,,heresy3 ,,its ,,utility ,,and ,,morality ,a ,,plea ,,and ,a ,,justification ,by ,charles ,bradlaugh ,london3 ,austin ,co41 #ag1 ,johnson's ,court1 ,fleet ,street1 ,e4,c4 ,price ,ninepence4 ,,heresy3 ,,its ,,morality ,,utility ,a ,,plea and ,a ,,justification4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,introduction ,what is heresy that it should be so heavily punished8 ,why is it that society will condone many offences1 pardon many vicious practices1 and yet have such scant mercy for the open heretic1 who is treated as though he were some horrid monster to be feared and hated8 ,most religionists1 instead of endeavouring with kindly thought to provide some solution for the difficulties propounded by their heretical brethren1 indiscriminately confound all inquirers in one common category of censure2 their views are dismissed with ridicule as sophistical and fallacious1 abused as infinitely dangerous1 themselves denounced as heretics and infidels1 and libelled as scoffers and ,atheists4 ,with some religonists all heretics are ,atheists4 ,with the ,pope of ,rome1 ,garibaldi and ,mazzini are ,atheists4 ,with the ,religious ,tract ,society1 ,voltaire and ,paine were ,atheists4 ,yet in neither of the above-named cases is the allegation true4 ,voltaire and ,paine were heretics1 but both were ,theists4 ,garibaldi and ,mazzini are heretics1 but neither of them is an ,atheist4 ,with few exceptions1 the heretics of one generation become the revered saints of a period less than twenty generations later4 ,lord ,bacon1 in his own age1 was charged with ,atheism1 ,sir ,isaac ,newton with ,socinianism1 the famous ,tillotson was actually charged with ,atheism1 and ,dr4 ,burnet wrote against the commonly received traditions of the fall and deluge4 ,there are but few men of the past of whom the church boasts to-day1 who have not at some time been pointed at as heretics by orthodox antagonists excited by party rancour4 ,heresy is in itself neither ,atheism nor ,theism1 neither the rejection of the ,church of ,rome1 nor of ,canterbury1 nor of ,constantinople2 heresy is not necessarily of any ist or ism4 ,the heretic is one who has selected his own opinions1 or whose opinions are the result of some mental effort2 and he differs from others who are orthodox in this3--they hold opinions which are often only the bequest of an earlier generation unquestioningly accepted2 he has escaped from the customary grooves of conventional acquiescence1 and sought truth outside the channels sanctified by habit4 ,men and women who are orthodox are generally so for the same reason that they are ,english or ,french--they were born in ,england or ,france1 and cannot help the good or ill fortune of their birth-place4 ,their orthodoxy is no higher virtue than their nationality4 ,men are good and true of every nation and of every faith2 but there are more good and true men in nations where civilisation has made progress1 and amongst faiths which have been modified by high humanising influences4 ,men are good not because of their orthodoxy1 but in spite of it2 their goodness is the outgrowth of their humanity1 not of their orthodoxy4 ,heresy is necessary to progress2 heresy in religion always precedes an endeavour for political freedom4 ,you cannot have effectual political progress without wide-spread heretical thought4 ,every grand political change in which the people have played an important part1 has been preceded by the popularisation of heresy in the immediately earlier generations4 ,fortunately1 ignorant men cannot be real heretics1 so that education must be the hand-maiden to heresy4 ,ignorance and superstition are twin sisters4 ,belief too often means nothing more than prostration of the intellect on the threshold of the unknown4 ,heresy is the pioneer1 erect and manly1 striding over the forbidden line in his search for truth4 ,heterodoxy develops the intellect1 orthodoxy smothers it4 ,heresy is the star twinkle in the night1 orthodoxy the cloud which hides this faint gleam of light from the weary travellers on life's encumbered pathway4 ,orthodoxy is well exemplified in the dark middle ages1 when the mass of men and women believed much and knew little1 when miracles were common and schools were rare1 and when the monasteries on the hill tops held the literature of ,europe4 ,heresy speaks for itself in this nineteenth century1 with the gas and electric light1 with cheap newspapers1 with a thousand lecture rooms1 with innumerable libraries1 and at least a majority of the people able to read the thoughts the dead have left1 as well as to listen to the words the living utter4 ,the word heretic ought to be a term of honour2 for honest1 clearly uttered heresy is always virtuous1 and this whether truth or error2 yet it is not difficult to understand how the charge of heresy has been generally used as a means of exciting bad feeling4 ,the ,greek word ------ which is in fact our word heresy1 signifies simply1 selection or choice4 ,the he etiq philosopher was the one who had searched and found1 who1 not content with the beaten paths1 had selected a new road1 chosen a new fashion of travelling in the inarch for that happiness all humankind are seeking4 ,heretics are usually called infidels1 but no word could be more unfairly applied1 if by it is meant anything more than that the heretic does not conform to the ,state ,faith4 ,if it meant those who do not profess the faith1 then there would be no objection1 but it is more often used of those who are unfaithful1 and then it is generally a libel4 ,mahomedans and ,christians both call ,jews infidels1 and ,mahomedans and ,christians call each other infidels4 ,each religionist is thus an infidel to all sects but his own2 there is but one degree of heresy between him and the heretic who rejects all churches4 ,each ordinary orthodox man is a heretic to every religion in the world except one1 but he is heretic from the accident of birth without the virtue of true heresy4 ,in our own country heresy is not confined to the extreme platform adopted as a standing point by such a man as myself4 ,it is rife even in the state-sustained ,church of ,england1 and to show this one does not need to be content with such illustrations as are afforded by the ,essayists and ,reviewers1 who discover the sources of the world's education rather in ,greece and ,italy than in ,judea1 who reject the alleged prophecies as evidence of the ,messianic character of ,jesus2 who admit that in nature and from nature1 by science and by reason1 we neither have1 nor can possibly have any evidence of a deity working miracles2 but declare that for that we must go out of nature and beyond science1 and in effect avow that ,gospel miracles are always objects1 not evidences1 of faith2 who deny the necessity of faith in ,jesus as saviour to peoples ,who could never have such faith2 and who reject the notion that all mankind are individually involved in the curse and perdition of ,adam's sin2 or even by the ,rev4 ,charles ,voysey1 who declines to preach the ,god of the ,bible1 and who will not teach that every word of the ,old and ,new ,testament is the word of ,god2 or by the ,rev4 ,dunbar ,heath1 who in defiance of the ,bible doctrine1 that man has only existed on the earth about #f1jjj years1 teaches that unnumbered chiliads have passed away since the human family commenced to play at nations on our earth2 or by ,bishop ,colenso1 who in his impeachment of the ,pentateuch1 his denial of the literal truth of the narratives of the creation1 fall1 and deluge1 actually impugns the whole scheme of ,christianity 7if the foundation be false1 the superstructure cannot be true72 or by the ,rev4 ,baden ,powell1 who declared that the whole tenor of geology is in entire contradiction to the cosmogony delivered from ,mount ,sinai1 and who denied a local heaven above and a local hell beneath the earth2 or by the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,giles1 who1 not content with preceding ,dr4 ,colenso in his assaults on the text of the ,pentateuch1 also wrote as vigorously against the text of the ,new ,testament2 or by the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,wall1 who1 unsatisfied with arguments against the admittedly incorrect authorised translation of the ,bible1 actually wrote to prove that a new and corrected ,hebrew text was necessary1 the ,hebrew itself being corrupt2 or by the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,irons1 who teaches that not only are the ,gospel writers unknown1 but that the very language in which ,jesus taught is yet to be discovered1 who declares that prior to the ,esraic period the literal history of the ,old ,testament is lost1 who does not find the ,trinity taught in ,scripture1 and who declares that the ,gospel dees not teach the doctrine of the ,atonement2 or by the late ,archbishop ,whately1 to whom is attributed a ,latin pamphlet raising strong objections against the truth of the alleged confusion of tongues at ,babel4 ,we may fairly allege1 that amongst thinking clergymen of the ,church of ,england1 heresy is the rule and not the exception4 ,so soon as a minister begins to preach sermons which he does not buy ready lithographed--sermons which are the work of his brain--so soon heresy more or less buds out1 now in the rejection of some church doctrine or article of minor importance1 now in some bold declaration at variance with major and more essential tenets4 ,even ,bishop ,watson's so famous for his ,bible ,apology1 declared that the church articles and creeds were not binding on any man4 ,they may be true1 they may be false1 he wrote4 ,today scores of ,church of ,england clergymen openly protest against1 or groan in silence under the enforced subscription of ,thirty-nine unbelievable ,articles4 ,sir ,william ,hamilton declares that the heads of ,colleges at ,oxford well knew that the man preparing for the ,church will subscribe ,thirty-nine ,articles which he cannot believe1 who swears to do and to have done a hundred articles which he cannot or does not perform4 ,in scientific circles the heresy of the most efficient members is startlingly apparent4 ,against members of the ,anthropological ,society charges of ,atheism are freely levelled1 and although such a charge does not seem to be justified by any reports of their meetings1 or by their printed publications1 it is clear that not only out of doors1 but even amongst their own circle it is felt that their researches conflict seriously with the ,hebrew writ4 ,the ,society has been preached against and prayed against1 and yet it is simply a society for discovering everything possible about man1 prehistoric as well as modern4 ,it has1 however1 an unpardonable vice in the eyes of the orthodox--it encourages the utterance of facts without regard to their effect on faiths4 ,the ,ethnological ,society is kindred to the last named in many of its objects1 and hence some of its most active members have been direct assailants of the ,hebrew ,chronology1 which1 limits man's existence to the short space of #f1jjj years2 they have been deniers7sp47 of the origin of the human race from one pair1 of the confusion of tongues at ,babel1 and of the reduction of the human race to one family by the ,noachian deluge4 ,geological science has a crowd of heretics amongst its professors1 men who deny the sudden origin of fauna and flora2 who trace the gradual development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms through vast periods of time2 and who find no resting place in a beginning of existence1 but are obliged to halt in face of a measureless past1 inconceivable in its grandeur4 ,geology1 to quote the words of ,dr4 ,kalisch1 declares the utter impossibility of a creation of even the earth alone in six days4 ,mr4 ,goodwin says in the ,essays and ,reviews3 ,the school-books of the present day1 while they teach the child that the earth moves1 yet assure him that it is a little less than six thousand years old1 and that it was made in six days4 ,on the other hand1 geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of years--to be counted by millions rather than by thousands2 and that indubitably more than six days elapsed from its first creation to the appearance of man upon its surface4 ,astronomy has in the ranks of its professors many of its most able minds who do not believe in the sun and moon as two great lights1 who cannot accept the myriad stars as fixed in the firmament solely to give light upon the earth1 who refuse to believe in the heaven as a fixed firmament to divide the waters above from the waters beneath1 who cannot by their telescopes discover the local heaven above or the local hell beneath1 although their science marks each faint nebulosity crossing1 or crossed by the range of the watcher's vision4 ,to quote again from ,mr4 ,goodwin3--,on the revival of science in the sixteenth century1 some of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived1 were found to be at variance with popular and long established belief4 ,the ,ptolemaic system of astronomy1 which had then full possession of the minds of men1 contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable centre of things4 ,copernicus changed the point of view1 and placing the beholder in the sun1 at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous globule1 a merely subordinate member of a family of planets2 which the terrestrials had1 until then1 fondly imagined to be but pendants and ornaments of their own habitation4 ,the ,church1 naturally1 took a lively interest in the disputes which arose between the philosophers ot the new school1 and those who adhered to the old doctrines1 inasmuch as the ,hebrew records1 the basis of religious faith1 manifestly countenanced the opinion of the earth's immobility1 and certain other views of the universe1 very incompatible with those propounded by ,copernicus4 ,hence arose the official proceedings against ,galileo1 in consequence of which he submitted to sign his celebrated recantation1 acknowledging that 'the proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable from its place1 is absurd1 philosophically false1 and formally heretical1 because it is expressly contrary to the ,scripture2' and that 'the proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world1 nor immovable1 but that it moves1 and also with a diurnal motion1 is absurd1 philosophically false1 and at least erroneous in faith4' ,why is it that society is so severe on heresy8 ,three hundred years ago it burned heretics1 till thirty years ago it sent them to jail2 even in ,england and ,america to-day it is content to harass1 annoy1 and slander them4 ,in the ,united ,states a candidate for the ,governorship of a ,state1 although otherwise admittedly eligible1 was assailed bitterly for his suspected ,socinianism4 ,sir ,sidney ,waterlow1 standing for a ,scotch seat1 was sharply catechised as to when he had last been inside the ,unitarian ,chapel1 and only saved his seat by not too boldly avowing his opinions4 ,lord ,amberley1 who was unwise enough to be honest in some of his answers1 did not obtain his seat for ,south ,devon in consequence of the suspicion of heresy excited against him4 ,it is chiefly to the odium theologicum that ,mr4 ,mill may attribute his rejection at ,westminster2 and it is supposed to have also damaged ,sir ,john ,lubbock in ,west ,kent4 ,i only refrain from enlarging on my own case1 because ,i learn from the ,press that it is chiefly the vulgarity and coarseness of my heresy with which they are indignant4 ,to reply that ,i have sought to avoid being coarse and vulgar is worse than useless1 ,i am judged untried1 condemned unheard2 evidence is unnecessary in the case of a man who thus puts himself outside the pale4 ,sir ,william ,drummond says1 ,early associations are generally the strongest in the human mind1 and what we have been taught to credit as children we are seldom1 disposed to question as men4 ,called away from speculative inquiries by the common business of life1 men in general possess neither the inclination1 nor the leisure to examine what they believe or why they believe4 ,a powerful prejudice remains in the mind2 ensures conviction without the trouble of thinking2 and repels doubt without the aid or authority of reason4 ,the multitude then is not very likely to applaud an author1 who calls upon it to consider what it had hitherto neglected1 and to stop where it had been accustomed to pass on4 ,it may also happen that there is a learned and formidable body1 which1 having given its general sanction to the literal interpretation of the ,holy ,scriptures1 may be offended at the presumption of an unhallowed layman1 who ventures to hold1 that the language of those ,scriptures is often symbolical and allegorical1 even in passages which both the ,church and the ,synagogue consider as nothing else than a plain statement of fact4 ,a writer who had sufficient boldness to encounter such obstacles1 and to make an appeal to the public1 would only expose himself to the invectives of offended bigotry1 and to the misrepresentations of interested malice4 ,the press would be made to ring with declamations against him1 and neither learning1 nor argument1 nor reason1 nor moderation on his side1 would protect him from the literary assassination which awaited him4 ,in vain would he put on the heaven-tempered panoply of truth4 ,the weapons which could neither pierce his buckler nor break his casque1 might be made to pass with envenomed points through the joints of his armour4 ,every trivial error which he might commit1 would be magnified into a flagrant fault2 and every insignificant mistake into which he might fall1 would be represented by the bigotted1 or by the hireling critics of the day as an ignorant1 or as a perverse deviation from the truth4 ,both by the ,statute ,law and ,common ,law1 heresy is punishable1 and many are punished for it even in the second half of the nineteenth century4 ,a man who has been educated in1 or made profession of ,christianity1 and who shall then deny any of the ,thirty-nine ,articles1 is liable to indictment and imprisonment1 but this course is seldom pursued2 the more common practice is for the ,christian to avail himself of the heretic's want of belief in order to object to his competency as a witness4 ,repeated instances have occurred recently in which the proposed witness has been rejected as untrustworthy1 because he was too honest to pretend to hold a faith he in truth denied4 ,besides such open persecution1 there is the constant1 unceasing1 paltry1 petty persecuting spirit which refuses to trade with the heretic2 which declines to eat with him2 which will not employ him2 which feels justified in