Heresy: Its Utility And Morality

the new philosophy in France, England, and Germany, where its roots had been firmly struck in the previous century, but they also give the history of a glorious endeavour

uccess to their heroic endeavour, and why France, despite the wonderful recent progress in thought, is even yet cursed with corrupt imperialism and state superstition, is not difficult to explain, when we consider that every tyranny in Europe united against that young republic to which the monarchy had bequeathed a legacy of a wretched pauper people, a people whose minds had been hitherto wholly in the hands of the priests, whose passions had revolted against wrong, but whose brains were yet too weak for the permanent enjoyment of the freedom temporarily resulting from physical effort. Eighteenth century heresy is especially noticeable for its immediate connection with politica

at body of the people. The Reformed Church of England, sustained by the crown and aristocracy, has generally left the people to find their own way to heaven or hell, and has only required abstinence from avowed denial of, or active opposition to, its tenets. Its ministers have usually preached with the same force

prominent Italian names, when we come to the eighteenth century, there are but few such names worthy special notice; it is no longer from the extreme South, but

writer with great power as a satirist, whose fable of the "Bees, or Private Vices made Public Benefits," not only served as source fo

orge Berkeley, an Irishman by birth. He was born on the 12th of March, 1684, at Kilcrin, and died at Oxfo

keley said 'ther

'twas no matte

ystem 'tis in

or the airie

ho can be

ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics, as well as against the Atheists and Freethinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction," Berkeley wrote for those who "want a demonstration of the existence and immateriality of God, or the natural immortality of the soul," and his philosophy was intended to check materialism. The key-note ot his works may be found in his declaration, "The only thing whose existence I deny, is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance." The definition given by Berkeley of matter is one which no materialist will be ready to accept, i.e.f "an inert, senseless substance in which extension, figure, and motion do actually exist." The "Principles of Human Knowledge" is the work in which Berkeley's Idealism is chiefly set forth, and many have been the volumes and pamphlets written in reply. Whatever might have been Berkeley's intention as to

gainst the complete endurance of all these "capacities for action," &c., even during the whole life, and much more strongly, therefore, against their endurance after death. Besides which-continuing the argument from analogy-my "capacities" having only been manifested since my body has existed, and in proportion to my physical ability, the presumption is rather that the manifestation which commenced with the body, will finish as the body finishes. Further, it is fair to presume that "death is the destruction of those living powers," for death is the cessation of organic functional activity; a cessation consequent on some change or destruction of organisation. Of course, the word "destruction" is not here used in any sense of annihilation of substance, but as meaning such a change of condition that vital phenomena are no longer manifested. But, says Butler, "we know not at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones, and these effects do in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent." Here, perhaps, there is an unjustifiable assumption in the words "living agent," for if by living agent is only meant the animal which dies, then the destruction of flesh, skin, and bones does fairly imply the destruction of the living agent, but if by living agent is intended more than this, then the argument is speciously and unfairly worded. But beyond this, if Bishop Butler's argument has any value, it proves too much. He says-"Nor can we find anything throughout the whole analogy of nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever lose their living powers.... by death." That is, Bishop Butler applies his argument for a future state of existence, not only to man, but to the whole animal kingdom; and it may be fairly conceded that there is as much ground to presume that man will live again, as there is that the worm will live again, which, being impaled upon a hook, is eaten by the gudgeon, or that the gudgeon will live again which, threaded as a bait, is torn and mangled to death by a ravenous pike, or that the pike will live again after it has been kept out of water till rigid, then gutted, scaled, stuffed with savoury condiments, broiled, and ultimately eaten by Piscator and his family. Bishop Butler's argument, that because pleasure or pain is uniformly found to follow the acting or not acting in some particular manner, there is presumptive analogy in favour of future rewards and punishments by Deity, appears weak in the extreme. According to Butler, God is the author of nature. Nature's laws are such, that punishment, immediate or remote, follows non-observance, and reward, more or less immediate, is the result of observance; and because God is by Butler's argument, assumed as the author of nature, and has therefore already punished or rewarded once; we are following Butler, to presume that he will after death punish or reward again for an action upon which he has already adjudicated. In his chapter on the Moral Government of God, Butler says, "As t

standing miracle is not in the order of providence.' Now I can by no means subscribe to this opinion. It seems evident to my reason that the very contrary must be true; if we suppose that God acts towards men according to the moral fitness of things; and if we suppose that he acts arbitrarily, we can form no opinion at all. I think these accidents would not have happened, or that the scriptures would have been preserved entirely in their genuine purity notwithstanding these accidents, if they had been entirely dictated by the Holy Ghost: and the proof of this probable proposition, according to our clearest and most distinct ideas of wisdom and moral fitness, is obvious and easy. But these scriptures are not so come down to us: they are come down broken and confused, full of additions, interpolations; and transpositio

