sign of the true  faculty; and not to say that you do see when you do not is the first sign  of veracity of intellect.  

Man is forgiven who believes more than his neighbours, but he is never  forgiven if he believes less. If he believes more than his neighbours,  there is the presumption that he may have made some discovery which may  become profitable one day to join in. It may be that he who believes most,  may merely possess a more industrious credulity, or possess a greater  capacity for hasty assumption. But this is seldom probed. He who believes  less may have abandoned some important item of justifiable belief. But  when he who believes less than the multitude, confesses to the fact in the  face of public disapproval, the probability is that he has inquired into,  and sifted evidence which others have taken for granted, and discovered  some error which they have accepted. His greater accuracy of mind and  exactness of speech are an offence, because a reproach to the careless or  unscrupulous intellects of those who conduct life on secondhand opinions.  Yet austerity of intellect and austerity of speech is as wholesome in  character, as austerity of morals. I hope, says Mr. Grote, in his great  history of Greece, in a memorable passage that ought not to die out of  recollection, 'I hope, when I come to the lives of Socrates and Plato, to  illustrate one of the most valuable of their principles, that conscious  and confessed ignorance is a better state of mind than the fancy without  the reality of knowledge.' And in a passage which I cannot now recall,  Lord Brougham has said that 'a mind uninformed is better than a mind  misinformed.' In a state of ignorance we do nothing, in a state of error  we do wrong. The popular condemnation of the Atheistwhich we have  lately heard as ignorantly echoed in the House of Commons as in some  Conventiclesis not always uttered, because the Atheist does not  know more than others, for none know anything certain concerning the  existence of God,* but because the Atheist does not profess more.  
     * In his remarkable work entitled 'First Principles,' now in
     course of publication, Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that
     certain terms of Cosmism are as incapable of ultimate
     explanation as certain terms of Theism. This shows how
     unwise is dogmatism, how unjustifiable is intolerance, on
     either side.

Cosmism, a thoughtful name, which ought to supersede Atheism in the  future, neither denies nor affirms the existence of Deity. It waits for  explanation and proof. It admits there is evidence of something, but what  that something is, does not appear. There is evidence of more than we  know, but what that is we do not know, and it is dishonesty to use a term  respecting it, which pretends that we do know. Why should it not be  honourable to observe a scientific reservation in the exposition of  opinion? In science it is a sign of cultivation to understate a case and  keep within the limits of fact and proof. The reservation of Cosmism,  which so many regard as an offence, arises from a love of exact truth,  from an endeavour to attain to it in expression, and from an honourable  unwillingness to employ words which do not represent to him who uses them,  definite ideas.  

If we say God is Light, Love, Truth, Power, Goodness, Law, Principle, we  confound attributes with existence. If we say God is a Spirit, God is  space, we merely fill the imagination, not satisfy the understanding: it  is feeding the thoughts with air, and leaving the intellect hungry. A  Trinitarian Deity is one of the scholastic perplexities of the intellect.  The first rule of arithmetic is against it. If it means three Gods in one,  it is an enigma. If it means three doctrinal aspects of God, it confuses  all simplicity of feeling. In the simple, moral heart of man, God is one,  and his name is Love; not a weak, vapoury sentimentality, but an austere,  healthy love, whose expression is strength, purity, truth, justice,  service, and tenderness. But this conception of Deity belongs to the  empire of the emotions, it is a matter of feeling, not of proof, and can  authorise no intolerance towards others, itself existing only by the  sufferance of the intellect, which has chastened its expression, and is  supreme over it.  

Exactness of phraseology is well understood self-defence. Well chosen  terms are the true weapons of opinion. Employing an old, battered,  rheumatic and abused term like Atheism, is like riflemen using the old  musket instead of the far-reaching and fatal Minie. Cosmism is the new  term which conveys the new idea of the age, and explains the improvements  in thought and spirit, which the mere term Atheism conceals. To suffer an  opponent to choose names for you is as though a combatant should suffer  his enemy to supply his arms for the conflict. He who consents to be  called by a hateful name, can be defeated at the pleasure of his opponent.  His ideas are never discussed, his conscientious spirit is never  recognised, he is trampled down by a name which libels, defames, and  destroys him. Let us banish the unqualified term Atheism from the  literature of theological controversy.  