slandering him1 which seeks to set his wife's mind against him1 and to take away the affection of his children from him4 ,for those who do not believe this1 ,i will instance two clergymen of the ,church of ,england3 one 7who as my teacher when a boy7 set a kind father's heart against me1 and drove me further in heresy than ,i then dreamed of marching2 and the other1 who in cruel wickedness tried to wound me as a man through the feelings of my wife and children1 whom he most vilely and basely slandered4 ,the first is yet unpunished1 the second escaped condign punishment only by writing himself down libeller1 and praying pardon for the slanderous coinage of his brain4 ,and yet this latter ,church of ,england clergyman1 who had written a strong letter thanking me for my generous forbearance1 and who from his own pulpit pretended to express his sorrow1 is actually the first and only man in my neighbourhood to cry ,atheist against me1 when ,i mingle in political life1 and he thinks the phrase may wound and injure me4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,the ,,sixteenth ,,century ,it requires a more practised pen than mine to even faintly sketch the progress of heresy during the past three centuries1 but ,i trust to say enough to give the reader an idea of its rapid growth and wide extension4 ,i say of the past three centuries1 because it is only during the past three hundred years that heresy has made the majority of its converts amongst the mass of the people4 ,in earlier times heretics were not only few1 but they talked to the few1 and wrote to the few1 in the language of the few2 and indeed it may be fairly said1 that it is only during the last hundred years that the greatest men have sought to make heresy vulgar2 that is1 to make it common4 ,one of our leading scientific men admitted recently that he had been reproved by some of his more orthodox friends1 for not confining to the ,latin language such of his geological opinions as were supposed to be most dangerous to the ,hebrew records4 ,the starting-point of the real era of popular heresy may be placed at the early part of the sixteenth century1 when the memories of ,huss and ,ziska 7who had really inoculated the mass with some spirit of heretical resistance a century before7 aided ,luther in resisting ,rome4 ,martin ,luther1 born at ,eisleben in ,saxony1 in #adhc1 was one of the heretics who sought popular endorsement for his heresy1 and who following the example of the ,ulrich ,zuingle1 of ,zurich1 preached to the people in rough plain words4 ,while others were limited to ,latin1 he rang out in plain ,german his opposition to ,tetzel and his protectors4 ,i know that to-day1 ,martin ,luther is spoken of by orthodox ,protestants as if he were a saint without blemish1 and indeed ,i do not want to deprive the ,christian ,church of the honour of his adherence2 he is hardly good enough and true enough for a first-class heretic4 ,yet in justification of my ranking him even so temporarily amongst the heretics of the sixteenth century1 it will be sufficient to mention that he regarded the books of the ,kings as more worthy of credit than the books of the ,chronicles1 that he wrote as follows3--,the book of ,esdras ,i toss into the ,elbe4 ,i am so an enemy to the book of ,esther ,i would it did not exist4 ,job spake not therefore as it stands written in his book4 ,it is a sheer argumentum fabulae ,the book of the ,proverbs of ,solomon has been pieced together by others1 of ,ecclesiastes there is too much of broken matter in it2 it has neither boots nor spurs1 but rides only in socks4 ,isaiah hath borrowed his whole art and knowledge from ,david4 ,the history of ,jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible4 ,the ,epistle to the ,hebrews is not by ,st4 ,paul1 nor indeed by any ,apostle4 ,the ,epistle of ,james #a account the writing of no ,apostle1 and is truly an ,epistle of sham4 ,the ,epistle of ,jude allegeth sayings or stories which have no place in ,scripture1 of ,revelation ,i can discover no trace that it is established by the ,holy ,spirit4 ,if ,martin ,luther were alive to-day1 the ,established ,church of ,england1 which pretends to revere him1 would prosecute him in the ,english ,ecclesiastical ,courts if he ventured to repeat the foregoing phrases from her pulpits4 ,what would the writers who attack me for coarseness1 say of the following passage1 which occurs with reference to ,melancthon1 whom ,luther boasts that he raised miraculously from the dead8 ,melancthon1 says ,sir ,william ,hamilton1 to whose essay ,i am indebted for the extracts here given1 had fallen ill at ,weimar from contrition and fear for the part he had been led to take in the ,landgrave's polygamy3 his life was even in danger4 ,then and there1 said ,luther1 ,i made our ,lord ,god to smart for it4 ,for ,i threw down the sack before the door1 and rubbed his ears with all his promises of hearing prayer1 which ,i knew how to recapitulate from ,holy ,writ1 so that he could not but hearken to me1 should ,i ever again place any reliance on his promises4 ,martin ,luther1 with his absolute denial of free-will1 and with his double code of morality for princes and peasants--easy for one and harsh for the other--may be fairly left now with those who desire to vaunt his orthodoxy2 here his name is used only to illustrate the popular impetus given to nonconformity by his quarrel with the papal authorities4 ,luther protested against the ,romish ,church1 but established by the very fact the right for some more advanced man than ,doctor ,martin to protest in turn against the ,lutheran ,church4 ,the only consistent church in ,christendom is the ,romish ,church1 for it claims the right to think for all its followers4 ,the whole of the ,protestant ,churches are inconsistent1 for they claim the right to think and judge against ,rome1 but deny extremer ,nonconformists the right to think and judge against themselves4 ,goethe1 says ,froude1 declares that ,luther threw back the intellectual progress of mankind by using the passions of the multitude to decide subjects which should have been left to the learned4 ,i do not believe this to be wholly true1 for the multitude once having their ears fairly opened1 listened to more than the appeal to their passions1 and examined for themselves propositions which otherwise they would have accepted or rejected from habit and without inquiry4 ,martin ,luther's public discussions with pen and tongue1 in ,wittemberg1 ,augsburg1 ,liebenwerd1 and ,lichtenberg1 and the protest he encouraged against ,rome1 were the commencement of a vigorous controversy1 in which the public 7who heard for the first time sharp controversial sermons preached publicly in the various pulpits by ,lutheran preachers on free-will and necessity1 election and predestination1 c47 began to take real part and interest2 and which is still going on1 and will in fact never end until the unholy alliance of ,church and ,state is everywhere annulled1 and each religion is left to sustain itself by its own truth1 or to fall from its own weakness1 no man being molested under the law on account of his opinions on religious matters4 ,while ,luther undoubtedly gave an impetus to the growth of ,rationalism by his own appeal to reason and his reliance on reason for himself1 it is not true that he contended for the right of general freedom of inquiry1 nor would he have left unlimited the privileges of individual judgment for others4 ,he could be furious in his denunciations of reason when a freer thinker than himself dared to use it against his superstitions4 ,it is somewhat remarkable that while on the one hand one man1 ,luther1 was detaching from the ,church of ,rome a large number of minds1 another man1 ,loyola1 was about the same time engaged in founding that powerful society 7the ,society of ,jesuits71 which has done so much to check free inquiry and maintain the priestly domination over the human intellect4 ,that which ,luther commenced in ,germany roughly1 inefficiently1 and perhaps more from personal feeling for the privileges of the special order to which he belonged than from desire for popular progress1 was aided in its permanent effect by ,descartes1 in ,england by ,bacon1 in ,france by ,montaigne1 and in ,italy by ,bruno4 ,francis ,bacon1 ,lord ,verulam1 was born on the #bbnd ,january1 #aefa1 and died #afbf4 ,his mother1 ,anne1 daughter of ,sir ,anthony ,cooke1 was a woman of high education1 and certainly with some inclinations favourable to ,freethought1 for she had herself translated into ,english some of the sermons on fate and free-will of ,bernard ,ochino1 or ,bernardin ,ochinus1 an ,italian ,reforming ,heretic1 alike repudiated by the powers at ,rome1 ,geneva1 ,wittemberg1 and ,zurich4 ,ochino1 in his famous disquisition touching the freedom or bondage of the human will1 and the foreknowledge1 predestination1 and liberty of ,god1 after discussing1 with great acuteness1 and from different points of view1 these important topics1 comes to the conclusion that there is no outlet to the mazes of thought in which the honest speculator plunges in the endeavour to solve these problems4 ,although1 like other writers of that and earlier periods1 many of ,bacon's works were published in ,latin1 he wrote and published also in ,english1 and if ,i am right in numbering him as one of the heretics of the sixteenth century1 he must be also counted a vulgar heretic--i4e41 one who wrote in the vulgar tongue1 who preached his heresy in the language which the mass understood4 ,lewes says1 ,bacon and ,descartes are generally recognised as the ,fathers of ,modern ,philosophy1 although they themselves were carried along by the rapidly-swelling current of their age1 then decisively setting in the direction of science4 ,it is their glory to have seen visions of the coming greatness1 to have expressed in terms of splendid power1 the thoughts which were dimly stirring the age1 and to have sanctioned the new movement by their authoritative genius4 ,bacon was the populariser of that method of reasoning known as the inductive1 that method which seeks to trace back from the phenomena of the moment to the eternal noumenon or noumena--from the conditioned to the absolute4 ,nearly two thousand years before1 the same method had been taught by ,aristotle in opposition to ,plato1 and probably long thousands of years before the grand ,greek1 pre-historic schoolmen had used the method2 it is natural to the human mind4 ,the ,stagirite was the founder of a school1 ,bacon the teacher and populariser for a nation4 ,aristotle's ,greek was known to few1 ,bacon's eloquent ,english opened out the subject to the many whom he impregnated with his own confidence in the grand progressiveness of human thought4 ,lewes says2 ,the spirit of his philosophy was antagonistic to ,theology1 for it was a spirit of doubt and search2 and its search was for visible and tangible results4 ,bacon himself1 in his essay on ,superstition1 says3 ,atheism leaves a man to sense1 to philosophy1 to natural piety1 to laws1 to reputation1 all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue1 though religion were not2 but superstition dismounts all these1 and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men3 therefore ,atheism did never perturb states2 for it makes men wary of themselves1 as looking no further2 and we see the times inclined to ,atheism1 as the time of ,augustus ,caesar were civil times2 but superstition hath been the confusion of many states1 and bringeth in a new primum mobile 7the first motive cause71 that ravisheth all the spheres of government4 ,it is true that he also wrote against ,atheism1 and this in strong language1 but his philosophy was not used for the purpose of proving theological propositions4 ,he said3 ,true philosophy is that which is the faithful echo of the voice of the world1 which is written in some sort under the dictation of things1 which adds nothing of itself1 which is only the rebound1 the reflection of reality4 ,it has been well said that the words ,utility and ,progress give the keynotes of ,bacon's teachings4 ,with one other extract we leave his writings4 ,crafty men1 he says1 contemn studies1 simple men admire them1 and wise men use them2 for they teach not their own use2 but that is a wisdom without them1 and above them1 won by observation4 ,read not to contradict and confute1 nor to believe and take for granted1 nor to find talk and discourse2 but to weigh and consider4 ,some books are to be tasted1 others to be swallowed1 and some few to be chewed and digested4 ,reading maketh a full man2 conference a ready man2 and writing an exact man2 and therefore1 if a man write little1 he need have a great memory2 if he confer little1 he need have a present wit2 and if he read little1 he had need have much cunning1 to seem to know that he doth not4 ,histories make men wise2 poets witty2 the mathematics subtle2 natural philosophy deep2 moral1 grave2 logic and rhetoric1 able to contend4 ,he was the father of experimental philosophy4 ,in one of his suggestions as to the force of attraction of gravitation may be found the first aid to ,sir ,isaac ,newton's later demonstrations on this head2 another of his suggestions1 worked out by ,torricelli1 ended in demonstrating the gravity of the atmosphere4 ,but to the method he so popularised may be attributed the grandest discoveries of modern times4 ,it is to be deplored that the memory of his moral weakness should remain to spoil the praise of his grand intellect4 ,lord ,macaulay1 in the ,edinburgh ,review1 after contrasting at some length the philosophy of ,plato with that of ,bacon1 said2--,to sum up the whole3 we should say that the aim of the ,platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god4 ,the aim of the ,baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man4 ,the aim of the ,platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants4 ,the aim of the ,baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants4 ,the former aim was noble2 but the latter was attainable4 ,plato drew a good bow2 but1 like ,acestes in ,virgil1 he aimed at the stars2 and therefore1 though there was no want of strength or skill1 the shot was thrown away4 ,his arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance1 but it struck nothing4 ,bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth and within bowshot1 and hit it in the white4 ,the philosophy of ,plato began in words and ended in words--noble words in deed-words such as were to be expected from the finest of human intellects exercising boundless dominion over the finest of human languages4 ,the philosophy of ,bacon began in observations and ended in arts4 ,in ,france the political heresy of ,jean ,bodin--who challenged the divine right of rulers2 who proclaimed the right of resistance against oppressive decrees of monarchs2 who had words of laudation for tyrannicide1 and yet had no conception that the multitude were entitled to use political power1 but on the contrary wrote against them--was very imperfect1 the conception of individual right was confounded in the habit of obedience to monarchical authority4 ,bodin is classed by ,mosheim amongst the writers who sowed the seeds of scepticism in ,france2 but although he was far from an orthodox man1 it is doubtful if ,bodin ever intended his views to be shared beyond the class to which he belonged4 ,to the partial glimpse of individual right in the works of ,bodin add the doctrine of political fraternity taught by ,la ,boetie1 and then this political heresy becomes dangerous in becoming popular4 ,the most decided heretic and doubter of the sixteenth century was one ,sanchez1 by birth a ,portuguese1 and practising as a physician at ,toulouse2 but the impetus which ultimately led to the spread and popularity of sceptical opinions in relation to politics and theology1 is chiefly due to the satirical romances of ,rabelais and the essays of ,montaigne4 ,what ,rabelais was to the supporters of theology1 says ,buckle1 that was ,montaigne to the theology itself4 ,the writings of ,rabelais were only directed against the clergy1 but the writings of ,montaigne were directed against the system of which the clergy were the offspring4 ,montaigne was born at ,bordeaux #aecc1 died #aeib4 ,louis ,blanc says of his words1 ,et ce ne sont pas simples discours d'un philosophe a des philosophes4 ,montaigne s'addresse a tous4 ,montaigne's words were not those of a philosopher talking only to his own order1 he addressed himself to mankind at large1 and he wrote in language the majority could easily comprehend4 ,voltaire points out that ,montaigne as a philosopher was the exception in ,france to his class2 he having succeeded in escaping that persecution which fell so heavily on others4 ,montaigne's thoughts were like sharp instruments scattered broadcast1 and intended for the destruction of many of the old social and conventional bonds2 he was the advocate of individualism1 and placed each man as above society1 rather than society as more important than each man4 ,montaigne mocked the reasoners who contradicted each other1 and derided that fallibility of mind which regarded the opinion of the moment as infallibly true1 and which was yet always temporarily changed by an attack of fever or a draught of strong drink1 and often permanently modified by some new discovery4 ,less fortunate than ,montaigne1 ,godfrey a ,valle was burned for heresy in ,paris in #aegb1 his chief offence having been that of issuing a work entitled ,de ,arte ,nihil ,credendi4 ,heresy thus championed in ,france1 ,germany1 and ,england1 had in ,italy its sixteenth century soldiers in ,pomponatius of ,mantua1 ,giordano ,bruno1 and ,telesio1 both of ,naples1 and in ,campanella of ,calabria1 a gallant band1 who were nearly all met with the cry of ,atheist1 and were either answered with exile1 the prison1 or the faggot4 ,pomponatius1 who was born #adhf and died #aebe1 wrote a treatise on the ,soul1 which was so much deemed an attack on the doctrine of immortality despite a profession of reverence for the dogmas of the ,church1 that the work was publicly burned at ,venice1 a special bull of ,leo ,x4 being directed against the doctrine4 ,bernard ,telesio was born at ,naples in #aejh1 and founded there a school in which mathematics and philosophy were given the first place4 ,during his lifetime he had the good fortune to escape persecution1 but sites his death his works were proscribed by the ,church2 ,telesio was chiefly useful in educating the minds of some of the ,neapolitans for more advanced thinking than his own4 ,this was well illustrated in the case of ,thomas ,campanella1 born #aefh1 who1 attracted by the teachings