passages of Pope regarded as hostile to revealed religion, were specially due to the influence of Bolingbroke; and more than one critic ha

ct, that in each account of a miraculous occurrence, there is always more prima facie probability of error, or bad faith on the part of the narrator, than of interference with those invariable sequences known as natural laws, and there was really no reply in the conclusion of Dr. Campbell, to the effect that we have equally to trust human testimony for an account of the laws of nature and for the narratives of miracles, for in truth you never have the same character of human testimony for the latter as for the former. And, further, while in the case of human testimony as to natural events, it is evidence which you may test and compare with your own experience. This is not so as to miracles, declared at once to be out of the range of all ordinary experience. "Men," he says, "are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession to repose faith in their senses. When they follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images presented to the senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representatives of the other. But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but

ion-stone for an edifice which Buckle would probably have gloriously crowned had his life been longer. Voltaire, who sharply criticises Montesquieu, declares that he has earned the eternal gratitude of Europe by his grand views and his bold attacks on tyranny, superstition, and grinding taxation. Montesquieu urged that virtue is the true essence of republicanism, but misled by the mistaken notions of honour held by his predecessors and contemporari

d him, for while he occasionally severely handled individual monarchs, we do not find him the preacher of republicanism. On the contrary, he is often severe against some of the advanced political views of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He nevertheless suggests that it might have been "the art of working metals which originally made kings, and the art of casting cannons which now maintains them," and as a commentary on kingly conduct in the matter of taxation, declares that "a shepherd ought to shear his sheep, and not to flay them." In theological controversy he wrote as a Theist, and declares "Atheism and Fanaticism" to be "two monsters which may tear society in pieces, but the Atheist preserves his reason, which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the influence of a madness constantly urging him on." For the ancient Jews, and for the Hebrew records, Voltaire entertained so thorough a feeling of contemptuous detestation, that in

al laws, a particular object; I am now going to change my eternal ideas and immutable laws, to endeavour to accomplish what I have not been able to do by means of them. This would be an avowal of his weakness, not of his power; it would appear in such a being an inconceivable contradic

achieved the great victory of reversing the unjust sentence, and obtaining compensation for the family. It, then, these Voltaire-haters have not learned to love this great heretic, let them study the narrative of his even more successful endeavours on behalf of the Sirvens; more successful, because in this case he took up t

that any religion, of which the chiefs are intolerant, and the conduct of which is expensive to the state, "cannot long be the religion of an enlightened and well governed nation. The people that submit to it will labour only to maintain the ease and luxury of the priesthood; each of its inhabitants will be nothing more than a slave to the sacerdotal power. A religion to be good should be tolerant and little expensive. Its clergy should have no authority o

of the Divinity at the bottom of the portrait of the devil? Why oppress the soul with a load of fear, break its springs, and of a worshippe

and self-castigation. The man who places these operations among the virtues, might as well place those of leaping, dancing, and tumbling on the rope." "Humility may be held in veneration by the dwellers in a monastery or a convent, it favours

was issued as if by Mirabaud. This work, although it was fiercely assailed at the time, by the pen of Voltaire, and by the plaidorie of the prosecuting Avocat-General, and has since been attacked by hundreds who have never read it, yet remains a wonderfully popular exposition of the power-gathering heresy of the century, and, as far as we are aware, has never received effici

e of his sentiments on political as well as theological matters. Priestley was one of the rapidly multiplying instances of heresy alike in religion and politics, but he provoked the most bitter antagonism. His works were burned by the common hangman, his house, library, and scientific instruments were destroyed by an infuriate and pious mob. Despite all this, his heresy, according to his own view of it, was not of a very outrageous character, for he believed in Deity, in revealed religion, and in Christianity, rather putting the blame on misconduct of alleged Christians. He said: "The wretched forms under whi

from the direct statements against Christianity. The sneer at the evidence of prophecy, or the doubt of the reality of miraculous evidences, is guardedly expressed. It is only when Gibbon can couch his lance against some reckless and impudent forger of Christian Evidences, such as Eusebius, that you have anything like a bold condemnation. A prophecy or a miracle is treated tenderly, and if killed, it is rather with over-affectionate courtesy than by rough handling. In some parts of his vindications of the attacked passages, Gibbon's scepticism finds vent in the collect