3. Dispassionateness is a law of Affirmative Atheism. Those who commence  by believing themselves infallible, and their view of a question open to  no dispute, can never see reason in, nor view with patience the dissent  which others maintain. It is the first instinct of the Cosmist (to use the  preferable term) to keep his mind open to reason. The dogmatism which  insists on its own case, and shuts its eyes and closes its ears to the  facts and arguments on the side of Theism, is always to be condemned.  Dogmatism, the sin of superstition, is excluded from the empire of  speculation. The clergyman will often admit that Atheism endeavours to  maintain an unprejudiced tone of mind. The Rev. Charles Marriot, of Oriel  College, observed to me, when I had the honour some years ago to be his  guest, that 'he had always more hope of the Atheist than of the Dissenter,  for the Dissenter always moved in a little infallibility of his own, while  the Atheist was always to be reached by reason.' Mystery will always  conquer partisans, and the Cosmist who comprehends this, will reason with  superstition, and never be impatient with it.  

Dispassionateness of judgment will also lead to dispassionateness of  speech. Opinion in a minority should never have recourse to invective.  Prejudice is inveterate enough without being inflamed by denunciation.  Unpopular and unfriended truth must consent to placate opposition by  respectfulness of tone and fairness of speech. It must never compromise  principlethat is submission, and gives the errorist insolent  confidence. It must never outragethat makes the errorist indignant,  and deaf to all reason. The force of truth lies in invincible patience and  in invincible perseverance of exposition. Progressive opinion ought ever  to be kept on the high places of dispassionate advocacy. It is wonderful  how truth has been perilled by passion. The battle of opinion has always  been fought on impulse, rather than on calculation of forces; and the  small band of the combatants for new truths has often been trampled down  by the multitudinous army of error.  

4. Conceptions of Humanity, or, in other words, Reliance of Humanity, is a  law and limit of Affirmative Atheism. Every man who thinks, must choose  one of two things, a standard without the universe, or a standard within.  I choose one within, I choose humanity. 'Men,' says Lord Bacon, speaking  of Atheism, 'who look no farther, become wary of themselves.' Let us  become wary of ourselves; nothing is more wholesome or progressive!  

Hardness, assumption, egotism, insubordination to worthin one word,  irreverence, ought never to be the characteristic of Cosmism. He who  vindicates nature and reason, should show that being left to nature,  philosophy, reputation, and the laws, there exists self-regulation and  reliable rationality.* Cosmism is the highest form of self-reliance; the  responsibility, which to others is a necessity, is to him a duty and a  pride.  
     * As the late Gen. Jacob, the illustrious commander of the
     Scinde Horse, testifies. 'In the jangle and desert, amid a
     barbarous people on the extreme confines of civilisation,'
     he applied these principles when Bishops despaired and
     Christianity failed; and he records that 'He was permitted
     to witness with delight the fact of a whole nation being
     raised from a state of barbarous violence, misery,
     detestable cruelty, and horror, to one of peace, comfort,
     racial order, and happiness;' that 'He had seen their
     faithful and steady application in practice change thousands
     of the wildest robbers and murderers into kindly and
     industrious citizens.

The wildness, excesses, extravagances, and incoherences of superstition,  arise through men looking without themselves into those regions of the  unknown where men make God after their own image, where they imagine their  facts, and reason upon them without check. How impertinent is half our  modern worship, and how poor the other half! Educated ministers speak of  God, and address to him praise they would be ashamed to offer to any  gentleman. That delicacy of reverence, that reticence of laudation, that  avoidance of presumption and familiarity, which the law of humanity  imposes on all men of religious habits in human relations, has no  existence in theology, where it is more to be expected and infinitely more  needful. When St. Augustine speaks of God, there is a magnificent  thoughtfulness in the terms he employs which his Pagan refinement had  taught him, which we seldom find in modern saints. How imposingly he  exclaims in his Confessions:  

What art Thou then, my God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most  omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present;  most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible;  unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing  age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest;  still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and  overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all  things. Thou lovest, without passion; art jealous, without anxiety;  repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works,  Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never  lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting  usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath  aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest  debts, losing nothing.'  

We forgive the sublime contradictions in the stately march of this Pagan  praise. Augustine was a noble old saint, but he had a Pagan intellect to  the end.  

The 'Limits of Atheism' which obviously present themselves to those who  reflect upon them, rescue it from the imputation of lawlessness.  Positivism engrafts upon it practical aims. Exactness of speech  necessitates exactness of thought, and dictates modesty of pretension.  Dispassionateness of judgment checks invective, dogmatism, prejudice, or  unfairness; and Reliance upon Humanity tends to self-trust,  self-direction, and chastity of worship. Why should persons who hold the  views of Affirmative Atheism under these 'Limits' be treated in the  witness-box as public liarsmen whose reiterated profession isthat  they 'sum up personal duty in Honour, which is respecting the Truth; in  Morality, which is acting the Truth; and in Love, which is serving the  Truth.'*  
     * 'Last Trial for Atheism,' p. 100.