of ,telesio1 wrote vigorously against the old schoolmen and in favor of the new philosophy4 ,despite an affected reverence for the ,church of ,rome1 ,campanella spent twenty-seven years of his life in prison4 ,campanella has been1 as is usually the case with eminent writers1 charged with atheism1 but there seems to be no fair foundation for the charges ,he was a true heretic1 for he not only opposed ,aristotle2 but even his own teacher ,telesio4 ,none of these men1 however1 yet strove to reach the people1 they wrote to and of one another1 not to or of the masses4 ,it is said that ,campanella was fifty times arrested and seven times tortured for his heresy4 ,one ,andrew de ,bena1 a profound scholar and eminent preacher of the ,church of ,rome1 carried away by the spirit of the time1 came out into the reformed party2 but his mind once set free from the old trammels1 found no rest in ,luther's narrow church1 and a poetic ,pantheism was the result4 ,jerome ,cardan1 a mathematician of considerable ability1 born at ,pavia #afja1 has been fiercely accused of atheism4 ,his chief offence seems to have been rather in an opposite direction2 astrology was with him a favourite subject4 ,while the strange views put forward in some of his works served good purpose by provoking inquiry1 we can hardly class ,cardan otherwise than as a man whose undoubted genius and erudition were more than counterbalanced by his excessively superstitious folly4 ,giordano ,bruno was born near ,naples about #aeej4 ,he was burned at ,rome for heresy on the #agth ,february1 #afjj4 ,bruno was burned for alleged atheism1 but appears rather1 to have been a ,pantheist4 ,his most prominent avowal of heresy was the disbelief in eternal torment and rejection1 of the common orthodox ideas of the devil4 ,he wrote chiefly in ,italian1 his vulgar tongue1 and thus effectively aided the grand march of heresy by familiarising the eyes of the people with newer and truer forms of thought4 ,bruno used the tongue as fluently as the pen4 ,he spoke in ,italy until he had roused an opposition rendering flight the only possibly escape from death4 ,at ,geneva he found no resting place1 the fierce spirit of ,zuingle and ,calvin was there too mighty2 at ,paris he might have found favour1 with the ,king1 and at the ,sorbonne1 but he refused to attend mass1 and delivered a series of popular lectures1 which won many admirers2 from ,paris he went to ,england1 where we find him publicly debating at ,oxford and lecturing on theology1 until he excited an antagonism which induced his return to ,paris1 where he actually publicly discussed for three days some of the grand problems of existence4 ,paris orthodoxy could not permit his onslaughts on established opinions1 and this time it was to ,germany ,bruno turned for hospitality2 where1 after visiting many of the different states1 lecturing freely but with general success1 he drew upon himself a sentence of excommunication at ,helmstadt4 ,at last he returned to ,italy and spoke at ,padua1 but had at once to fly thence from the ,inquisition2 at ,venice he found a resting place in prison1 whence after six years of dungeon1 and after the tender mercy of the rack1 he was led out to receive the final refutation of the faggot4 ,there is a grand heroism in the manner in which he received his sentence and bore his fiery punishment4 ,no cry of despair1 no prayer for escape1 no flinching at the moment of death4 ,bruno's martyrdom may favourably contrast with the highest example ,christianity gives us4 ,it was in the latter half of the sixteenth century1 that ,unitarianism or ,socinianism assumed a front rank position in ,europe1 having its chief strength in ,poland1 with considerable force in ,holland and ,england4 ,in #aebd1 one ,lewis ,hetzer had been publicly burned at ,constance1 for denying the divinity of ,jesus2 but ,hetzer was more connected with the ,anabaptists than with the ,unitarians4 ,about the same time a man named ,claudius openly argued amongst the ,swiss people1 against the doctrine of the trinity1 and one ,john ,campanus contended at ,wittemberg1 and other places1 against the usually inculcated doctrines of the ,church1 as to the ,father1 ,son1 and ,holy ,ghost4 ,in #aeff1 ,valentine ,gentilis1 a ,neapolitan1 was put to death at ,rome1 for teaching the superiority of ,god the ,father1 over the ,son and the ,holy ,ghost4 ,modern ,unitarianism appears to have had as its founders or chief promoters1 ,laelius ,socinus1 and his nephew ,faustus ,socinus2 the first having the better brain and higher genius1 but marred by a timid and irresolute character2 the second having a more active nature and bolder temperament4 ,from ,cracow and ,racow1 during the latter half of this century1 the ,unitarians 7who drew into their ranks many men of advanced minds47 issued a large number of books and pamphlets1 which were circulated amongst the people with considerable zeal and industry4 ,unitarianism was carried from ,poland into ,transylvania by a physician1 ,george ,blandrata1 and a preacher ,francis ,david1 or ,davides1 who obtained the support and countenance of the then ruler of the country4 ,davides1 unfortunately for himself1 became too unitarian for the ,unitarians2 he adopted the extreme views of one ,simon ,budnffius1 who1 in ,lithuania1 entirely repudiated any sort1 of religious worship in reference to ,jesus4 ,budnaeus was excommunicated by the ,unitarians themselves1 and ,davides was imprisoned for the rest of his life4 ,as the ,unitarians were persecuted by the old ,romish and new ,lutheran ,churches1 so they in turn persecuted seceders from and opposers of their own movement4 ,each man's history involved the widening out of public thought2 each act of persecution illustrated a vain endeavour to check the progress of heresy2 each new sect marked a step towards the destruction of the old obstructive faiths4 ,about the close of the sixteenth century1 ,ernestius ,sonerus1 of ,nuremberg1 wrote against the doctrine of eternal torment1 and also against the divinity of ,jesus1 but his works were never very widely circulated4 ,amongst the distinguished ,europeans of the sixteenth century whom ,dr4 ,j4 ,f4 ,smith mentions as either atheists or favouring atheism1 were ,paul ,jovius1 ,peter ,aretin1 and ,muretus4 ,rumour has even enrolled ,leo ,x4 himself in the atheistical ranks4 ,how far some of these men had warranted the charge other than by being promoters of literature and lovers of philosophy1 it is now difficult to say4 ,a determined resistance was offered to the spread of heretical opinions in the ,south of ,europe by the ,roman ,church1 and it is alleged that some thousands of persons were burned or otherwise punished in ,spain1 ,portugal1 and ,naples during the sixteenth century4 ,the ,inquisition or ,holy ,office was in ,spain and ,portugal the most prominent and active persecutor1 but persecution was carried on vigorously in other parts of ,europe by the seceders from ,rome4 ,zuingle1 ,luther1 and ,calvin1 were as harsh as the ,pope towards those with whom they differed4 ,michael ,servetus1 or ,servede1 was a native of ,arragon1 by profession a physician2 he wrote against the ordinary doctrines of the ,trinity1 but was far from ordinary ,unitarianism4 ,he was burned at ,geneva1 at the instance of ,calvin4 ,calvin was rather fond of burning heretical opponents2 to the name of ,servetus might be added that of ,gruet1 who also was burned at the instance of ,calvin1 for denying the divinity of the ,christian religion1 and for arguing against the immortality of the soul4 ,it is worth notice that while heresy in this sixteenth century began to branch out openly1 and to strike its roots down firmly amongst the people1 ecclesiastical historians are compelled to record improvement in the condition of society4 ,mosheim says1 ,in this century the arts and sciences were carried to a pitch unknown to preceding ages1 and from this happy renovation of learning1 the ,european churches derived the most signal and inestimable advantages4 ,the benign influence of true science1 and its tendency to improve both the form of religion and the institutions of civil policy1 were perceived by many of the states4 ,the love of literature is the most remarkable and characteristic form of advancing civilisation4 ,instead of being the absorbing passion of the learned few1 it becomes gradually the delight and occupation of increasing numbers4 ,this cultivation of literary pursuits by the mass is only possible when enough of heresy has been obtained to render their scope of study wide enough to be useful4 ,rotterdam gave life to the polished ,erasmus1 ,valentia to ,ludovico ,vivez1 ,picardy to ,le ,fevre1 and ,france to ,rabelais4 ,in the latter half of this century1 giants in literature grew out1 giants who wrote for the people4 ,william ,shakespeare wrote even for those who could not read1 but who might learn while looking and listening4 ,his comedies and tragedies are at the same time pictures for the people of diverse phases of ,english life and character1 with a thereunto added universality of pourtrayal and breadth in philosophy1 which it is hardly too much to say1 that no other dramatist has ever equalled4 ,italy boasts its ,torquato ,tasso1 whose ,jerusalem ,delivered1 the grand work of a great poet1 marks1 like a mighty monument1 the age capable of finding even in a priest-ridden country1 an audience amongst the lowest as well as the highest1 ready to read and sing1 and finally permeated with the poet's outpourings4 ,in astronomy1 the name of ,tycho ,brahe stands out in the sixteenth century like one of the first magnitude stars whose existence he catalogued4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,the ,,seventeenth ,,century ,the seeds of inquiry sown in the sixteenth century resulted in a fruitful display of advanced opinions during the next age4 ,in the page of seventeenth century history1 more names of men1 either avowedly heretics1 or charged by the orthodox with heresy1 or whose labours can be shown to have tended to the growth of heresy1 may probably be recorded than can be found during the whole of the previously long period during which the ,christian ,church assumed to dominate and control ,european thought4 ,the seventeenth century muster-roll of heresy is indeed a grand one1 and gloriously filled4 ,one of its early martyrs was ,julius ,caesar ,vanini1 who was burned at ,toulouse1 in the year #afai1 aged #cd1 as an impious and obstinate ,atheist4 ,was he ,atheist1 or was he not8 ,this is a question1 in answering which the few remains of his works give little ground for sharing the opinion of his persecutors4 ,yet many writers agree in writing as if his ,atheism were of indisputable notoriety4 ,he was a poor ,neapolitan priest1 he preached a sort of ,pantheism2 unfortunately for himself1 he believed in the utility of public discussion on theological questions1 and thus brought upon his head the charge of seeking to convert the world to ,atheism4 ,in #afaa1 two men1 named ,legat and ,whitman1 were burned in ,england for heresy4 ,but1 says ,buckle1 this was the last gasp of expiring bigotry2 and since that memorable day1 the soil of ,england has never been stained by the blood of a man who has suffered for his religious creed4 ,peter ,charron1 of ,paris1 ought perhaps to have been included in the sixteenth century list1 for he died in #afjc1 but his only known work1 ,la ,sagesse1 belongs to the seventeenth century1 in which it circulated and obtained reputation4 ,he urged that religion is the accidental result of birth and education1 and that therefore variety of creed should not be cause of quarrel between men1 as such variety is the result of circumstances over which the men themselves have had no control2 and he urges that as each sect claims to be the only true one1 we ought to rise superior to all sects1 and without being terrified by the fear of future punishment1 or allured by the hope of future happiness1 be content with such practical religion as consists in performing the duties of life4 ,buckle1 who speaks in high terms of ,charron1 says1 ,the ,sorbonne went so far as to condemn ,charron's great work1 but could not succeed in having it prohibited4 ,rene ,descartes ,duperron1 a few years later than ,bacon 7he was born in #aeif1 at ,la ,haye1 in ,touraine1 died #afej1 at ,stockholm7 established the foundations of the deductive method of reasoning1 and applied it in a manner which ,bacon had apparently carefully avoided4 ,both ,descartes and ,bacon addressed themselves to the task of substituting for the old systems1 a more comprehensive and useful spirit of philosophy2 but while ,bacon sought to accomplish this by persuading men to experiment and observation1 ,descartes commenced with the search for a first and self-evident ground of all knowledge4 ,this1 to him1 is found in consciousness4 ,the existence of ,deity was a point which ,bacon left untouched by reason1 yet with ,descartes it was the first proposition he sought to prove4 ,he says1 ,i have always thought that the two questions of the existence of ,god and the nature of the soul1 were the chief of those which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy than by theology1 for although it is sufficient for us1 the faithful1 to believe in ,god1 and that the soul does not perish with the body1 it does not seem possible ever to persuade the infidels to any religion unless we first prove to them these two things by natural reason4 ,to prove this existence of ,god and the immortality of the soul1 ,descartes needed a firm starting point1 one which no doubt could touch1 one which no argument could shake4 ,he found this point in the fact of his own existence4 ,he could doubt everything else1 but he could not doubt that he1 the thinking doubter1 existed4 ,his own existence was the primal fact1 the indubitable certainty1 which served as the base for all other reasonings1 hence his famous ,cogito ergo sum3 ,i think1 therefore ,i am4 ,and although it has been fairly objected that ,descartes did not exist because he thought1 but existed and thought2 it is nevertheless clear that it is only in the thinking that ,descartes had the consciousness of his existence4 ,the fact of ,descartes' existence was1 to him1 one above and beyond all logic1 ,evidence could not add to the certitude1 no scepticism could impeach it4 ,whether or not we agree with the ,cartesian philosophy1 or the reasonings used to sustain it1 we must admire the following four rules which he has given us1 and which1 with the view of consciousness in which we do not entirely concur1 are the essential features of the basis of a considerable portion of ,descartes' system2-- #a4 ,never to accept anything as true but what is evidently so2 to admit nothing but what so clearly and distinctly presents itself as true1 that there can be no reason to doubt it4 #b4 ,to divide every question into as many separate parts as possible1 that each part being more easily conceived1 the whole may be more intelligible4 #c4 ,to conduct the examination with order1 beginning by that of objects the most simple1 and therefore the easiest to be known1 and ascending little by little up to knowledge of the most complex4 #d4 ,to make such exact calculations1 and such circumspections as to be confident that nothing essential has been omitted4 ,consciousness being the basis of all certitude1 everything of which you are clearly and distinctly conscious must be true3 everything which you clearly and distinctly conceive1 exists1 if the idea involve existence4 ,it should be remarked that consciousness being a state of condition of the mind1 is by no means an infallible guide8 ,men may fancy they have clear ideas1 when their consciousness1 if carefully examined1 would prove to have been treacherous4 ,descartes argued for three classes of ideas--acquired1 compounded1 and innate4 ,it is in his assumption of innate ideas that you have one of the radical weaknesses of his system4 ,sir ,william ,hamilton points out that the use of the word idea by ,descartes1 to express the object of memory1 imagination1 and sense1 was quite a new usage1 only one other writer1 ,david ,buchanan1 having previously used the word idea with this signification4 ,descartes did not write for the mass1 and his philosophy would have been limited to a much narrower circle had its spread rested on his own efforts4 ,but the age was one for new thought1 and the contemporaries and successors of ,descartes carried the ,cartesian logic to extremes he had perhaps avoided1 and they taught the new philosophy to the world in a fearless spirit1 with a boldness for which ,descartes could have given them no example4 ,descartes1 who in early life had travelled much more than was then the custom1 had probably made the personal acquaintance of most of the leading thinkers of ,europe then living2 it would be otherwise difficult to account for the very ready reception given by them to his first work4 ,fortunately for ,descartes1 he was born with a fair fortune1 and escaped such difficulties as poorer philosophers must needs submit to4 ,there is perhaps a per contra side4 ,it is more than possible that if the needs of life had compelled him1 ,descartes' scientific predilections might have resulted in more immediate advantage to society4 ,his philosophy is often pedantic to weariness1 and his scientific theories are often sterile4 ,the fear of poverty might have quickened some of his speculations into a more practical utterance4 ,buckle reminds us that ,descartes was the first who successfully applied algebra to geometry2 that he pointed out the important law of the sines2 that in an age in which optical instruments were extremely imperfect1 he discovered the changes to which light is subjected in the eye by the crystalline lens2 that he directed attention to the consequences resulting from the weight of the atmosphere1 and that he detected the causes of the rainbow4 ,descartes1 says ,saintes1 throwing off the swaddling clothes of scholasticism1 resolved to owe to himself alone the acquisition of the truth which he so earnestly desired to possess4 ,for what else is the methodical doubt which he established as the starting point in his philosophy1 than an energetic protest of the human mind against all external authority8 ,having thus placed all science on a philosophical basis1 no matter what1 he freed philosophy herself from her long servitude1 and proclaimed her queen of the intellect4 ,hence every one who has wished to account to himself for his existence1 every one who has desired to know himself to know nature1 and to rise to its author2 in a word1 all who have wished to make a wise use of their intellectual