HISTORY OF
ENGLISH THOUGHT
IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
BY
LESLIE STEPHEN
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1876
[All tifAts reserved]
URL
SRLF
V I
PREFACE.
THE PLAN of this book was, I believe, suggested to
me by Mr. Pattison's essay upon the ' Tendencies of
Religious Thought in England from 1688 to 1750.' I
thought that it might be worth while to give a more
detailed and systematic account of the movement so
admirably characterised in that essay. The history
of the deistical controversy, which is the chief product
of eighteenth-century theology, has been several times
written. The first account of it is in Leland's ' View
of the Deistical Writers' (1754-6), a book which has
still a certain historical value, but which shows of
course the narrowness and unfairness of contemporary
controversy. It is in no sense philosophical. By far
the best accounts of the deists, so far as I know, is
Lechler's excellent ' Geschichte des Englischen Deis-
mus' (Stuttgart, 1841). Lechler is a very candid,
competent, and painstaking writer ; and I am glad
to refer to him for more detailed accounts of many
of the deists than 'has been compatible with my own
plan. Lechler's book, however, is devoted chiefly
to the writers known distinctively as deists, to the
comparative neglect of the more orthodox writers,
who in reality represent a superficial modification of
vi PREFACE.
the same general tendencies of thought. He describes
one of the strands, not the whole cord. Mr. Hunt, in
his ' History of Religious Thought in England,' has
recently given a very full account of all the principal
writers of the time, deist and orthodox. Mr. Hunt
deserves high praise for his candour and industry ;
but he is content for the present to be rather an
annalist than a historian of thought ; and I differ
widely from his estimate so far as he has revealed
it of the true significance and relative importance
of many of the writings concerned. Considering the
difference of our first principles, it would be strange,
indeed, if I were in this respect quite satisfied with
his performance. But, in any case, I am glad to
acknowledge many obligations to his work.
In order to give a satisfactory account of the deist
controversy, it thus seemed necessary to describe the
general theological tendencies of the time ; and in
order to set forth intelligibly the ideas which shaped
those tendencies, it seemed desirable, again, to trace
their origin in the philosophy of the time, and to show
their application in other departments of speculation.
I have, therefore, begun with an account of the con-
temporary philosophy, though, in repeating a thrice-
told tale, I have endeavoured to be as brief as was
compatible with my purpose. Further, I have tried
to indicate the application of the principles accepted
in philosophy and theology to moral and political
questions, and their reflection in the imaginative lite-
rature of the time. In the chapter upon political
theories, I have tried to keep as far as possible from
the province of political or social history ; and the
PREFACE. vii
last chapter is of necessity little more than a collection
of hints, which could not have been worked out in
detail without expanding the book beyond all per-
missible limits and trespassing upon the province of
literary criticism. The book, as it is, has assumed
such dimensions that I have been unable to describe
it satisfactorily by any other than the perhaps too
ambitious title which it bears.
It only remains to say that, in the sections referring
to Shaftesbury, Mandeville, and Warburton, I have in
part reproduced articles of my own already published
in my ' Essays on Freethinking and Plainspeaking ; '
and that the sections upon William Law have appeared
in the second series of my ' Hours in a Library.'
LESLIE STEPHEN.
LONDON : September 1876.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
SECTION PAGE
1. The influence of great thinkers I
2. The evolution of thought . 2
3. Complex determining influ-
ences .... 3
4. The logical development of
thought .... 3
5. Inaccurate assumptions inevi-
table .... 4
6. Their persistency . . 5
7. Approximation to truth the
general law ... 6
8. The approximation gradual . 6
9. The process implies inconsis-
tency . ' . . .7
10. Strained interpretation . . 8
11. And hasty rejection of old
opinions .... 9
12. The extra logical influences :
utilitarian, . . .10
13. Social, . . . .12
14. Imaginative . . . . 13
15. The romantic regret . . 14
16. Its true meaning . . 15
17. Summary . . . .16
II. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY.