Plato in his 'Laws,' remarks that 'Atheism is a disease of the soul before  it becomes an error of the understanding.' This just opinion, if applied  to mere sensualists, who disbelieve in God because his holiness is a  restraint upon their infamous passions, has since been applied to the pure  thinkers like Spinoza, to whom it is an insult and an outrage. Let us see  how little such a remark is applicable to those who thoughtfully pause  before adopting a creed which, however dictated by a feeling of piety, is  far less reverential than thoughtful silence.  

If we suppose an interposing Providence to direct the affairs of this  world, what scenes of sorrow must meet his eye? Condemned to poverty and  pain, how many human beings are there whose every word is a prayer, and  every thought a throb, and every pulsation a pang? Is it not far more  reverential to struggle for the right with what powers we have, and with  what Secular light is vouchsafed, and own Theism inscrutable, than connect  all this misery with the name of God? The theory of a God of Prayer who  hears and aids, of a Providence who orders and controls, all issues to one  great Will, and who receives at last the sorrow-stricken, the worn,  struggling and weary spirit, after those conflicts which all who think,  and feel, and aspire, encounter, are primitive and enduring conceptions,  which all humanity, in every age and in every slime, cherishes in its  perplexity and clings to in its weakness. It is not Cosmism which seeks or  wishes to disprove this theory. Alas! the God of Prayer does not exist. I  say it not in wantonness, or recklessness, nor in any proud spirit of  defiance, nor in any hard spirit of denial, nor in outrage, nor wilful  scepticism, nor simulated disbelief. It appears to me an austere fact,  which all who observe must see, which all who are frank must own. Yet I  know not that I ought to say 'Alas it is so.' Why should any man mourn at  truth? What right have I to arraign the facts of Nature. To mourn what isis  to condemn what is. Sorrow is censure when it relates to what is possibly  the order of God. What authority have I to look on Nature awful in its  glories and mysteries, and by the implication included in my grief, to  judge it and say it is not what it should be? My scrutiny ought rather to  be directed to my weakness. True reverence lies rather in accepting  unmurmuringly the order of things we find; in believing in the  completeness and self sufficiency of nature and humanity, and that these  contain within them elements of self-sustainment. Our duty is to search  there for Truth, to work there patiently for Progress, to regard the  humblest conquest there with glad surprise. All virtue is summed up in  service and endurance. A wise humility in expectation is surely the first  element of reverence. As to the Future Life of man, the whole question  lies in a narrow compass. The immortality of the soul is one of those  problems which you approach with breathless perplexity. Is it possible  that every human being brought into existence, in the caprices of lust and  vice, is a candidate for heaven, and a burden upon the celestial taxes,  and an inmate of the great Poor House or Reformatory of eternity? Is it in  the power of ignorance, profligacy, and passion, to crowd the porticoes of  Paradise with illicit offspring? Can it be true that every being born is  liable to eternal perdition for acts done before it had existenceor  for offences it was predestined to commit, or in the course of events may  commit? It is better never to be born than to incur this frightful risk.  Is it worth while to live at all the prey of these awful anxieties, to  sport for a few years on the borders of Hell? Who would enter the dance of  life with the devil for a partner? The toad that croaks his hideous  existence away in the marsh; the very dog whom men caress, and kick, and  despise; the slimy worm that crawls the grave yard, leads a life of  dignity and undimmed bliss, compared with the dread responsibilities and  never-ending horrors thus imposed on human consciousness. No man will  persuade me that God would bring into existence any creature liable to so  frightful a fate. The belief in annihilation is a creed of holiness, in  comparison with the creed of the popular religion. If, on the other hand,  the future life include no hopeless horror, but a state of purification,  of restoration, of atonement, of instruction and progress, however  arduous, protracted, and slow, I am willing to believe in it, to hope in  it, and rejoice in it. I ask no golden crownI covet no angel wingsI  crave no presumptuous seat of honour at the right hand of God. I  supplicate for no effeminate securityno eternity of indolence and  singingI am prepared for toil as well as enjoyment. The instinct of  adventure is strong within me. Study and danger are welcome to meeven  suffering, if it bring deeper knowledge, purity and improvement. I do not  wish to be a 'Saint made perfect,' lingering through an eternity of  monotony, in which there is nothing further to realise, but desire rather  to enter upon the eternal discipline of indefinite progress. There never  were disbelievers in a tolerable immortality. The question is notis  such a state desirable? butis it true? The vital inquiry isare  we to conduct life on the basis of what we hope or what we know? He who  believes in what he wishes, and is willing to teach as true what he  desires, has already passed through the gates of superstition.  