faculties1 to apply them1 not to hollow speculations which border on nonentity1 but to sensible and practical inquiries1 have taken and followed some direction from ,descartes4 ,it is almost amusing when philosophers criticise their predecessors4 ,mons4 ,henri ,bitter denies to ,descartes any originality of method or even of illustration1 while ,hegel describes him as the founder of modern philosophy1 whose influence upon his own age and on modern times it is impossible to exaggerate4 ,to attempt to deal fully and truly with ,descartes in the few lines which can be spared here1 is impossible2 all that is sought is to as it were catalogue his name in the seventeenth century list4 ,whether originator or imitator1 whether founder or disciple1 it is certain that ,descartes gave a sharp spur to ,european thought1 and mightily hastened the progress of heresy4 ,it is not the object or duty of the present writer to examine or refute any of the extraordinary views entertained by ,descartes as to vortices4 ,descartes himself is reported to have said my theory of vortices is a philosophical romance4 ,science in the last three centuries has travelled even more rapidly than philosophy2 and most of the physical speculations of ,descartes are relegated to the region of grandly curious blunderings4 ,there is one point of error held by ,descartes sufficiently entertained even to-day--although most often without a distinct appreciation of the position--to justify a few words upon it4 ,descartes denied mental faculties to all the animal kingdom except mankind4 ,all the brute kingdom he regarded as machines without intelligence4 ,in this he was logical1 even in error1 for he accorded a soul to man which he denied to the brute4 ,soul and mind with him are identified1 and thought is the fundamental attribute of mind4 ,to admit that a dog1 horse1 or elephant can think1 that it can remember what happened yesterday1 that it can reason ever so incompletely1 would be to admit that that dog1 horse1 or elephant1 has some kind of soul2 to avoid this he reduces all animals outside the human family to the position of machines4 ,to-day science admits in animals1 more or less according to their organisation1 perception1 memory1 judgment1 and even some sort of reason4 ,yet orthodoxy still claims a soul for man even if he be a madman from his birth1 and denies it to the sagacious elephant1 the intelligent horse1 the faithful dog1 and the cunning monkey4 ,his proof of the existence of ,deity is thus stated by ,lewes3--,interrogating his consciousness1 he found that he had the idea of ,god1 understanding by ,god1 a substance infinite1 eternal1 immutable1 independent1 omniscient1 omnipotent4 ,this1 to him1 was as certain a truth as the truth of his own existence4 ,i exist3 not only do ,i exist1 but exist as a miserably imperfect finite being1 subject to change1 greatly ignorant1 and incapable of creating anything4 ,in this1 my consciousness1 ,i find by my finitude that ,i am not the ,all2 by my imperfection1 that ,i am not perfect4 ,yet an infinite and perfect being must exist1 because infinity and perfection are implied as correlatives in my ideas of imperfection and finitude4 ,god therefore exists3 his existence is clearly proclaimed in my consciousness1 and can no more be a matter of doubt1 when fairly considered1 than my own existence4 ,the conception of an infinite being proves his real existence2 for if there is not really such a being1 ,i must have made the conception2 but if ,i could make it1 ,i can also unmake it1 which evidently is not true2 therefore there must be1 externally to myself an archetype from which the conception was derived4 ,all that we clearly and distinctly conceive as contained in anything1 is true of that thing4 ,now we conceive1 clearly and distinctly1 that the existence of ,god is contained in the idea we have of him--,ergo1 ,god exists4 ,it may not be out of place to note at this demonstration1 that the ,jesuit writer1 ,father ,hardouin1 in his ,atheists ,unmasked1 as a recompense for this demonstration of the existence of ,deity1 places ,descartes and his disciples1 le ,grand and ,regis1 in the first rank of atheistical teachers4 ,voltaire1 commenting on this1 remarks1 ,the man who had devoted all the acuteness of his extraordinary intellect to the discovery of new proofs of the existence of a ,god1 was most absurdly charged with denying him altogether4 ,speaking of the proof of the existence of ,deity1 ,demonstrations of this kind1 says ,froude1 were the characteristics of the period4 ,descartes had set the example of constructing them1 and was followed by ,cudworth1 ,clarke1 ,berkeley1 and many others besides ,spinoza4 ,the inconclusiveness of the method may perhaps be observed most readily in the strangely opposite conceptions formed by all these writers of the nature of that ,being whose existence they nevertheless agreed1 by the same process1 to gather each out of their ideas4 ,it is important1 however1 to examine it carefully1 for it is the very keystone of the ,pantheistic system4 ,as stated by ,descartes1 the argument stands something as follows3--,god is an all-perfect ,being1 perfection is the idea which we form of ,him1 existence is a mode of perfection1 and therefore ,god exists4 ,the sophism1 we are told1 is only apparent1 existence is part of the idea--as much involved in it as the equality of all lines drawn from the centre to the circumference of a circle is involved in the idea of a circle4 ,a non-existent all-perfect ,being is as inconceivable as a quadrilateral triangle4 ,it is sometimes answered that in this way we may prove the existence of anything1 ,titans1 ,chimaeras1 or the ,olympian gods2 we have but to define them as existing1 and the proof is complete4 ,but this objection is summarily set aside2 none of these beings are by hypothesis absolutely perfect1 and1 therefore1 of their existence we can conclude nothing4 ,with greater justice1 however1 we may say1 that of such terms as perfection and existence we know too little to speculate4 ,existence may be an imperfection for all we can tell1 we know nothing about the matter4 ,such arguments are but endless petitiones principii--like the self-devouring serpent1 resolving themselves into nothing4 ,we wander round and round them1 in the hope of finding some tangible point at which we can seize their meaning2 but we are presented everywhere with the same impracticable surface1 from which our grasp glides off ineffectual4 ,thomas ,hobbes1 of ,malmesbury1 is one of those men more often freely abused than carefully read2 he was born ,april #eth1 #aehh1 died #afgi4 ,he was the subtlest dialectician of his time1 and one of the earliest ,english advocates of the materialistic limitation of mind2 he denies the possibility of any knowledge other than as resulting from sensation2 his doctrine is in direct negation of ,descartes' theory of innate ideas1 and would be fatal to the orthodox dogma of mind as spiritual4 ,whatever we imagine1 he says1 is finite4 ,therefore1 there is no idea1 no conception of anything we call infinite4 ,in a brief pamphlet on his own views1 published in #afhj1 in reply to attacks upon him1 he writes1 ,besides the creation of the world there is no argument to prove a ,deity1 and that it cannot be decided by any argument that the world had a beginning2 but he professes to admit the authority of the ,magistrate and the ,scriptures to override argument4 ,he says that he does not believe that the safety of the state depends upon the safety of the church4 ,some of ,hobbes' pieces were only in ,latin1 others were issued in ,english4 ,in one of those on ,heresy1 he mentions that by the statute of #a ,edward ,,vi4 cap #ab1 there is provision for the repeal of all former acts of parliament made to punish any manner of doctrine concerning religion4 ,in the following extracts the reader will find the prominent features of that sensationalism which to-day has so many adherents3--,concerning the thoughts of man1 ,i will consider them first singly1 and afterwards in a train or dependence upon one another4 ,singly they are every one a representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body without us1 which is commonly called an object4 ,which object worketh on the eyes1 ears1 and other parts of a man's body1 and by diversity of working1 produceth diversity of appearances4 ,the original of them all is that which we call sense1 for there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first totally or by parts been begotten upon the organs of sense4 ,the rest are derived from that original4 ,the effect of this is to deny any possible knowledge other than as results from the activity of the sensative faculties1 and is also fatal to the doctrine of a soul4 ,according1 says ,hobbes1 to the two principal parts of man1 ,i divide his faculties into two sorts--faculties of the body1 and faculties of the mind4 ,since the minute and distinct anatomy of the powers of the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose1 ,i will only sum them up in these three heads--power nutritive1 power generative1 and power motive1 ,of the powers of the mind there be two sorts--cognitive1 imaginative1 or conceptive1 and motive4 ,for the understanding of what ,i mean by the power cognitive1 we must remember and acknowledge that there be in our minds continually certain images or conceptions of the things without us4 ,this imagery and representation of the qualities of the things without1 is that which we call our conception1 imagination1 ideas1 notice1 or knowledge of them2 and the faculty1 or power by which we are capable of such knowledge1 is that ,i here call cognitive power1 or conceptive1 the power of knowing or conceiving4 ,all the qualities called sensible are1 in the object that causeth them1 but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth on our organs diversely4 ,neither in us that are pressed are they anything else but divers motions2 for motion produceth nothing but motion4 ,because the image in vision1 consisting of colour and shape1 is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the objects of that sense2 it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion that the same colour and shape are the very qualities themselves1 and for the same cause that sound and noise are the qualities of the bell or of the air4 ,and this opinion hath been so long received that the contrary must needs appear a great paradox1 and yet the introduction of species visible and intelligible 7which is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion7 passing to and fro from the object is worse than any paradox1 as being a plain impossibility4 ,i shall therefore endeavour to make plain these points4 ,that the subject wherein colour and image are inherent1 is not the object or thing seen4 ,that there is nothing without us 7really7 which we call an image or colour4 ,that the said image or colour is but an apparition unto us of the motion1 agitation1 or alteration which the object worketh in the brain1 or spirits1 or some internal substance of the head4 ,that as in visions1 so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses1 the subject of their inference is not the object but the sentient4 ,strange to say ,hobbes was protected from his clerical antagonists by the favour of ,charles ,,ii41 who had the portrait of the philosopher of ,malmesbury hung on the walls of his private room at ,whitehall4 ,lord ,herbert1 of ,cherbury 7one of the friends of ,hobbes7 born #aeha1 died #afdh1 is remarkable for having written a book ,de ,veritate1 in favour of natural--and against any necessity for revealed--religion2 and yet at the same time pleading a sort of special sign or revelation to himself in favour of its publication4 ,peter ,gassendi1 a native of ,provence1 born #aeib1 died #afee1 was one of the opponents of ,descartes and of ,lord ,herbert1 and was an admirer of ,hobbes2 he advocated the old philosophy of ,epicurus1 professing to reject from it everything contrary to ,christianity4 ,but1 asks ,cousin1 how could he succeed in this8 ,principles1 processes1 results1 everything in ,epicurus is sensualism1 materialism1 atheism4 ,gassendi's works were characterised by great learning and ability1 but being confined to the ,latin tongue1 and written avowedly with the intent of avoiding any conflict with the church1 they gave but little immediate impetus to the great heretical movement4 ,arnauld charges ,gassendi with overturning the doctrine of the immortality of the soul1 in his discussion with ,descartes1 and ,leibnitz charges ,gassendi with corrupting and injuring the whole system of natural religion by the wavering nature of his opinions4 ,buckle says1 ,the rapid increase of heresy in the middle of the seventeenth century is very remarkable1 and it greatly aided civilisation in ,england by encouraging habits of independent thought4 ,in ,february #afdf1 ,boyle writes from ,london1 ,there are few days pass here1 that may not justly be accused of the brewing or broaching of some new opinion4 ,if any man have lost his religion1 let him repair to ,london1 and ,i'll warrant him he shall find it3 ,i had almost said too1 and if any man has a religion1 let him but come hither now and he shall go near to lose it4 ,about #afee1 one ,isaac ,la ,peyrere wrote two small treatises to prove that the world was peopled before ,adam1 but being arrested at ,brussels1 and threatened with the stake1 he1 to escape the fiery refutation1 made a full recantation of his views1 and restored to the world its dearly prized stain of natural depravity1 and to ,adam his position as the first man4 ,la ,peyrere's forced recantation is almost forgotten1 the opinions he recanted are now amongst common truths4 ,baruch ,d',espinoza or ,benedict ,spinoza1 was born ,nov4 #bd1afcb1 in ,amsterdam2 an apt scholar1 he1 at the early age of fourteen1 had mastered the ordinary tasks set him by his teacher1 the ,babbi ,morteira1 and at fifteen puzzled and affrighted the grave heads of the synagogue1 by attempting the solution of problems which they themselves were well content to pass by4 ,as he grew older his reason took more daring flights1 and after attempts had been made to bribe him into submissive silence1 when threats had failed to check or modify him1 and when even the knife had no effect1 then the fury of disappointed fanaticism found vent in the bitter curse of excommunication1 and when about twenty-four years of age1 ,spinoza found himself outcast and anathematised4 ,having no private means or rich patrons1 and differing in this from nearly every one whose name we have yet given our hero subsisted as a polisher of glasses1 microscopes1 c41 devoting his leisure to the study of languages and philosophy4 ,there are few men as to whom modern writers have so widely differed in the description of their views1 few who have been so thoroughly misrepresented4 ,bayle speaks of him as a systematic ,atheist4 ,saintes says that he laid the foundations of a ,pantheism as destructive to scholastic philosophy as to all revealed religion4 ,voltaire repeatedly writes of ,spinoza as an ,atheist and teacher of ,atheism4 ,samuel ,taylor ,coleridge speaks of ,spinoza as an ,atheist1 and prefaces this opinion with the following passage1 which we commend to more orthodox1 and less acute writers3--,little do these men know what ,atheism is4 ,not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind1 or goodness of heart to be an ,atheist4 ,i repeat it--,not one man in a thousand has either goodness of heart1 or strength of mind1 to be1 an ,atheist4 ,and yet1 says ,froude1 both in friend and enemy alike1 there has been a reluctance to see ,spinoza as he really was4 ,the ,herder and ,schleiermacher school have claimed him as a ,christian1 a position which no little disguise was necessary to make tenable2 the orthodox ,protestants and ,catholics have called him an ,atheist1 which is still more extravagant2 and even a man like ,novalis1 who1 it might have been expected1 would have said something reasonable1 could find no better name for him than a ',gott trunkener mann1' a ,god intoxicated man2 an expression which has been quoted by everybody who has since written on the subject1 and which is about as inapplicable as those laboriously pregnant sayings usually are4 ,with due allowance for exaggeration1 such a name would describe tolerably the transcendental mystics1 a ,toler1 a ,boehmen1 or a ,swedenborg2 but with what justice can it be applied to the cautious1 methodical ,spinoza1 who carried his thoughts about with him for twenty years1 deliberately shaping them1 and who gave them at last to the world in a form more severe than with such subjects had ever been so much as attempted before8 ,with him1 as with all great men1 there was no effort after sublime emotions4 ,he was a plain1 practical person2 his object in philosophy1 was only to find a rule by which to govern his own actions and his own judgment2 and his treatises contain no more than the conclusions at which he arrived in this purely personal search1 with the grounds on which he rested them4 ,spinoza1 who was wise enough to know that it was utterly useless to expect an unfettered examination of philosophical problems by men who are bound to accept as an infallible arbiter any particular book1 and who knew that reasonings must be of a very limited character which took the alleged ,hebrew ,revelation as the centre and starting point for all inquiry1 and also as the circling1 limitation line for all investigation--devoted himself to the task of examining how far the ordinary orthodox doctrines as to the infallibility of the ,old ,testament were fairly maintainable4 ,it was for this reason he penned his ,tractatus ,theologico-,politicus1 wherein he says--,we see that they who are most under the influence of superstitious feelings1 and who covet uncertainties without stint or measure1 more especially when they fall into difficulty or danger1 cannot help themselves1 are the persons1 who1 with vows and prayers and womanly tears1 implore the ,divine assistance2 who call reason1 blind1 and human wisdom vain2 and all1 forsooth1 because they cannot find an assured way to the vanities they desire4 ,the mainspring of superstition is fear2 by fear too is superstition sustained and nourished4 ,men are chiefly assailed by superstition ,when suffering from fear1 and all they then do in the name of a vain religion is1 in fact1 but the vaporous product of a sorrowful spirit1 the delirium of a mind overpowered by terror4 ,he proceeds1 ,i have often wondered that men who boast of the great advantage they enjoy under the ,christian dispensation--the peace1 the joy they