1 8. Metaphysical perplexities . 19
19. Why interesting . . .20
20. Theology and philosophy . 2 1
21. Supremacy of theology . .21
22. Descartes' provisional doubt 22
23. His constructive method . 22
SECTION PAGE
24. Mathematical analogy . . 23
25. The soul and God. . . 24
26. Matter 25
27. The fundamental difficulty . 25
28. Its historical origin . . 26
29. Reality undiscoverable . .27
30. Dogmatism and scepticism . 29
31. Spinoza's philosophy . . 30
32. The euthanasia of theology . 31
33. Influence of Cartesians upon
English thought . . 32
III. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM.
34. The English philosophers . 34
35. Locke and innate ideas . . 34
36. His cosmological theory. . 36
37. .Sceptical tendency . . 37
38. Berkeley on materialism . 38
39. His idealism. . . .40
40. His theory of causation . . 41
41. Its true meaning . . .42
42. Its importance in his philo-
sophy . . . .42
43. David Hume . . -43
44. His sceptical conclusion. . 43
45. Hume's problem . . -45
46. His theory of perception . 45
47. Limits of thought . . 46
48. Object and subject . . 46
49. Perception involves a ' fiction ' 47
50. Mode of escape from his di-
lemma . . . .48
51. Hume's theory of causation . 50
CONTENTS OF
52. Illustration of its meaning . 51
53. Mode of escape . . . 52
54. Further statement of theory . 53
55. Dissolution of the old bonds . 54
56. Reconstructive process . -55
57. Final sceptical position . . 56
58. The resulting empiricism . 57
IV. COMMON SENSE AND
MATERIALISM.
59. Opposition to scepticism in
England . . . -59
SECTION
60. The common-sense view
61. Reid's position
62. Its philosophical weakness
63. Its value . . .
64. Hartley's materialism .
65. Admixture of theology .
66. Philosophical weakness
Hartley's theory
67. Its value
68. Monboddo .
69. The unsolved problem .
70. Resulting forms of opinions
of
PAGE
, 60
. 6l
. 62
, 64
6 5
66
66
68
68
69
70
CHAPTER II.
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
1. Locke and Bossuet . . 74
2. The ' Histoire des Variations ' 74
3. Authority and reason . . 75
4. English theory of toleration . 75
5. Protestant rationalism . . 76
6. Rational theology . . -79
7. Christianity and philosophy . 8 1
8. Enlarged conceptions of the
universe . . . .81
9. ' Quod semper, quod ubique,
quod ab omnibus ' -83
10. Christianity and Deism . . 85
11. General character of the deist
controversy . . .85
12. Limits of toleration . . 88
13. The decline of Deism . . 89
CHAPTER III.
CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
1. Party lines . . . .91
2. Perplexed issues . . .92
3. External and internal evidence 92
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND,
4. Locke's theology . . -94
5. His ' Reasonableness of Chris-
tianity' . . . -94
6. The essence of Christianity . 95
7. The terms of salvation . . 96
8. The need of a revelation . 97
9. Locke the typical latitudi-
narian .... 100
10. His view of the mysteries . 101
11. JohnToland. . . . 101
12. His miscellaneous works . 102
13. ' Christianity Not Mysterious ' 104
14. Toland's philosophy . .106
15. His rationalism . . . i<
1 6. Excision of ' mystery ' . . K
17. Application to Christianity . i<
1 8. Ambiguous result . . . i:
19. Locke and Stillingfleet . . I:
20. Norris and Browne's Replies to
Toland . . . . i:
21. Browne's position . . . i;
22. His agnosticism . , . i;
23. Metaphor and analogy . .11
24. Browne and Berkeley . . i j
25. Toland's problem unsolved . 1 1
III. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON.