is distinct, are called sensations. Internal impressions are very often vague and confused, and the animal is then only warned by their effects, and does not clearly distinguish their connection with the causes. The former result from the application of external objects to the organs of sense, and on them ideas depend. The latter result from the development of the regular functions, or from the maladies to which each organ is subject; and from these issue those determinations which bear the name of instincts. Feeling and movement are linked together. Every movement is determined by an impression, and the nerves, as the organs of feeling, animate and direct the motor organs. In feeling, the nervous organ reacts on itself. In movement it reacts on other parts, to which it communicates the contractile faculty, the simple and fecund principle of all animal movement. Finally, the vital functions can exercise themselves by the influence of some nervous ramifications, isolated from the system-the distinctive faculties can develope themselves, even when the brain is almost wholly destroyed, and when it seems wholly inactive. But for the formation of thoughts, it is necessary that the brain should exist, and be in a healthy condition; it is the special organ of thought." Thomas Paine, the most famous Deist of modern times, was born at Thetford on the 29th January, 1737, and died 8th June, 1809. It will hardly be untrue to say that the famous "rebellious needleman" has been the most popular writer in Great Britain and America against revealed religion, and that his works, from their plain, clear langu

e origin of the religions they attacked, sought to explain the source and progress of the various systems. He urges that all religions find their base in the attempts at personification of some one or other, or of the whole of the forces of the universe, and shows what an important part the sun and moon have been made to play in the Egyptian, Greek, and Hindoo Mythologies. He argues that the fabulous biographies of Hercules, Bacchus, Osiris, Mithra, and Jesus, find their common origin in the sun-worship, thus cloaked and hidden from the vulgar in each country. He does not attack the Hebrew Records as simply inaccurate, but endeavours to show clear Sabaistic foundation for many of the most important narratives. The works of Dupuis and Dulaure should be read together; they contain the most complete amongst the many attempts to trace out the common origins of the various mythologies of the world. In the ninth chapter of Dupuis' great work, he deals with the

m you have your descent. As to forgiveness of injuries, it had been taught by the Pagans themselves; but in the latitude you give to it, it ceases to be a virtue, and becomes an immorality and a crime. Your boasted precept, to him that strikes thee on thy right cheek turn the other also, is not only contrary to the feelings of man, but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice; it emboldens the wicked by impunity, degrades the virtuous by the servility to which it subjects them; delivers up the world to disorder and tyranny, and dissolves the bands of society-such is the true spirit of your doctrine. The precepts and parables of your Gospel also never represent God other than as a despot, acting by no rule of equity; than as a partial father treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater favour than his obedient and virtuous children; than as a capricious master giving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour, as to those who have borne the burthen and heat of the day, and preferring the last comers to the first. In short, your morality throughout is unfriendly to human intercourse; a code of misanthropy calculated to give men a disgust for life and society, and attach them to solit

the Knights of the

Mahometans prisone

o

n, Steele, Defoe, and Dean Swift all helped in the work of popular education, and often in a manner probably unanticipated by themselves. Dean Swifts satire again

little doubt that the efforts of the London Corresponding Society (which the Government of the day made strenuous endeavours to repress) to give circulation to some of Paine's political opinions in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the North, had for result the familiarising many men with views they would have otherwise feared to investigate. The step from the "Rights of Man" to the "Age of Reason" was but a short stride for an advancing inquirer. In France the end of the eighteenth century was marked by a frightful convulsion. A people starved and degraded for generations, rose in the very desperation of despair, and with a mighty force broke the yoke of traditional feudalism and habitual monarchic reverence; but in the case of France, the revolution was too sudden to be immediately beneficial or enduring, the people were as a mass too

right of the governor, and declares that government should be the best contrivance of national wisdom to promote the national weal, to provide against national want, and alleviate-national sufferi

ries of some of these mighty warriors in the Freethought army. My object is to show that the civilisation of the masses is in proportion to the spread of heresy amongst them, that its effect is seen in an exhibition of manly dignity and self-reliant effo

n. Even in this very day, in the districts where the people are entirely in the hands of the clergy of the Established Church, there they are as a mass the most depraved. Take the agricultural counties and the agricultural labourers: there are no heretical books or papers to be seen in their cottages, no heretical speakers come amongst them to disturb their contentment; the deputy-lieu

encement, the education only lately begun, but the change is traceable already; as witness the power to speak and write, and the ability to listen and read, which have grown amongst the masses during the last 100 years. And if to-day we write with higher hope, it is because the right to speak and the righ