experience1 the brotherly love they feel towards all in its exercise--should nevertheless contend with so much acrimony1 and show such intolerance and unappeasable hatred towards one another4 ,if faith had to be inferred from action rather than profession1 it would indeed be impossible to say to what sect or creed the majority of mankind belong4 ,he laid down that ,no one is bound by natural law to live according to the pleasure of another1 but that every one is by natural title the rightful asserter of his own independence1 and that he or they govern best who concede to every one the privilege of thinking as he pleases1 and of saying what he thinks4 ,criticising the ,hebrew prophets1 he points out that ,god used no particular style in making his communications2 but in the same measure as the prophet possessed learning and ability1 his communications were either concise and clear1 or on the contrary1 they were rude1 prolix1 and obscure4 ,the representations of ,zechariah1 as we learn from the accounts themselves1 were so obscure that without an explanation they could not be understood by himself2 and those of ,daniel were so dark1 that even when explained1 they were still unintelligible1 not to others only1 but also to the prophet himself4 ,he argues entirely against miracles1 as either contrary to nature or above nature1 declaring any such to be a sheer absurdity1 merum esse absurdum ,of the ,scriptures themselves he points out that the ancient ,hebrew is entirely lost4 ,of the authors1 or1 if you please1 writers1 of many books1 we either know almost nothing1 or we entertain grave doubts as to the correctness with which the several books are ascribed to the parties whose names they bear4 ,then we neither know on what occasion1 nor at what time those books were indited1 the writers of which are unknown to us4 ,further1 we know nothing of the hands into which the books fell2 nor of the codices which have furnished such a variety of readings1 nor whether1 perchance1 there were not many other variations in other copies4 ,voltaire says of ,spinoza1 ,not only in the character of a ,jew he attacks the ,new ,testament1 but in the character of a scholar he ruins the ,old4 ,the logic of ,spinoza was directed to the demonstration of one substance with infinite attributes1 for which one substance with infinite attributes he had as equivalent the name ,god4 ,some who have since followed ,spinoza1 have agreed in his one substance1 but have denied the possibility of infinite attributes4 ,attributes or qualities1 they urge1 are attributes of the finite or conditioned1 and that you cannot have attributes of substance except as attributes of its modes4 ,you have in this distinction the division line between ,spinozism and ,atheism4 ,spinoza recognises infinite intelligence1 but ,atheism cannot conceive intelligence except in relation as quality of the conditioned1 and not as the essence of the absolute4 ,spinoza denied the doctrine of freewill1 as with him all phenomena are of ,god1 so he rejects the ordinary notions of good and evil4 ,the popular views of ,spinoza in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were chiefly derived from the volumes of his antagonists2 men learned his name because priests abused him1 few had perused his works for themselves4 ,to-day we may fairly say that ,spinoza's logic and his biblical criticisms gave a vigour and force to the heresy of the latter half of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century2 a directness and effectiveness theretofore wanting4 ,as for the ,bible1 there was no longer an affected reverence for every yod or comma1 church traditions were ignored wherever inconsistent with reason1 and the law itself was boldly challenged when its letter was against the spirit of human progress4 ,one of the greatest promoters of heresy in ,england was ,ralph ,cudworth1 born #afag1 died #afhh4 ,he wrote to combat the atheistical tenets which were then commencing to obtain popularity in ,england1 and was a controversialist so fair and candid in the statement of the opinions of his antagonists1 that he was actually charged with heresy himself1 and the epithets of ,arian1 ,socinian1 ,deist1 and even ,atheist were freely levelled against him4 ,he has raised1 says ,dryden1 such strong objections against the being of a ,god and ,providence1 that many think he has not answered them4 ,the clamour of bigotry seems to have discouraged ,cudworth1 and he left many of his works unprinted4 ,cousin describes him as a ,platonist1 of a firm and profound mind1 who bends somewhat under the weight of his erudition4 ,thomas ,burnet1 born #afce1 died #agae1 a clergyman of the ,church of ,england1 who1 though high in favour with ,king ,william and the famous ,archbishop ,tillotson1 is said to have been shut out from preferment in the church chiefly1 if not entirely1 on account of his many heterodox views4 ,he did not accept the orthodox notions on the ,mosaic account of the creation1 fall1 and deluge4 ,regarding the account of the fall as allegorical1 he argued for the ultimate salvation of everyone1 and of course denied the doctrine of eternal torment4 ,in a curious passage relating to the equivocations of a large number of the clergy in openly taking the oath of allegiance to ,william ,,iii41 while secretly supporting ,james as ,king1 ,burnet says1 the prevarication of too many in so sacred a matter contributed not a little to fortify the growing atheism of the time4 ,as ,descartes and ,spinoza had been foremost on the continent1 so was ,locke in ,england1 and no sketch of the progress of heresy during the seventeenth century would be deserving serious regard which did not accord a prominent place to ,john ,locke1 whom ,g4 ,h4 ,lewes calls one of the wisest of ,englishmen1 and of whom ,buckle speaks as an innovator in his philosophy1 and an ,unitarian in his creed4 ,he was born in #afcb1 and died #agjd4 ,locke1 according to his own fashion1 was a sincere and earnest ,christian2 but this has not saved him from being furiously assailed for the materialistic character of his philosophy1 and many have been ready to assert that ,locke's principles lead to ,atheism4 ,in politics ,locke laid down1 that unjust and unlawful force on the part of the government might and ought to be resisted by force on the part of the citizens4 ,he urged that on questions of theology there ought to be no penalties consequent upon the reception or rejection of any particular religious opinion4 ,how far those were right who regarded ,locke's metaphysical reasoning as2 dangerous to orthodoxy may be1 judged by the following extract on the origin of ideas3--3 ,follow a child from its birth and observe the alterations that time makes1 and you shall find1 as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with ideas1 it comes to be more and more awake2 thinks more1 the more it has matter to think on4 ,after some time1 it begins to know the objects1 which being most familiar with it1 have made lasting impressions4 ,thus it comes1 by degrees1 to know the persons it daily converses with1 and distinguish them from strangers2 which are instances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to it2 and so we may observe1 how the mind1 by degrees improves in these1 and advances to the exercise of those other faculties of enlarging1 compounding1 and abstracting its ideas1 and of reasoning about them1 and reflecting upon all these4 ,if it shall be demanded then1 when a man begins to have any ideas8 ,i think the true answer is1 when he first has any sensation4 ,for since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind1 before the senses have conveyed any in1 ,i conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval with sensation2 which is such an impression or emotion1 made in some part of the body1 as produces some perception in the understanding4 ,it is about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects1 that the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call perception1 remembering1 consideration1 reasoning1 c4 ,in time1 the mind comes to reflect on its own operations1 about the ideas got by sensation1 and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas1 which ,i call ideas of reflection4 ,these are the impressions that are made on our senses by outward objects1 that are extrinsical to the mind2 and its own operations1 proceeding from powers intrinsical and proper to itself1 which1 when reflected on by itself1 becoming also objects of its contemplation1 are1 as ,i have said1 the original of all knowledge4 ,thus the first capacity of human intellect is1 that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it1 either through the senses1 by outward objects1 or by its own operations1 when it reflects on them4 ,this is the first step a man makes towards the discovery of anything1 and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world4 ,all those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds1 and reach as high as heaven itself1 take their rise and footing here3 in all that good extent wherein the mind wanders1 in those remote speculations1 it may seem to be elevated with1 it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its contemplation4 ,in this part1 the understanding is merely passive2 and whether or no it will have these beginnings1 and1 as it were1 materials of knowledge1 is not in its own power4 ,for the objects of our senses do1 many of them1 obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds1 whether we will or no2 and the operations of our minds will not let us be without1 at least1 some obscure notions of them4 ,no man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks4 ,these simple ideas1 when offered to the mind1 the understanding can no more refuse to have1 nor alter1 when they are imprinted1 nor blot them out and make new ones itself1 than a mirror can refuse1 alter1 or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects set before it do therein produce4 ,as the bodies that surround us do diversely affect our organs1 the mind is forced to receive the impressions1 and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that are annexed to them4 ,the distinction pointed out by ,lewes between ,locke and ,hobbes and ,gassendi1 is that the two latter taught that all our ideas were derived from sensations1 while ,locke said there were two sources1 not one source1 and these two were sensation and reflection4 ,locke was in style a more popular writer than ,hobbes1 and the heretical effect of the doctrines on the mind not being so immediately perceived in consequence of ,locke's repeated declarations in favour of ,christianity1 his metaphysical productions were more widely read than those of ,hobbes2 but ,locke really teaches the same doctrine as that laid down by ,robert ,owen in his views on the formation of character2 and his views on sensation1 as the primary source of ideas1 are fatal to all notions of innate ideas and of freewill4 ,voltaire1 speaking of ,locke1 says3--',we shall1 perhaps1 never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not4' ,this judicious and guarded observation was considered by more than one divine1 as neither more nor less than a scandalous and impious declaration1 that the soul is material and mortal4 ,some ,english devotees1 after their usual manner1 sounded the alarm4 ,the superstitious are in society what poltroons are in an army--they both feel and excite causeless terror4 ,the cry was1 that ,mr4 ,locke wished to overturn religion2 the subject1 however1 had nothing to do with religion at all2 it was purely a philosophical question1 and perfectly independent of faith and revelation4 ,one clergyman1 the ,rev4 ,william ,carrol1 wrote1 charging ,atheism as the result of ,locke's teachings4 ,the famous ,sir ,isaac ,newton even grew so alarmed with the materialistic tendency of ,locke's philosophy1 that when ,john ,locke was reported sick and unlikely to live1 it is credibly stated that ,newton went so far as to say that it would be well if the author of the essay on the ,understanding were already dead4 ,in #afhi1 one ,cassimer ,leszynski1 a ,polish knight1 was burned at ,warsaw for denying the being and providence of a ,god2 but there are no easy means of learning whether the charge arose from prejudice on the part of his accusers1 or whether this unfortunate gentleman really held ,atheistic views4 ,peter ,bayle1 born at ,carlat1 in ,foix1 #afdg1 died in ,holland1 #agjf1 was a writer of great power and brilliancy and wide learning4 ,without standing avowedly on the side of scepticism1 he did much to promote sceptical views amongst the rapidly growing class of men of letters4 ,he declared that it was better to be an ,atheist1 than to have a false or unworthy idea of ,god2 that a man can be at the same time an ,atheist and an honest man1 and that a people without a religion is capable of good order4 ,bayle's writings grew more heretical towards the latter part of his career1 and he suffered considerable persecution at the hands of the ,church1 for having spoken too plainly of the character of ,david4 ,he said that if ,david was the man after ,god's own heart1 it must have been by his penitence1 not by his crimes4 ,bayle might have added1 that the record ot ,david's penitence is not easily discoverable in any part of the narrative of his life4 ,matthew ,tindal1 born #afef1 died #agcc1 was1 though the son of a clergyman of the ,established ,church1 one of the first amongst the school of ,deistical writers who became so prominent in the beginning of the eighteenth century4 ,dr4 ,pye ,smith catalogues him as an ,atheist1 but we know no ground for this4 ,he was a zealous controversialist1 and commencing by attacking priests1 he continued his attack against the revelation they preached4 ,he was a frequent writer1 but his ,christianity as old as the ,creation is his chief work1 and the one which has provoked the greatest amount of discussion4 ,it was published nearly at the close of his life1 and after he had seen others of his writings burned by the common hangman4 ,dr4 ,matthew ,tindal helped much to shake belief in the ,bible1 those who wrote against him did much more2 if no one had replied to ,tindal1 his attacks on2 revelation would have been read by few1 but in answering the heretic1 ,bishop ,waterland and his confreres gave wider circulation to ,tindal's heresy4 ,john ,toland was born ,nov4 #cj1afgj1 at ,londonderry1 but was educated in ,scotland4 ,he died #agbb4 ,his publications were all about the close of the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries1 and the ability of his contributions to popular instruction may be judged by the abusive epithets heaped upon him by his opponents4 ,while severely attacking the bulk of the clergy as misleaders of the people1 and while also assailing some of the chief orthodox notions1 he yet1 either in order to escape the law1 or from the effect of his religious education1 professed a respect for what he was pleased to call true ,christianity1 but which we should be inclined to consider1 at the least1 somewhat advanced ,unitarianism4 ,at last1 however1 his works were ordered to be burned by the common hangman1 and to escape arrest and prosecution he had to flee to the ,continent4 ,dr4 ,j4 ,pye ,smith describes ,toland as a ,pantheist1 and calls his ,pantheisticon an ,atheistic ,liturgy4 ,in one of ,toland's essays he laments how hard it is to come to a truth yourself1 and how dangerous a thing to publish to others4 ,the publications ot ,toland were none of them very bulky although numerous1 and as most of them were fiercely assailed by the orthodox clergy1 they helped to excite popular interest in ,england1 in the critical examination of the ,scriptures and the doctrines therein taught4 ,besides the few authors to whom attention is here drawn1 there were numerous men who--each for a little while1 and often coming out from the lower ranks of the people themselves--stirred the hitherto almost stagnant pool of popular thought with some daring utterance or extravagant statement4 ,fanatics some1 mystics some1 alchemists some1 materialists some1 but all crude and imperfect in their grasp of the subject they advocated1 they nevertheless all helped to agitate the human mind1 to render it more restless and inquiring1 and thus they all promoted the march of heresy4 ,one feature of the history of the seventeenth century shows how much philosophy had gained ground1 and how deep its roots were striking throughout the ,european world--viz41 that nearly all the writers wrote in the vulgar tongue of their country1 or there were published editions of their works in that tongue4 ,a century earlier1 and but few escaped from the narrow bonds of learned ,latin3 two centuries before1 and none got outside the ,latin folios2 but in this century theology1 metaphysics1 philosophy1 and politics are discussed in ,french1 ,german1 ,english1 and ,italian4 ,the commonest reader may peruse the most learned author1 for the writing is in a language which he cannot help knowing4 ,there were in this century a large number of writers in ,england and throughout ,europe1 who1 taking the ,bible as a starting-point and limitation for their philosophy1 broached wonderful theories as to creation1 c1 in which reason and revelation were sought to be made harmonious4 ,enfield1 a most orthodox writer1 in his ,history of ,philosophy says1 ,who does not perceive1 from the particulars which have been related concerning these ,scriptural philosophers1 that their labours1 however well intended1 have been of little benefit to philosophy8 ,their fundamental error has consisted in supposing that the sacred ,scriptures were intended1 not only to instruct men in all things necessary to their salvation1 but to teach the true principles of physical and metaphysical science4 ,how pregnant the admission that revelation and science cannot be expected to accord--an admission which in truth declares that in all philosophical research it is necessary to go beyond the ,bible1 if not to go against it--an admission which involves the declaration1 that so long as men are bound by the letter of the ,bible1 so long all philosophical progress is impossible4 ,in this century the ,english ,church lost much of the political power it had hitherto wielded4 ,it was in #afbe1 that ,william1 ,bishop of ,lincoln1 was dismissed from the office of ,lord ,keeper1 and since his day no ecclesiastic has held the great seal of ,england1 and to-day who even in the ,church itself would dream of trying to make a bishop ,lord ,chancellor8 ,the church lost ground in the conflict with ,charles1 but this it might perhaps have recovered1 but it suffered