26. Samuel Clarke
27. Clarke's philosophy
28. Demonstrable theology .
29. Free-will
30. Ontology and revelation.
119
120
121
121
122
THE FIRST VOLUME.
SECTION PAGH
31. Theology and morality . .123
32. Is revelation needed ? . .124
33. Is a future state demonstrable ? 125
34. A revelation needed . .126
35. But not necessary . . . 127
36. Ambiguous result . . .128
37. Clarke's position and influence 129
38. William Wollaston . .130
39. His moral theory . . .130
40. His pessimism . . .130
41. Need of a future life . . 132
42. Pessimism and optimism . 132
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS.
43. Matthew Tindal . . .134
44. ' Christianity as Old as the
Creation' . . . . 135
45. Force of his argument . . 137
46. Rationalism .... 137
47. Morality the essence of religion 138
48. Attack on revelation , . 139
49. Tindal and Clarke . . 141
50. The doctrine of corruption . 141
51. Christianity and progress . 143
Tindal's position . . .144
Tindal's opponents . . 145
52
53
54. James Foster's reply to Tindal 146
55-
56.
57-
H7
148
148
59-
60.
His rationalism .
The use of revelation
Sykes's reply to Tindal.
John Conybeare's reply to
Tindal . . . .149
Latitudinarianism . . . 151
The use of revelation . .152
SECTION PAGE
61. John Leland's Reply to Tindal 153
62. God and the British Constitu-
tion'. '. . . . 155
63. William Law's Reply to Tindal 157
64. Law attacks the law of nature 158
65. And the rationalist principle . 159
66. Scepticism and authority . 161
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM.
67. Thomas Chubb . . .163
68. His various tracts . . .163
69. General tendency . . .164
70. Thomas Morgan . . .166
71. Historical theory . . .166
72. His position. . . .168
73. Causes of decay of Deism . 168
74. Sceptical conclusion . .169
75. Disappearance of Deism . 170
VI. CONCLUSION.
76. Henry Dodwell . . . 172
77. Rationalism and scepticism . 172
78. Dod well's argument . . 173
79. His conclusion . . .174
80. His professed mysticism . 1 75
81. Replies to Dodwell . .175
82. Bolingbroke's theological writ-
ings 176
83. His virulence . . .178
84. His confused method . . 179
8$. His theological basis . .180
86. Atheists and divines . .181
87. Warburton's reply . .182
88. Sceptical result . . .183
CHAPTER IV.
CRITICAL DEISM.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
1. Growth of criticism . .186
2. The use of ridicule . .186
3. The point of view. . .188
4. Assumptions of the apologists 1 88
5. And of the critics . . .189
6. Absence of critical canons . 190
7. Historical conceptions implied 191
8. Scientific conceptions . .192
9. Inadequacy of controversy . 193
II. LESLIE'S SHORT METHOD.
10. Charles Blount . . .194
11. Charles Leslie . . .194
12. The ' Short and Easy Method ' 195
13. Leslie's 'Four Rules' . . 196
14. His rationalism . . . 196
15. Application of his rules . . 197
1 6. His view of the world . . 199
17. Significance of his position . 200
1 8. The canon .201
CONTENTS OF
III. COLLINS ON FREETHINKING.
SUCTION PACK
19. Rise of criticism . . .201
20. Allegories .... 202
21. Direction of assault . . 203
22. Collins and Bentley . . 204
23. Bentley's ' Phileleutherus Lip-
siensis' .... 205
24. Collins's ' Discourse of Free-
thinking' .... 205
25. Argument from various read-
ings ..... 207
26. Swift's attack upon Collins . 209
27. The argument from misanthropy 210
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM
PROPHECY.