To honour the brave, to reverence the good, to give thanks to the martyr,  to be re-united to those you have loved and lost; if these be the  incidents of immortality, there never was a disbeliever in it. The Cosmist  only deplores the scantiness of the proof. There is no scepticism here  which is wilful. Every doubt is reluctant, every misgiving is a  self-denial.  

The popular theology, it must be owned, has many repulsive aspects. The  vulgarest and most illiterate believer is encouraged to profess a familiar  and confident knowledge, hidden from the profoundest philosophers. It is  an unanswerable position, that had God spoken, the universe would have  been convinced. Had Deity desired that his personal existence should be  daily recognised and eternally bruited abroad among men, he would have  placarded the fact on the walls of nature in letters of lightso  luminous, that time should never pale them; so indelibly, that the war of  elements should never efface them; so plainly and conclusively, that no  priest should ever be able to misconstrue them; and no wayfarer, in this  hurrying world, ever be in doubt about them. As this is not so, the great  secret is left evidently to silent thought and reverent conjecture, of  which even mere negative Atheism is a reserved expression, and Cosmism a  scheme of philosophical adoration.  

Here is a particle of matter. It may be amber, or a ruby, or a stone.  Whence came the electrical properties of the one, the lurid brilliancy of  the other, or the density of the stone? These qualities are wonders and  miracles through all time. Science finds them marvels and leaves them  mysteries. The philosopher is no more provided with a solution than the  peasant. Indeed, the wonder of the philosopher has a deeper intensity. He  sweeps with his eye, and bends his ear over a wider field of nature, and  no sign rewards his scrutiny, no response repays his attention. Look at  this humble, secure, and commonplace stone! We neglect it with the eye, we  spurn it with the footit is not worth raising from the shore. Yet  no book was ever written, no message was ever delivered, no romance ever  depicted, no epic ever sung, containing such wondrous interest as the  story of this stone, could any man tell it. What thronging conjectures!  what unbidden and tumultuous memories rise as we contemplate its possible  mutations of existence! History was unwritten when it first slept in the  earth. What generations of men have lived and struggled, and died since it  was first broken from the rock! Great battles, changing the fate of  dynasties, and involving the servitude of races, have been fought over its  calm resting place. Possibly thousands of years ago the mastodon trod upon  it, and the ichthyosaurus paddled it into the sea. Ancient waves may have  washed it into the ocean, before the first ship was launched by the first  mariner. In the silent and wondrous caverns of the great deep, which no  plummet has fathomed and no eye has ever seen, it has lain in regal rest.  What monsters have glared at it! what tempests have raged, what tornadoes  have broken over it! what earthquakes may have tossed it up from its  hiding place. On what shore did it reappear? Did some Assyrian lover watch  the wave which washed it up? Did some young Pharaoh play with it? Has it  been imbedded in the walls of Troy? Did Achilles plant his spear by it?  Did it lie on the plains of Marathon on the morning of the memorable  battle? Has it been dyed by the blood of Caesar in the streets of Rome?  Have Chaldean shepherds picked it up as the orient morning sun broke over  their silent plains?  

When all these and a thousand other questions have been answered, its  history is not begun. Its elements are indestructible. The parts of which  it is composed were never createdin some form, in some world, they  always existed. Where were they when the earth was without form or void?  To what astral system did the matter of this pebble once belong? Of what  star did it form a part? Where was it before time on this planet began to  be? If matter has existed for ever, this stone in its countless  transmutations is a geological Wandering Jew of eternity. If we cannot  tell the history of a single stone, who shall tell the history of God? If  a poor pebble be a surpassing mystery, who shall understand the Deity?  What must be the pretension, the presumption to infinite capacity of that  man who, pausing not in reverent humility in the presence of these myriad  miracles which crowd before him, yet tells us in confident and dogmatic  tones, that he  
     'Looks through Nature up to Nature's God?'

For myself, I cleave rather to that more modest form of opinion which  stands in mute wonder and listens with greedy ears to the secret tale of  Nature, and waits with undying interest the revelations which science, or  thought, or time, or death, shall make of these mysteries which surround  us evermore.  









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