irretrievably loss of prestige in its struggle with ,william4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,the ,,eighteenth ,,century ,the eighteenth century deserves that the penman who touches its records shall have some virility2 for these records contain1 not only the narrative of the rapid growth of the new philosophy in ,france1 ,england1 and ,germany1 where its roots had been firmly struck in the previous century1 but they also give the history of a glorious endeavour on the part of a down-trodden and long-suffering people1 weakened and degraded by generations of starvation and oppression1 to break the yoke of tyranny and superstition4 ,eighteenth century historians can write how the men of ,france1 after having been cursed by a long race of kings1 who never dreamed of identifying their interests with those of the people2 after enduring centuries of tyranny from priests1 whose only ,gods were power1 pleasure1 and ,mammon1 and at the hands of nobles1 who denied civil rights to their serfs2 at last1 could endure no longer1 but electrified into life by eighteenth century heresy1 spurned under foot the idols of tyranny and superstition1 and sought by the influence of reason to erect on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil and religious liberty4 ,why ,frenchmen then failed in giving permanent success to their heroic endeavour1 and why ,france1 despite the wonderful recent progress in thought1 is even yet cursed with corrupt imperialism and state superstition1 is not difficult to explain1 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 people1 a people whose minds had been hitherto wholly in the hands of the priests1 whose passions had revolted against wrong1 but whose brains were yet too weak for the permanent enjoyment of the freedom temporarily resulting from physical effort4 ,eighteenth century heresy is especially noticeable for its immediate connection with political change4 ,for the first time in ,european history1 the great mass commenced to yearn for the assertion in government of democratic principles4 ,the ,french ,republican ,revolution which overthrew ,louis ,,xvi4 and the ,bastile1 was only possible because the heretical teachers who preceded it1 had weakened the divine right of kingcraft2 and it was ultimately unsuccessful1 only because an overwhelming majority of the people were as yet not sufficiently released from the thraldom of the church1 and therefore fell before the allied despotisms of ,europe1 who were aided by the ,catholic priests1 who naturally plotted against the spirit which seemed likely to make men too independent to be pious4 ,in ,germany the liberation of the masses from the dominion of the ,church of ,rome was effected with the1 at first1 active believing concurrence of the nation2 in ,england this was not so1 ,protestantism here was the result rather of the influence and interests of the ,king and ,court1 and of the indifference of the great body of the people4 ,the ,reformed ,church of ,england1 sustained by the crown and aristocracy1 has generally left the people to find their own way to heaven or hell1 and has only required abstinence from avowed denial of1 or active opposition to1 its tenets4 ,its ministers have usually preached with the same force to a few worshippers scattered over their grand cathedrals and numerous churches as to a thronging crowd1 but in each these there has been a lack of vitality in the sermon4 ,it is only when the material interests of the church have been apparently threatened that vigour has been shown on the part of its teachers4 ,it is a curious fact1 and one for comment hereafter1 that while in the modern struggle for the progress of heresy1 its sixteenth century pages present many most prominent ,italian names1 when we come to the eighteenth century1 there are but few such names worthy special notice2 it is no longer from the extreme ,south1 but from ,france1 ,germany1 and ,england that you have the great array of ,freethinking warriors4 ,those whom ,italy boasts too are now nearly all in the ,idealistic ranks4 ,we commenced the list by a brief reference to ,bernard ,mandeville1 a ,dutch physician1 born at ,dordrecht in #afgj and who died in #agcc2 a writer with great power as a satirist1 whose fable of the ,bees1 or ,private ,vices made ,public ,benefits1 not only served as source for much of ,helvetius1 but had the double honour of an indictment at the ,middlesex session1 and an answer from the pen of ,bishop ,berkeley4 ,one of the early1 and perhaps one of the most important promoters of heresy in the ,united ,kingdom1 was ,george ,berkeley1 an ,irishman by birth4 ,he was born on the #abth of ,march1 #afhd1 at ,kilcrin1 and died at ,oxford in #agec4 ,it was this writer to whom ,pope assigned every virtue under heaven1 and of whom ,byron wrote3-- ,when ,bishop ,berkeley said 'there was no matter1' ,and proved it--'twas no matter what he said3 ,they say his system 'tis in vain to batter1 ,too subtle for the airiest human head2 ,and yet who can believe it8 ,a writer in the ,encyclopedia ,metropolitana describes him as the one1 perhaps1 whose heart was most free from scepticism1 and whose understanding was most prone to it4 ,berkeley is here dealt with as one specially contributing to the growth of sceptical thought1 and not as an ,idealist only4 ,arthur ,collier published1 about the same time as ,berkeley1 several works in which absolute ,idealim is advocated4 ,collier and ,berkeley were mouthpieces for the expression of an effort at resistance against the growing ,spinozistic school4 ,they wrote against substance assumed as the noumenon lying underneath all phenomena--the substratum supporting all qualities--the something in which all accidents inhere4 ,collier and his writings are almost unknown2 ,berkeley's name has become famous1 and his arguments have served to excite far wider scepticism than have those of any other ,englishman of his age4 ,most religious men who read him misunderstand him1 and nearly all misrepresent his theory4 ,hume1 speaking of ,berkeley1 says1 ,most of the writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found1 either among the ancient or modern philosophers1 ,bayle not excepted4 ,he professes1 however1 in his title page 7and undoubtedly with great truth7 to have composed his book against the sceptics1 as well as against the ,atheists and ,freethinkers4 ,but that all his arguments1 though otherwise intended1 are in reality merely sceptical1 appears from this1 that they admit of no answer1 and produce no conviction1 ,berkeley wrote for those who want a demonstration of the existence and immateriality of ,god1 or the natural immortality of the soul1 and his philosophy was intended to check materialism4 ,the key-note ot his works may be found in his declaration1 ,the only thing whose existence ,i deny1 is that which philosophers call ,matter or corporeal substance4 ,the definition given by ,berkeley of matter is one which no materialist will be ready to accept1 i4e4f an inert1 senseless substance in which extension1 figure1 and motion do actually exist4 ,the ,principles of ,human ,knowledge is the work in which ,berkeley's ,idealism is chiefly set forth1 and many have been the volumes and pamphlets written in reply4 ,whatever might have been ,berkeley's intention as to refuting scepticism1 the result of his labours was to increase it in no ordinary degree2 ,dr4 ,pye ,smith thug summarises ,berkeley's views3--,he denied the existence of matter as a cause of our perceptions1 but firmly maintained the existence of created and dependent spirits1 of which every man is one2 that to suppose the existence of sensible qualities and of a material world1 is an erroneous deduction from the fact of our perceptions2 that those perceptions are-nothing but ideas and thoughts in our minds2 that these are produced in perfect uniformity1 order1 and consistency in all minds1 so that their occurrence is according to fixed rules which may be called the laws of nature2 that that ,deity is either the immediate or the mediate cause of these perceptions1 by his universal operation on created minds2 and that the created mind has a power of managing these perceptions1 so that volitions arise1 and all the phenomena of moral action and responsibility4 ,the great reply to this is1 that it is a hypothesis which cannot be proved1 which is highly improbable1 and which seems to put upon the ,deity the inflicting on man a perpetual delusion4 ,the weakness of ,berkeley's system as a mere question of logic is1 that while he requires the most rigorous demonstration of the existence of what he defines as matter1 he assumes an eternal spirit with various attributes1 and also creates spirits of various sorts4 ,he creates the states of mind resulting from the sensation of surrounding phenomena into ideas1 existing independent of the ego1 when in truth1 man's ideas are not in addition to man's mind2 but the aggregate of sensative ability1 and the result of its exercise is the mind1 just as the aggregate of functional ability and activity is life4 ,the foundation of ,berkeley's faith in the invisible eternal spirit in angels as created spirits1 is difficult to discover1 when you accept his argument for the rejection of visible phenomena4 ,he in truth should have rejected everything save his own mind1 for the mental processes are clearly not always reliable4 ,in dreams1 in delirium1 in insanity1 in temporary disease of particular nerves of sensation1 in some phases of magnetic influence1 the ideas which ,berkeley sustains so forcibly are admittedly delusions4 ,as in ,george ,berkeley1 so we have in ,bishop ,butler1 an illustration of the endeavour to check the rapidly enlarging scepticism of this century4 ,joseph ,butler was born in #afib1 died #ageb1 and will be long known by his famous work on the ,analogy of ,religion to the course of nature4 ,in this place it is not our duty to do more than point out a few features of the argument1 observing that this elaborate piece of special pleading for natural and revealed religion1 is evidence that danger was apprehended by the clergy1 from the spread of ,freethought views amongst the masses4 ,a popular reply was written to provide against the growing popular objection2 ,bishop ,butler argues that we know that we are endued with certain capacities of action1 of happiness and misery2 for we are conscious of acting1 of enjoying pleasure1 and of suffering pain4 ,now that we have these powers and capacities before death1 is a presumption that we shall retain them through1 and after death2 indeed a probability of it abundantly sufficient to act upon1 unless there be some positive reason to think that death is the destruction of those living powers4 ,it may be fairly submitted in reply1 that here the argument from analogy is as utterly faulty1 as if in the spring season a traveller should say of a wayside pool1 it is here before the summer sun shines upon it1 and will be here during and after the summer drought1 when ordinary experience would teach him that as the pool is only gathered during the rainy season in the hollow ground1 so in the dry hot summer days1 it will be gradually evaporated under the blazing rays of the ,july sun4 ,as to the human capacities1 experience teaches us that they have changed with the condition of the body2 emotional feelings and animal passions1 the gratification of which ensured temporary pleasure or pain1 have varied1 have been newly felt1 and have died out in different periods and conditions of our lives1 and the presumption is against the complete endurance of all these capacities for action1 c41 even during the whole life1 and much more strongly1 therefore1 against their endurance after death4 ,besides which--continuing the argument from analogy--my capacities having only been manifested since my body has existed1 and in proportion to my physical ability1 the presumption is rather that the manifestation which commenced with the body1 will finish as the body finishes4 ,further1 it is fair to presume that death is the destruction of those living powers1 for death is the cessation of organic functional activity2 a cessation consequent on some change or destruction of organisation4 ,of course1 the word destruction is not here used in any sense of annihilation of substance1 but as meaning such a change of condition that vital phenomena are no longer manifested4 ,but1 says ,butler1 we know not at all what death is in itself1 but only some of its effects1 such as the dissolution of flesh1 skin1 and bones1 and these effects do in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent4 ,here1 perhaps1 there is an unjustifiable assumption in the words living agent1 for if by living agent is only meant the animal which dies1 then the destruction of flesh1 skin1 and bones does fairly imply the destruction of the living agent1 but if by living agent is intended more than this1 then the argument is speciously and unfairly worded4 ,but beyond this1 if ,bishop ,butler's argument has any value1 it proves too much4 ,he says--,nor can we find anything throughout the whole analogy of nature1 to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever lose their living powers4444 by death4 ,that is1 ,bishop ,butler applies his argument for a future state of existence1 not only to man1 but to the whole animal kingdom2 and it may be fairly conceded that there is as much ground to presume that man will live again1 as there is that the worm will live again1 which1 being impaled upon a hook1 is eaten by the gudgeon1 or that the gudgeon will live again which1 threaded as a bait1 is torn and mangled to death by a ravenous pike1 or that the pike will live again after it has been kept out of water till rigid1 then gutted1 scaled1 stuffed with savoury condiments1 broiled1 and ultimately eaten by ,piscator and his family4 ,bishop ,butler's argument1 that because pleasure or pain is uniformly found to follow the acting or not acting in some particular manner1 there is presumptive analogy in favour of future rewards and punishments by ,deity1 appears weak in the extreme4 ,according to ,butler1 ,god is the author of nature4 ,nature's laws are such1 that punishment1 immediate or remote1 follows non-observance1 and reward1 more or less immediate1 is the result of observance2 and because ,god is by ,butler's argument1 assumed as the author of nature1 and has therefore already punished or rewarded once2 we are following ,butler1 to presume that he will after death punish or reward again for an action upon which he has already adjudicated4 ,in his chapter on the ,moral ,government of ,god1 ,butler says1 ,as the manifold appearances of design and of final causes in the constitution of the world1 prove it to be the work of an intelligent mind1 so the particular final causes of pleasure and pain distributed amongst his creatures1 prove that they are under his government--what may be called his natural government of creatures endowed with sense and reason4 ,but taking ,bishop ,butler's own position1 what sort of government is demonstrated by this argument from analogy8 ,god1 according to ,bishop ,butler's reasoning1 designed the whale to swallow the ,clio ,borealis1 which latter he designed to be so swallowed1 but which he nevertheless invested with some #cjj1jjj suckers1 to enable it in its turn to seize the minute animalcule on which it lives4 ,god designed ,brutus to kill ,caesar1 ,orsini to be beheaded by ,louis ,napoleon4 ,these1 according to ,butler1 would be all under the special control of ,god's government4 ,deity would guide the ,clio ,borealis into the mouth of the whale1 guide the dagger of ,brutus1 and arrange for the enjoyment of the cancan by princes of the blood royal4 ,bishop ,butler's theory that our present life is a state of trial and probation1 is met by the difficulty1 that while he assumes the justice and benevolence of ,god as moral governor1 he has the fact1 that many exist with organisations and capacities so originally different1 that it is manifestly most unfair to put one and the same reward1 or one and this same publishment for all4 ,the ,esquimaux or ,negro is not on a level at the outset of life with the ,caucasian races4 ,how from analogy can any one argue in favour of the doctrine that an impartial judge who had started them in the race of life unfairly matched1 would put the same prize before all1 none of the starters being handicapped8 ,bishop ,butler's argument on the doctrine of necessity1 is that which one might expect to find from a hired nisi prius advocate1 but which is read with regret coming from the pen of a gentleman1 who ought to be striving to convince his erring brethren by the words of truth alone4 ,he says1 suppose a child to be educated from his earliest youth in the principles of fatalism1 what then8 ,the reply is1 that a necessitarian knowing that a certain education of the human mind was most conducive to human happiness1 would strive to impart to his children education of that character4 ,that a worse fatalism is inculcated in the doctrine of a fore-ordaining and ever-directing providence1 planning and controlling every one of the child's actions1 than ever was taught in necessitarian essays4 ,that the child would be taught the laws of existence1 and would be shown how certain conduct resulted in pleasure1 and certain other conduct was during life attended with pain1 and that the result of such teaching would be far more efficacious in its moral results1 than the inculcation of a present responsibility1 and an ultimate heaven and hell1 in which latter doctrine1 nearly all ,christians profess to believe1 but nearly all act as if it were not of the slightest consequence whether any such paradise or infernal region exists4 ,henry ,st4 ,john1 ,lord ,bolingbroke1 born ,october #a1afgb1 died ,november #ae1agea1 may be taken as one of the school of polished deistical writers1 who1 though comparatively few1 fairly enough represent the religious opinions of the large majority of the journalists of the present day4 ,in the course of ,bolingbroke's ,letters on the ,study of ,history1 a strong sceptical spirit is manifested1 and he speaks in one of the share which the divines of all religions have taken in the corruption of history4 ,in another he thus deals with the question of the ,bible3--,it has been said by ,abbadie1 and others1 'that the accidents which have happened to alter the texts of the ,bible1 and to disfigure1 if ,i may say so1 the scriptures in many respects1 could not have been prevented without a perpetual standing miracle1 and that a perpetual standing miracle is not in the order of providence4' ,now ,i can by no means subscribe to this opinion4 ,it