28. William Whiston . . .212
29. Whiston's ' Essay towards Re-
storing the Text, &c.' .213
30. Collins's ' Discourse of the
Grounds and Reasons ' . 214
31. Connection of Old and New
Testament . . .214
32. Allegorical meanings . .215
33. Aim of the book . . . 2l6
34. Application to Christianity . 216
35. Replies to Collins . .217
36. Chandler's replies to Collins . 218
37. Nature of the argument . 219
38. Futility of Chandler's reply . 221
39. His general weakness . . 222
40. The argument upon Daniel . 223
41. Conclusion of Chandler . 225
42. Sherlock's ' Six Discourses ' . 225
43. Sykes's reply to Collins . . 226
44. Newton's 'Dissertations' . 227
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES.
45. Miracles allegorised . . 228
46. Thomas Woolston . . 230
47. His discourses on the miracles 231
48. Mystical interpretation . . 233
49. Replies to Woolston . . 233
SECTION PAGE
50. Smalbroke's reply . . 274
51. Smalbroke's incapacity . . 236
52. Weakness of both sides. . 237
53. Changed character of contro-
versy .... 238
54. Zachary Pearce . . . 240
55. His argument against Woolston 241
56. Sherlock's ' Trial of the Wit-
nesses ' . . . . 242
57. Plan of the book . . . 243
58. Sherlock's argument . . 244
59. Its success and real force . 245
60. Peter Annet .... 246
61. West on the Resurrection . 248
62. Lyttelton on St. Paul . . 250
63. Annet's Replies to West and
Lyttelton .... 250
64. His brutality and force . . 25 1
65. Position of the argument . 252
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT.
66. Conyers Middleton . .253
67. His 'Letter from Rome' . 255
68. Nature of argument . . 256
69. Waterland's reply to Tindal . 257
70. His brutal theology . . 258
71. Waterland and Voltaire . . 259
72. Waterland's theory . . 260
73. Middleton's attack upon Water-
land 261
74. Middleton on verbal inspira-
tion . . . . 263
75. The historical method . . 263
76. Middleton's ' Free Enquiry '. 264
77. Attack upon the Fathers . 265
78. His critical spirit. . . 266
79. ' Theory of the miraculous . 268
80. Force of Middleton's argument 269
81. Development of the contro-
versy .... 270
82. Logical position reached . 271
83. Typical thinkers . . -273
Note upon Collins's 'Discourse
of Freethinking ' . .274
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER V.
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
1. Butler's life and character . 278
2. General character of the
'Analogy' . . . 279
3. The relation to previous con-
troversy . . . .281
4. The fundamental assumption . 282
5. Clarke, Collins, and Dodwell
on the soul . . . 283
6. Collins's Reply to Clarke . 284
7. Butler's adoption of Clarke's
argument .... 286
8. The doctrine of probability . 286
9. God and nature . . .287
10. The fundamental difficulty . 288
11. A providential scheme . . 290
12. The moral government of God 291
13. Relation of Butler's doctrine
to ethical theories . . 292
SECTION PAGE
14. The deification of conscience 293
15. The probationary state . . 294
1 6. Butler and evolution . . 295
1 7. The waste of nature . . 296
18. Necessity and fatalism . . 297
19. Butler's solution of the diffi-
culty .... 298
20. Its inadequacy . . . 299
21. His final position . . . 300
22. The 'Analogy' and atheism . 301
23. Butler on revealed religion . 302
24. Unsatisfactory method of his
argument .... 33
25. Final position . . 304
26. Weakness of his argument . 305
27. Its force .... 307
28. Conclusion . . 307
CHAPTER VI.
DAVID HUME.