seems evident to my reason that the very contrary must be true2 if we suppose that ,god acts towards men according to the moral fitness of things2 and if we suppose that he acts arbitrarily1 we can form no opinion at all4 ,i think these accidents would not have happened1 or that the scriptures would have been preserved entirely in their genuine purity notwithstanding these accidents1 if they had been entirely dictated by the ,holy ,ghost3 and the proof of this probable proposition1 according to our clearest and most distinct ideas of wisdom and moral fitness1 is obvious and easy4 ,but these scriptures are not so come down to us3 they are come down broken and confused1 full of additions1 interpolations2 and transpositions1 made we neither know when1 nor by whom2 and such1 in short1 as never appeared on the face of any other book1 on whose authority men have agreed to rely4 ,this being so1 my lord1 what hypothesis shall we follow8 ,shall we adhere to some such distinction as ,i have mentioned8 ,shall we say1 for instance1 that the scriptures were originally written by the authors to whom they are vulgarly ascribed1 but that these authors writ nothing by inspiration1 except the legal1 the doctrinal1 and the prophetical parts1 and that in every other respect their authority is purely human1 and therefore fallible8 ,or shall we say that these histories are nothing more than compilations of old traditions1 and abridgements of old records1 made in later times1 as they appear to every one who reads them without prepossession and with attention8 ,it has been alleged that ,pope's verse is but another rendering of ,bolingbroke's views without his aristocratic nonchalance1 and that some passages of ,pope regarded as hostile to revealed religion1 were specially due to the influence of ,bolingbroke2 and more than one critic has professed to trace identities of thought and expression in order to show that ,pope was largely indebted to the published works of ,st4 ,john4 ,david ,hume was born at ,edinburgh1 #bfth ,april1 #agaa1 and died #aggf4 ,he created a new school of ,freethinkers1 and is to-day one of the most esteemed amongst sceptical authors4 ,he was a profound thinker1 and an easy1 elegant writer1 who did much to give a force and solidity to extreme heretical reasonings1 which they had hitherto been regarded as lacking4 ,his heretical essays have had a far wider circulation since his death1 than they enjoyed during his life4 ,many volumes have been issued in the fruitless endeavour to refute him1 and all these have contributed to widen the circle of his readers4 ,he adopted and advocated the utilitarian and necessitarian theory of morals1 and wrote of ordinary theism and religion1 as arising from personification of unknown causes1 for general or special phenomena4 ,he held and advanced the idea1 which ,buckle so fully states1 and endeavours to prove in his ,history of ,civilisation--viz41 that general laws operate amongst peoples1 and influence and determine their so-called moral conduct1 much as other laws do the orbits of planets1 the occurrences of eclipses1 c4 ,his arguments against miracles1 as evidences for revealed religion1 remain unrefuted1 although they have been made the subject of many attacks4 ,he contends1 in effect1 that in each account of a miraculous occurrence1 there is always more prima facie probability of error1 or bad faith on the part of the narrator1 than of interference with those invariable sequences known as natural laws1 and there was really no reply in the conclusion of ,dr4 ,campbell1 to the effect that we have equally to trust human testimony for an account of the laws of nature and for the narratives of miracles1 for in truth you never have the same character of human testimony for the latter as for the former4 ,and1 further1 while in the case of human testimony as to natural events1 it is evidence which you may test and compare with your own experience4 ,this is not so as to miracles1 declared at once to be out of the range of all ordinary experience4 ,men1 he says1 are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession to repose faith in their senses4 ,when they follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature1 they always suppose the very images presented to the senses to be the external objects1 and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representatives of the other4 ,but this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy1 which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception4 ,so far1 then1 we are necessitated by reasoning to contradict the primary instincts of nature1 and to embrace a new system with regard to the evidence of our senses4 ,but here philosophy finds herself extremely embarrassed1 when she would obviate the cavils and objections of the sceptics4 ,she can no longer plead the infallible and irresistible instinct of nature1 for that led us to quite a different system1 which is acknowledged fallible1 and even erroneous1 and to justify this pretended philosophical system by a chain of clear and convincing argument1 or even any appearance of argument1 exceeds the power of all human capacity4 ,do you follow the instinct and propensities of nature in assenting to the veracity of the senses8 ,but these lead you to believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object--7,idealism47 ,do you disclaim this principle in order to embrace a more rational opinion1 that the perceptions are only representations of something external8 ,you here depart from your natural propensities1 and more obvious sentiments2 and yet are not able to satisfy your reason1 which can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove that the perceptions are connected with external objects--7,scepticism47 ,charles de ,secondat ,baron de ,montesquieu1 born in #afhi near ,bordeaux1 died at ,paris #agee1 who earned considerable fame by his ,lettres ,persanes1 is more famous for his oft-referred to work ,l',esprit des ,lois4 ,victor ,cousin describes him as the man of our country who has best comprehended history1 and who first gave an example of true historic method4 ,in the publication of certain of his ideas on history1 ,montesquieu was the layer of the foundation-stone for an edifice which ,buckle would probably have gloriously crowned had his life been longer4 ,voltaire1 who sharply criticises ,montesquieu1 declares that he has earned the eternal gratitude of ,europe by his grand views and his bold attacks on tyranny1 superstition1 and grinding taxation4 ,montesquieu urged that virtue is the true essence of republicanism1 but misled by the mistaken notions of honour held by his predecessors and contemporaries1 he declared honour to be the principle of monarchical institutions4 ,voltaire reminds him that it is in courts that men1 devoid of honour1 often attain to the highest dignities2 and it is in republics that a known dishonourable citizen is seldom trusted by the people with public concerns4 ,montesquieu wrote in favour of a constitutional monarchy such as then existed in ,england1 and his work shadowed forth a future for the middle class in ,france4 ,francois ,marie ,arouet ,voltaire1 born #bjth ,february1 #afid1 at ,chatenay1 died #cjth ,may1 #aggh1 may be fairly written of as the man to whose fertile brain and active pen1 to whose great genius1 fierce irony1 and thorough humanity1 we owe much more of the rapid change of popular thought in ,europe during the last century than to any other man4 ,his wit1 like the electric flash1 spared nothing2 his love for his kind would have made him the protector of everything weak1 his desire to protect himself from the consequences of his truest utterances1 often dims the hero-halo with which his name is surrounded4 ,born and trained amongst a corrupt and selfish class1 it is not wonderful that we find some of their pernicious habits clinging to parts of his career4 ,on the contrary1 it is more wonderful to find that he has shaken off so much of the consequences of his education4 ,neither in politics nor in theology was he so very extreme in his utterances as many deemed him1 for while he occasionally severely handled individual monarchs1 we do not find him the preacher of republicanism4 ,on the contrary1 he is often severe against some of the advanced political views of ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau4 ,he nevertheless suggests that it might have been the art of working metals which originally made kings1 and the art of casting cannons which now maintains them1 and as a commentary on kingly conduct in the matter of taxation1 declares that a shepherd ought to shear his sheep1 and not to flay them4 ,in theological controversy he wrote as a ,theist1 and declares ,atheism and ,fanaticism to be two monsters which may tear society in pieces1 but the ,atheist preserves his reason1 which checks his propensity to mischief1 while the fanatic is under the influence of a madness constantly urging him on4 ,for the ancient ,jews1 and for the ,hebrew records1 ,voltaire entertained so thorough a feeling of contemptuous detestation1 that in his ,defense de mon ,oncle1 and his articles and letters on the ,jews1 we find utter disbelief in them as a chosen people1 and the strongest abhorrence of their brutal habits1 heightened in expression by the scathing satire of his phrases4 ,to the more modern descendants of ,abraham he said3 ,we have repeatedly driven you away through avarice2 we have recalled you through avarice and stupidity2 we still1 in more towns than one1 make you pay for liberty to breathe the air2 we have1 in more kingdoms than one1 sacrificed you to ,god2 we have burned you as holocausts--for ,i will not follow your example1 and dissemble that we have offered up sacrifices of human blood2 all the difference is1 that our priests1 content with applying your money to their own use1 have had you burned by laymen2 while your priests always immolated their human victims with their own sacred hands4 ,you were monsters of cruelty and fanaticism in ,palestine2 we have been so in ,europe4 ,writing on miracles1 ,voltaire asks3 ,for what purpose would ,god perform a miracle8 ,to accomplish some particular design upon living beings8 ,he would then1 in reality1 be supposed to say--,i have not been able to effect by my construction of the universe1 by my divine decrees1 by my eternal laws1 a particular object2 ,i am now going to change my eternal ideas and immutable laws1 to endeavour to accomplish what ,i have not been able to do by means of them4 ,this would be an avowal of his weakness1 not of his power2 it would appear in such a being an inconceivable contradiction4 ,accordingly1 therefore1 to dare to ascribe miracles to ,god is1 if man can in reality insult ,god1 actually offering him that insult4 ,it is saying to him--,you are a weak and inconsistent being4 ,it is therefore absurd to believe in miracles2 it is1 in fact1 dishonouring the divinity4 ,those who are inclined to attack the character of ,voltaire1 should read the account of his endeavours for the ,calas family4 ,how1 when old ,calas had been broken alive on the wheel at ,toulouse1 and his family were ruined1 ,voltaire took up their case1 aided them with means1 spared no effort of his pen or brain1 and ultimately achieved the great victory of reversing the unjust sentence1 and obtaining compensation for the family4 ,it1 then1 these ,voltaire-haters have not learned to love this great heretic1 let them study the narrative of his even more successful endeavours on behalf of the ,sirvens2 more successful1 because in this case he took up the fight before an unjust judgment could be delivered1 and thus prevented the repetition of such an iniquitous execution as had taken place in the ,galas case4 ,the cowardly slanders as to his conduct when dying are not worth notice2 those spit on the grave of the dead who would not have dared to look in the face of the living4 ,claud ,adrian ,helvetius was born at ,paris #agae1 and died ,december #agga4 ,his best known works are ,de l',esprit1 published #ageh2 ,essai sur l',origine des ,connaissances ,humaines1 #agdf2 ,traite des ,systemes1 #agdi2 ,traite des ,sensations1 #ageh4 ,rousseau wrote in reply to ,helvetius1 but when the ,parliament of ,paris condemned the work ,de l',esprit1 and it was in consequence burned by the common hangman1 ,rousseau withdrew his refutatory volume4 ,helvetius argues that any religion1 of which the chiefs are intolerant1 and the conduct of which is expensive to the state1 cannot long be the religion of an enlightened and well governed nation4 ,the people that submit to it will labour only to maintain the ease and luxury of the priesthood2 each of its inhabitants will be nothing more than a slave to the sacerdotal power4 ,a religion to be good should be tolerant and little expensive4 ,its clergy should have no authority over the people4 ,a dread of the priest debases the mind and the soul1 makes the one brutish and the other slavish4 ,must the ministers of the altar always be armed with the sword of the state8 ,can the barbarities committed by their intolerance ever be forgotten8 ,the earth is yet drenched with the blood they have spilled4 ,civil tolerance alone is not sufficient to secure the peace of nations4 ,every dogma is a seed of discord and injustice sown amongst mankind4 ,why do you make the ,supreme ,being resemble an eastern tyrant8 ,why make him punish slight faults with eternal torment8 ,why thus put the name of the ,divinity at the bottom of the portrait of the devil8 ,why oppress the soul with a load of fear1 break its springs1 and of a worshipper of ,jesus make a vile1 pusillanimous slave8 ,it is the malignant who paint a malignant ,g-od4 ,what is their devotion8 ,a veil for their crimes4 ,let not the rewards of heaven be made the price of trifling religious operations1 which convey a diminutive idea of the ,eternal and a false conception of virtue2 its rewards should never be assigned to fasting1 haircloth1 a blind submission1 and self-castigation4 ,the man who places these operations among the virtues1 might as well place those of leaping1 dancing1 and tumbling on the rope4 ,humility may be held in veneration by the dwellers in a monastery or a convent1 it favours the meanness and idleness of a monastic life4 ,but ought the humility to be regarded as the virtue of the people8 ,no4 ,speaking of the ,pagan systems1 ,helvetius says1 ,all the fables of mythology were mere emblems of certain principles of nature4 ,baron d',holbach1 a native of the ,palatinate1 born ,january #agbc1 died #bast ,january1 #aghi1 deserves special notice1 as being the man whose house was the gathering place of the knot of writers and thinkers1 who struck light and life into the dark and deadened brain of ,france4 ,he is generally reputed to have been the author of that well-known work1 the ,system of ,nature1 which was issued as if by ,mirabaud4 ,this work1 although it was fiercely assailed at the time1 by the pen of ,voltaire1 and by the plaidorie of the prosecuting ,avocat-,general1 and has since been attacked by hundreds who have never read it1 yet remains a wonderfully popular exposition of the power-gathering heresy of the century1 and1 as far as we are aware1 has never received efficient reply4 ,probably next to ,paine's works1 it had in ,england during the second quarter of this century1 the widest circulation of any anti-theological book1 and this circulation extending through the manufacturing ranks4 ,in the eighteenth century ,mirabaud could1 in ,england1 only be found in the hands of the few1 but fifty years had wondrously multiplied the number of readers4 ,joseph ,priestley was born near ,leeds1 #acth ,march1 #agcc1 and being towards the latter part of his life driven out of ,england1 by the persecuting spirit evinced towards him1 and which had been specially excited by his republican tendencies1 he died at ,northumberland1 ,pennsylvania1 on the #fth ,feb41 #ahjd4 ,originally a ,church of ,england clergyman1 his first notable inclination to heterodoxy manifested itself in hesitation as to the doctrine of the atonement4 ,he ultimately rejected the immortality and immateriality of the soul1 argued for necessitarianism1 and earned considerable unpopularity by the boldness of some of his sentiments on political as well as theological matters4 ,priestley was one of the rapidly multiplying instances of heresy alike in religion and politics1 but he provoked the most bitter antagonism4 ,his works were burned by the common hangman1 his house1 library1 and scientific instruments were destroyed by an infuriate and pious mob4 ,despite all this1 his heresy1 according to his own view of it1 was not of a very outrageous character1 for he believed in ,deity1 in revealed religion1 and in ,christianity1 rather putting the blame on misconduct of alleged ,christians4 ,he said3 ,the wretched forms under which ,christianity has long been generally exhibited1 and its degrading alliance with1 or rather its subjection to a power wholly heterogeneous to it1 and which has employed it for the most unworthy purposes1 has made it contemptible and odious in the eyes of all sensible men1 who are now everywhere casting off the very profession and every badge of it4 ,enlightened ,christians must themselves1 in some measure1 join with unbelievers in exposing whatever will not bear examination in or about religion4 ,his writings on scientific topics were most voluminous2 his most heretical volumes are those on ,matter and ,spirit4 ,edward ,gibbon was born at ,putney1 the #bgth ,april1 #agcg1 and died #afth ,january1 #agid4 ,he was a polished and painstaking writer1 aristocratic in his tendencies and associations1 who had educated himself into a disbelief in the principal dogmas of ,christianity1 but who loved the peace and quietude of an easy life too much to enter the lists as an active antagonist of the ,church4 ,his works1 especially the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of ,the ,decline and ,fall of the ,roman ,empire1 have been regarded as infidel in their tendency1 rather from what has been left unsaid than from the direct statements against ,christianity4 ,the sneer at the evidence of prophecy1 or the doubt of the reality of miraculous evidences1 is guardedly expressed4 ,it is only when ,gibbon can couch his lance against some reckless and impudent forger of ,christian ,evidences1 such as ,eusebius1 that you have anything like a bold condemnation4 ,a prophecy or a miracle is treated tenderly1 and if killed1 it is rather with over-affectionate courtesy than by rough handling4 ,in some parts of his vindications of the attacked passages1 ,gibbon's scepticism finds vent in the collection