1. Imperfect appreciation of
Hume .... 309
2. Neglect of his writings . .310
3. Completeness of his arguments 311
4. Kant's scheme of theological
arguments. . . .312
5. The cL priori argument . .312
6. The d, posteriori arguments . 313
7. Necessity of facing them . 314
8. Hume's general reply to on-
tologists . . . . 315
9. The ' Dialogues ;' their gene-
ral scheme . . . 317
10. Their bearing on the ontologi-
cal argument . . .318
ir. Hume's reply to Descartes . 318
12. The ' cosmological ' argument 319
13. The 'physico- theological' ar-
gument .... 320
14. Its two meanings . . .321
15. The first unsatisfactory . . 322
1 6. But not quite without effect . 323
17. The second meaning unsatis-
factory . . 324
1 8. Final causes and evolution . 324
19. Antiquity of argument . . 325
20. Its contradiction of experi-
ence,. , 326
21. The morality of the Deity . 326
22. The universe imperfect . -327
23. The most probable hypothesis 328
24. Conclusion of ' Dialogues ' . 329
25. The moral argument . . 329
26. Essay on a ' Providence and
a Future State ' . . 330
27. The ordinary reply . . 332
28. Hume's conclusion . . 333
29. Application to Butler . . 333
30. The historical argument . 334
31. The ' Natural History of Re-
ligion' . . . .334
32. Origin of theism . . . 336
33. The argument from miracles . 337
34. First mode of evasion . . 339
35. Second mode of evasion . 340
36. Force of Hume's argument . 341
37. His real belief . . . 341
XIV
CONTENTS OF
CHAPTER VII.
WILLIAM WARBURTON.
1. Lowth's description of War-
burton .... 344
2. Warburton's litigiousness . 345
3. Warburton and Pope . . 347
4. Warburton and Hurd . . 347
5. Warburton's arrogance . . 348
6. The quarrel with Jortin . . 349
7. Its result . .... 350
8. Specimens of Warburton's
language . . . .351
9. His true value ... 352
ip. His love of paradox . . 353
11. His illustration of contem-
porary thought . . -355
12. The ' Divine Legation of
Moses' f . . .355
13. Its leading argument . . 356
SECTION PAGE
14. Its method .... 357
15. The central assumption . . 358
16. Difficulties of his system . 359
1 7. An ' equal Providence ' . . 360
18. The future state of the Jews . 361
19. God and the British Constitu-
tion 361
20. Complex results . . . 363
21. Nature of the theocracy . 363
22. Anthropomorphism . . 364
23. Warburton on miracles . . 365
24. Middleton and Wesley . . 366
25. Warburton's reputation . . 367
26. His relation to Hume and
Butler . . . .368
27. His hypothesis verbal . . 369
28. Source of his blunders . . 3 70
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LATER THEOLOGY.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
1. Doctrine of English specula-
tion 372
2. Politics and theology . .372
3. The English compromise . 373
4. Indolent scepticism . . 374
5. The Church and the sceptics . 375
f>. Social influences . . . 375
7. Logical influences . . . 377
8. Scientific influences . -379
II. THE COMMON-SENSE SCHOOL.
9. Beattie's ' Essay on Truth ' . 381
10. The argument from conse-
quences .... 382
11. The appeal to the vulgar . 382
12. Oswald|s ' Appeal to Common
Sense' . . .383
13. His version of common sense. 384
14. Nature of his position . . 385
15. Soame Jenyns's 'View of the
Internal Evidences' . . 385
1 6. Cynicism and asceticism . 386
1 7. Jenyns and Johnson on the ori-
gin of evil .... 387
III. SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
1 8. The Hutchinsonians . . 389
19. Their mysticism . . . 390
20. Jones of Nayland . . .391
21. Bishop Home's remarks on
Hume . 392
22. Hugh Fanner on miracles . 392
23. Divine and diabolic miracles . 393
24. Fanner's controversies . . 395
25. Answers to Hume. . . 396
26. Adam's essay on Hume's
Essay . . . .397
27. Campbell's answer to Hume . 398
28. Probability and evidence . 399
29. The real difficulty. . . 400
30. Hume's remarks on Campbell 401
31. Campbell's general position . 401
32. Douglas's ' Criterion ' . . 402
33. Its sceptical tendency . . 403
34. Unsatisfactory conclusions . 404
THE FIRST VOLUME.
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL.
SECTION
35. Cambridge theologians .
36. E. Law's ' Considerations on
Theory of Religion ' .
37. W. Paley
38. His ' Natural Theology '
39. The argument from design
40. Paley's conception of it .
41. His anthropomorphism .
42. Special instances .
43. The limitation of the Deity
44. The fatal gap . .
45. Paley's ' Evidences '
46. Theological assumptions
47. Their application to the ques-
tion . . .
48. Force of his argument .
49. Assumption involved
50. Tacit admissions .
51. Paley's sincerity .
52. His latitudinarianism .
V. THE SUBSCRIPTION CONTRO-
VERSY.
53. Rise of Unitarianism
54. Blackburne's ' Confessional '
55. His own views
56. The ' Feathers ' petition
57. Key's lectures
58. Laxity of his views
59. General indifference
VI. THE UNITARIANS.
60. Taylor's ' Ben Mordecai '
61. Its tendency . . .
62. Price's Arianism .
63. Joseph Priestley .
64. His inconsistencies .
65. His materialism .
66. His scientific tendency .
PAGE
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69.
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70.
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82.
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85-
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87.
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90.
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91.
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93-
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94.
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95-
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96.
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97-
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98.
431
99.
432
67. Priestley and Horsley . . 433
68. Priestley's ' Historical Me-
thod ' . . . .434
Want of true historical sense . 435
And philosophical knowledge 436
Horsley's advantage . 437
72. The main point of dispute . 438
73. Priestley's strong point . . 439
74. Conclusion of controversy . 440
75. Gilbert Wakefield . . . 441
76. His political troubles . . 442
' Essay on Inspiration ' . 442
78. Edward Evanson . . . 443
His ' Dissonance of the Evan-
gelists ' .... 444
Semi-rationalism . . . 445
VII. THE INFIDELS.
Gibbon 446
Gibbon's conversion . . 446
His defects as an historian . 447
His attack on Christianity . 449
His relation to the apologists . 449
Inversion of historical argu-
ment. . . . . 451
Force of his argument . -453
Replies to Gibbon. . . 453
Bishop Watson . . . 454
Watson's theology. . . 456
His reply to Gibbon . -457
Paine's ' Age of Reason ' . 458
Paine's ignorance and impu-
dence .... 458
His common sense . . 459
His view of the Bible . .461
The revival of Deism . . 462
Paine's morality . . . 463
Replies to Paine . . . 464
Close of the period . . 464
ENGLISH THOUGHT
IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
I. BETWEEN the years 1739 and 1752 David Hume pub-
lished philosophical speculations destined, by the admission of
friends and foes, to form a turning-point in the history of
thought. His first book ' fell dead-born from the press ; ' few
of its successors had a much better fate. The uneducated
masses were, of course, beyond his reach ; amongst the edu-
cated minority he had but few readers ; and amongst the few
readers still fewer who could appreciate his thoughts. The
attempted answers are a sufficient proof that even the leaders
of opinion were impenetrable to his logic. Men of the
highest reputation completely failed to understand his impor-
tance. Warburton and Johnson were successively dictators
in the literary world. Warburton attacked Hume with a
superb unconsciousness of their true proportions which has
now become amusing. Johnson thought that Hume's specu-
lations were a case of ' milking the bull ' l that is to say, of
a morbid love of change involving a preference of new error
to old truth and imagined that he had been confuted by
Beattie. 2
If Hume impressed men of mark so slightly, we are
1 Boswell, July 2ist, 1763.
2 'Tour to the Hebrides.' October 1st, 1773.
VOL. I. B
2 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
tempted to doubt whether he can have affected the main
current of thought. Yet, as we study the remarkable change
in the whole tone and substance of our literature which syn-
chronised with the appearance of Hume's writings, it is difficult
to resist the impression that there is some causal relation. A
cold blast of scepticism seems to have chilled the very marrow
of speculative activity. Men have lost their interest in the
deepest problems, or write as though paralysed by a half-sup-
pressed consciousness of the presence of a great doubter.