and quotation of unpleasantly heretical views of others1 but he carefully avoids committing himself to very distinct personal declarations of disbelief2 he claims to be the unbiassed historian recording fact1 and leaving others to form their own conclusions4 ,it would perhaps be most appropriate to express his convictions as to the religions of the world1 in nearly the same words as he used to characterise the various modes of worship at ,rome1 all considered by the people as equally true1 by the philosopher as equally false1 and by the magistrate as equally useful4 ,pierre ,john ,george ,cabanis1 born at ,conac1 near ,breves1 #fth ,june1 #ageg1 died #fth ,may1 #ahjh1 following ,condillac in many respects1 was one of those whose physiological investigations have opened out wide fields of knowledge in psychology1 and who did much to promote the establishment in ,france1 ,america1 and ,england1 of a new school of ,freethinkers4 ,subject to the action of external bodies1 he says1 man finds in the impressions these bodies make on his organs1 at once his knowledge and the causes of his continued existence1 for to live is to feel2 and in that admirable chain of phenomena which constitute his existence1 every want depends on the development of some faculty2 every faculty by its very development satisfies some want1 and the faculties grow by exercise1 as the wants extend with the facility of satisfying them4 ,by the continual action of external bodies on the senses of man1 results the most remarkable part of his existence4 ,but is it true that the nervous centres only receive and combine the impressions which reach them from the bodies8 ,is it true that no image or idea is formed in the brain1 and that no determination of the sensitive organ takes place1 other than by virtue of these same impressions on the senses strictly so-called8 ,the faculty of feeling and of spontaneous movement forms the character of animal nature4 ,the faculty of feeling consists in the property possessed by the nervous system of being warned by the impressions produced on its different parts1 and notably on its extremities4 ,these impressions are internal or external4 ,external impressions1 when perception is distinct1 are called sensations4 ,internal impressions are very often vague and confused1 and the animal is then only warned by their effects1 and does not clearly distinguish their connection with the causes4 ,the former result from the application of external objects to the organs of sense1 and on them ideas depend4 ,the latter result from the development of the regular functions1 or from the maladies to which each organ is subject2 and from these issue those determinations which bear the name of instincts4 ,feeling and movement are linked together4 ,every movement is determined by an impression1 and the nerves1 as the organs of feeling1 animate and direct the motor organs4 ,in feeling1 the nervous organ reacts on itself4 ,in movement it reacts on other parts1 to which it communicates the contractile faculty1 the simple and fecund principle of all animal movement4 ,finally1 the vital functions can exercise themselves by the influence of some nervous ramifications1 isolated from the system--the distinctive faculties can develope themselves1 even when the brain is almost wholly destroyed1 and when it seems wholly inactive4 ,but for the formation of thoughts1 it is necessary that the brain should exist1 and be in a healthy condition2 it is the special organ of thought4 ,thomas ,paine1 the most famous ,deist of modern times1 was born at ,thetford on the #bith ,january1 #agcg1 and died #hth ,june1 #ahji4 ,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 religion1 and that his works1 from their plain1 clear language1 have in those countries had1 and still have1 a far wider circulation than those of any other modern sceptical author4 ,his anti-theology was allied to his republicanism2 he warred alike against church and throne1 and his impeachment of each was couched in the plainest ,anglo-,saxon4 ,his name became at the same time a word of terror to the aristocracy and to the clergy4 ,in ,england numerous prosecutions were commenced against the vendors of his political and theological works1 and against persons suspected of giving currency to his views4 ,the peace-officers searched poor men's houses to discover his dreaded works4 ,lancashire and ,yorkshire artisans read him by stealth1 and assembled in corners of fields that they might discuss the ,age of ,reason1 and yet be safe from surprise by the authorities4 ,heavy sentences were passed upon men convicted of promulgating his opinions2 but all without effect1 the forbidden fruit found eager gatherers4 ,paine appears to have been tinged with scepticism from his early boyhood1 but it was as a democratic writer that he first achieved literary fame4 ,his ,age of ,reason was the culminating blow which the dying eighteenth century aimed at the ,hebrew and ,christian records4 ,theretofore scholarly philosophers1 metaphysicians1 and critics had written for their fellows1 and whether or not any of the mass read and understood1 the authors cared but little4 ,now the people were addressed by one of themselves in language startling in its plainness4 ,paine was not a deep examiner of metaphysical problems1 but he was terribly in earnest in his rejection of an impossible creed4 ,charles ,prangois ,dupuis was born near ,chaumont1 in ,france1 the #afth ,oct41 #agdb1 died #bith ,sept41 #ahji4 ,he played a prominent part in the great revolutionary movement1 and was ,secretary to the ,national ,convention4 ,his famous work1 ,l',origine de tous les ,cultes1 is one of the grand heresy marks of the eighteenth century4 ,himself a ,pantheist1 he searched through the mythic traditions of the ,greeks1 the ,egyptians1 the ,hindoos1 and the ,hebrews1 and as a result1 sought to demonstrate a common origin for all religions4 ,dr4 ,john ,pye ,smith classes ,dupuis as an ,atheist1 but this is most certainly an incorrect classification4 ,he did not believe in creation1 nor could he go outside the universe to search for its cause1 but he regarded ,god as la force universelle et eternellement active and which permeated and animated everything4 ,dupuis was an example of a new and rapidly increasing class of ,freethinking writers--i4e41 those who1 not content with doubting the divine origin of the religions they attacked1 sought to explain the source and progress of the various systems4 ,he urges that all religions find their base in the attempts at personification of some one or other1 or of the whole of the forces of the universe1 and shows what an important part the sun and moon have been made to play in the ,egyptian1 ,greek1 and ,hindoo ,mythologies4 ,he argues that the fabulous biographies of ,hercules1 ,bacchus1 ,osiris1 ,mithra1 and ,jesus1 find their common origin in the sun-worship1 thus cloaked and hidden from the vulgar in each country4 ,he does not attack the ,hebrew ,records as simply inaccurate1 but endeavours to show clear ,sabaistic foundation for many of the most important narratives4 ,the works of ,dupuis and ,dulaure should be read together2 they contain the most complete amongst the many attempts to trace out the common origins of the various mythologies of the world4 ,in the ninth chapter of ,dupuis' great work1 he deals with the fable made upon the sun adored under the name of ,christ1 un dieu qui ait mange autrefois sur la terre1 et qu'on y mange aujourd'hui1 and unquestionably urges strange points of coincidence4 ,it is only astrologically that the #beth of ,december can be fixed1 he argues1 as the birthday of ,mithra and of ,jesus1 then born of the celestial ,virgin4 ,our ,easter festivities for the resurrection of ,jesus1 are but another form of the more ancient rejoicings at that season for ,adonis1 the sun-,god1 restored to the world after his descent into the lower regions4 ,he recalls that the ancient ,druidic worship recognised the ,virgin suckling the child1 and gathers together many illustrations favourable to his theory4 ,here we do no more than point out that while reason was rapidly releasing itself from priestly thraldom1 heretics were not content to deny the divine origin of ,christianity1 but sought to trace its mundane or celestial source1 and strip it of its fabulous plumage4 ,constantine ,francis ,chassebeuuf ,count ,volney1 born at ,craon in ,anjou1 ,february #crd1 #ageg1 died #ahbj4 ,he was a ,deist4 ,in his two great works1 ,the ,ruins of ,empires1 and ,new ,researches on ,ancient ,history1 he advances many of the views brought forward by ,dupuis1 from whom he quotes1 but his volumes are much more readable than those of the author of the ,origin of all ,religions4 ,volney appears to have been one of the first to popularise many of ,spinoza's ,biblical criticisms4 ,he denied the ,mosaic authorship of the ,pentateuch4 ,he wrote most vigorously against kingcraft as well as priestcraft1 regarding all systems of monarchy and religion as founded on the ignorance and servility1 the superstition and weakness of the people4 ,he puts the following into the mouth of ,ma-hommedan priests replying to ,christian preachers3 ,we maintain that your gospel morality is by no means characterised by the perfection you ascribe to it4 ,it is not true that it has introduced into the world new and unknown virtues2 for example1 the equality of mankind in the eyes of ,god1 and the fraternity and benevolence which are the consequence of this equality1 were tenets formerly professed by the sect of ,hermetics and ,samaneans1 from whom you have your descent4 ,as to forgiveness of injuries1 it had been taught by the ,pagans themselves2 but in the latitude you give to it1 it ceases to be a virtue1 and becomes an immorality and a crime4 ,your boasted precept1 to him that strikes thee on thy right cheek turn the other also1 is not only contrary to the feelings of man1 but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice2 it emboldens the wicked by impunity1 degrades the virtuous by the servility to which it subjects them2 delivers up the world to disorder and tyranny1 and dissolves the bands of society--such is the true spirit of your doctrine4 ,the precepts and parables of your ,gospel also never represent ,god other than as a despot1 acting by no rule of equity2 than as a partial father treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater favour than his obedient and virtuous children2 than as a capricious master giving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour1 as to those who have borne the burthen and heat of the day1 and preferring the last comers to the first4 ,in short1 your morality throughout is unfriendly to human intercourse2 a code of misanthropy calculated to give men a disgust for life and society1 and attach them to solitude and celibacy4 ,with respect to the manner in which you have practised your boasted doctrine1 we in our turn appeal to the testimony of fact1 and ask1 was it your evangelical meekness and forbearance which excited those endless wars among your sectaries1 those atrocious persecutions of what you call heretics1 those crusades against the ,arians1 the ,manichseans1 and the ,protestants1 not to mention those which you have committed against us1 nor the sacrilegious associations still subsisting among you1 formed of men who have sworn to perpetuate them899 ,was it the charity of your ,gospel that led you to exterminate whole nations in ,america1 and to destroy the empires of ,mexico and ,peru2 that makes you still desolate ,africa1 the inhabitants of which you sell like cattle1 notwithstanding the abolition of slavery that you pretend your religion has effected2 that makes you ravage ,india whose domain you usurp2 in short1 is it charity that has prompted you for three centuries past to disturb the peaceful inhabitants of three continents1 the most prudent of whom1 those of ,japan and ,china1 have been constrained to banish you from their country1 that they might escape your chains and recover their domestic tranquillity8 99 ,the oath taken by the ,knights of the ,order of ,malta is to kill1 or make the ,mahometans prisoners1 for the glory of ,god4 ,during the early part of the eighteenth century1 magazines and other periodicals began to grow apace1 and pamphlets multiplied exceedingly in this country4 ,addison1 ,steele1 ,defoe1 and ,dean ,swift all helped in the work of popular education1 and often in a manner probably unanticipated by themselves4 ,dean ,swifts satire against scepticism was fiercely powerful2 but his onslaughts against ,roman ,catholics and ,presbyterians made far more sceptics than his other writings had made churchmen4 ,during the latter portion of the eighteenth century1 a new phase of popular progress was exhibited in the comparatively lively interest taken in political questions by the great body of the people inhabiting large towns4 ,in ,america1 ,france1 and ,england1 this was strongly marked2 it is however in this country that we find special evidences of the connection between heresy and progress1 as contradistinguished from orthodoxy and obstructiveness manifested in the struggle for the liberty of the press and platform2 a struggle in which some of the boldest efforts were made by poor and heretical self-taught men4 ,the dying eighteenth century witnessed1 in ,england1 repeated instances of ,state prosecutions1 in which the charge of entertaining or advocating the views of the ,republican heretic1 ,paine1 formed a prominent feature1 and there is little doubt that the efforts of the ,london ,corresponding ,society 7which the ,government of the day made strenuous endeavours to repress7 to give circulation to some of ,paine's political opinions in ,yorkshire1 ,lancashire1 and the ,north1 had for result the familiarising many men with views they would have otherwise feared to investigate4 ,the step from the ,rights of ,man to the ,age of ,reason was but a short stride for an advancing inquirer4 ,in ,france the end of the eighteenth century was marked by a frightful convulsion4 ,a people starved and degraded for generations1 rose in the very desperation of despair1 and with a mighty force broke the yoke of traditional feudalism and habitual monarchic reverence2 but in the case of ,france1 the revolution was too sudden to be immediately beneficial or enduring1 the people were as a mass too poor1 and therefore too ignorant to wield the power so rapidly wrested from the class who had so long monopolised it4 ,it is far better to grow out of a creed by the sure and gradual consciousness of the truths of existence1 than to dash off a religious garb simply from abhorrence of the shameful practices of its professors1 or sudden conviction of the falsity of many of the testimonies in its favour4 ,so it is a more permanent and more complete revolution which is effectuated by educating men to a sense of the majesty and worth of true manhood1 than is any mere sudden overturning a rotten or cruel usurpation4 ,monarchies are most thoroughly and entirely destroyed--not by pulling down the throne1 or by decapitating the king1 but by educating and building up with a knowledge of political duty1 each individual citizen amongst the people4 ,it is here that heresy has its great advantage4 ,christianity says1 the powers that be are ordained of ,god1 he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of ,god4 ,heresy challenges the divine right of the governor1 and declares that government should be the best contrivance of national wisdom to promote the national weal1 to provide against national want1 and alleviate-national suffering--that government which is only a costly machinery for conserving class privileges1 and preventing popular freedom1 is a tyrannical usurpation of power1which it is the duty of true men to destroy4 ,i have briefly and imperfectly alluded to a few of the men who stand out as the sign-posts of heretical progress during the sixteenth1 seventeenth1 and eighteenth centuries2 in some future publication of wider scope fairer tribute may be paid to the memories of some of these mighty warriors in the ,freethought army4 ,my object is to show that the civilisation of the masses is in proportion to the spread of heresy amongst them1 that its effect is seen in an exhibition of manly dignity and self-reliant effort which is utterly unattainable amongst a superstitious people4 ,look at the lazzaroni of the ,neapolitan ,states1 or the peasant of the ,campagna1 and you have at once the fearful illustration of demoralisation by faith in the beggar1 brigand1 and believer4 ,it is sometimes pretended that such advantages of education and position as the people may boast in ,england1 their civil rights and social advancement1 are owing to their ,christianity1 but in point of fact the reverse is the case4 ,for centuries ,christianity had done little but fetter tightly the masses to ,church and ,crown1 to ,priest and ,baron2 the enfranchisement is comparatively modern4 ,even in this very day1 in the districts where the people are entirely in the hands of the clergy of the ,established ,church1 there they are as a mass the most depraved4 ,take the agricultural counties and the agricultural labourers3 there are no heretical books or papers to be seen in their cottages1 no heretical speakers come amongst them to disturb their contentment2 the deputy-lieutenant1 the squire1 and the rector wield supreme authority--the parish church has no rival4 ,but what are the people as a mass8 ,they are not men1 they are not women1 they lack men's and women's thoughts and aspirations3 they are diggers and weeders1 hedgers and ditchers1 ploughmen and carters2 they are taught to be content with the state of life1 in which it has pleased ,god to place them4 ,my plea is1 that modern heresy1 from ,spinoza to ,mill1 has given brain-strength and dignity to every one it has permeated--that the popular propagandists of this heresy1 from ,bruno to ,carlile1 have been the true redeemers and saviours1 the true educators of the people4 ,the redemption is yet only at its commencement1 the education only lately begun1 but the change is traceable already2 as witness the power to speak and write1 and the ability to listen and read1 which have grown amongst the masses during the last #ajj years4 ,and if to-day we write with higher hope1 it is because the right to speak and the right to print has been partly freed from the fetters forged through long generations of intellect-prostration1 and almost entirely freed from the statutory limitations which1 under pretence of checking blasphemy and sedition1 have really gagged honest speech against ,pope and ,emperor1 against ,church and ,throne4