2. The explanation of the apparent contradiction must
doubtless be sought partly in the fact that Hume influenced
a powerful though a small class. He appealed to a few
thinkers, who might be considered as the brain of the social
organism ; and the effects were gradually propagated to the
extremities of the system. The influence, indeed, of Hume's
teaching is the more obscure because chiefly negative. It pro-
duced in many minds a languid scepticism which cared little
for utterance, and might see, without proclaiming, the futility
of Warburton's insolence or Johnson's dogmatic contempt.
But the rapidity and extent of the transformation of the
whole body of speculation points unmistakably to the work-
ing of influences too manifold and potent to be embodied in
any single personality. The soul of the nation was stirred
by impulses of which Hume was but one, though by far the
ablest, interpreter ; or, to speak in less mystical phrase, we
must admit that thousands of inferior thinkers were dealing
with the same problems which occupied Hume, and, though
with far less acuteness or logical consistency, arriving at simi-
lar solutions. It is as if they felt what Hume saw, or per-
ceived implicitly and obscurely what he brought out with
the most explicit lucidity. What is the real nature of this
process ? How is it that a tacit intellectual co-operation is
established between minds placed far apart in the scale of
culture and natural acuteness ? How is it that the thought
of the intellectual leaders is obscurely reflected by so many
darkened mirrors, even when we are unable to point to any
direct and overt means of transmission ? How far may we
believe in the apparent unity of that shifting chaos of specu-
lations of more or less independent thinkers, which forms what
we vaguely describe as public opinion, or the spirit of the age ?
/. INTRODUCTORY. 3
3. Historians of philosophy naturally limit their attention
to the ablest thinkers. They tell us how the torch was
passed from hand to hand from Descartes to Locke, from
Locke to Hume, and from Hume to Kant. Men become
leaders of thought in virtue of the fact that their opinions are
in some degree influenced by reason. Thus the progress of
speculation may be represented as determined by logical con-
siderations. Each philosopher discovers some of the errors
of his predecessor, and advances to some closer approxi-
mation to the truth. Though a superficial glance suggests
that succeeding thinkers are related rather as antagonists
than allies, more careful observation may show that each
great man has contributed some permanent element of truth,
and that there is thus a continuous, though a very tortuous,
advance in speculation. Thought moves in a spiral curve,
not in a straight line. But, when we look beyond the narrow
circle of illustrious philosophers, we are impressed with the
conviction that other causes are at work besides those which
are obvious to the logician. Doctrines vanish without a direct
assault ; they change in sympathy with a change in apparently
remote departments of enquiry ; superstitions, apparently sup-
pressed, break out anew in slightly modified shapes ; and we
discover that a phase of thought once, as we fancied, defi-
nitively established, is but a superficial modification of an old
order of ideas.
4. Before tracing the development of that particular
movement of thought of which I am about to sketch the his-
tory, it may be well to consider this familiar phenomenon a
little more closely. Our knowledge has, in some depart-
ments, passed into the scientific stage. It can be stated as a
systematic body of established truths. It is consistent and
certain. The primary axioms are fixed beyond the reach of
scepticism ; each subordinate proposition has its proper
place ; and the conclusions deduced are in perfect harmony.
If the truths thus established do not conform to any observed
phenomenon, we are entitled to infer confidently, not that the
doctrine is wrong, but that some disturbing element has es-
caped our observation. Every new discovery fits into the old
system, receiving and giving confirmation. We may arrange
our first principles under some wider generalisation, but we
B 2
4 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
are not called upon to modify their essential truth. The
typical case is, of course, that of the mathematical sciences.
Euclid's propositions are as true as ever ; and the doctrine
about floating bodies, which Archimedes discovered in his
bath, has not been refuted. The map of human knowledge
has here become far wider and more detailed, but the outlines
once laid down remain unaltered. If the intellect could thus
have always passed from the known to the unknown if, in
every advance to new conquests, its base of operations had
always been secure ---the whole history of speculation would
have been of a similar character.
5. History shows a very different state of facts. In many
departments of thought the foundations are still insecure.
Men are wrangling as fiercely as ever over metaphysical
problems substantially identical with those which perplexed
the most ancient Greek sages. The controversial battle has
raged backwards and forwards over the old ground, till
general weariness, rather than victory, seems likely to con-
clude the strife. One reason is plain. Some theory about
phenomena not yet accurately investigated is necessary in the
earliest periods. Before the regularity of the order of nature
had ever been asserted, men assumed at every step some
principle in which it was more or less implied. When astro-
nomy was scarcely in the embryonic stage, savage races must
have had some views as to the recurrence of times and sea-
sons. Even the brutes, we must suppose, have some implicit
recognition of the simplest sequences of events ; and in the
rudest human intellect there are the rudiments of scientific
knowledge. But these rudiments are strangely distorted by
innumerable errors. In other words, before we know, we are
naturally prompted to guess. We must lay down postulates
before we arrive at axioms. Most of these, we must suppose,
will possess an element of truth. A belief which brought a
man into too direct collision with facts would soon disappear
along with the believer. An erroneous postulate, however,
may survive, if not so mischievous as to be fatal to the agent.
Others may stand the test of verification by experience, and
may finally take their place as accepted and ultimate truths.
The greater number, perhaps, will be materially modified, or
will gradually disappear, leaving behind them a residuum of
/. INTRODUCTORY. 5
truth. Thus the progress of the intellect necessarily involves
a conflict. It implies destruction as correlative to growth.
The history of thought is in great part a history of the gra-
dual emancipation of the mind from the errors spontaneously
generated by its first childlike attempts at speculation. Doc-
trines which once appeared to be simply expressions of im-
mediate observation have contained a hypothetical element,
gradually dissolved by contact with facts.
6. To hasten this slow process of disintegration, to dissolve
the old associations of ideas, and bring about their crystallisa-
tion round a new framework of theory, is a task to be per-
formed slowly and tentatively even by the acutest intellects.
Even when the reason has performed its part, the imagination
lags behind. We may be convinced of the truth of every
separate step in a scientific demonstration, and even be able
to grasp it as a whole, and yet the concrete picture which
habitually rises before our mind's eye may express the crude
old theories which we have ostensibly abandoned. In ordinary
moods, we are still in the days of the old astronomy, and
unable to believe in the antipodes ; and in moments of poeti-
cal feeling, we easily return to the mental condition of the
believers in the solar myths. Old conceptions are preserved
to us in the very structure of language ; the mass of mankind
still preserves its childish imaginations ; and every one of us
has repeated on a small scale the history of the race. We
start as infants with fetish worship ; we consider our nursery
to be the centre of the universe ; and learn but slowly and
with difficulty to conform our imaginative constructions to
scientific truths. It is no wonder, then, if the belief, even of
cultivated minds, is often a heterogeneous mixture of elements
representing various stages of thought ; whilst in different
social strata we may find specimens of opinions derived from
every age of mankind.
7. When opinion has passed into this heterogeneous state,
the first step has been taken towards a complete transforma-
tion. The two characteristic instincts of the philosopher are
the desire for certainty and the desire for harmony. ' The few
in whom a love of speculative truth amounts to a passion seek
on the one hand for a solid foundation of unassailable truths,
and on the other endeavour to bring all departments of know-
6 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
ledge into agreement with established principles. In some
minds the desire for unity of system is the more strongly de-
veloped ; in others the desire for conformity to facts ; and
during the earlier stages of enquiry the two instincts must be
frequently In conflict. So long as our knowledge is imperfect,
we shall often have to choose between a want of symmetry
and a want of accuracy. In time, we may hope that a defini-
tive philosophy will give full satisfaction to both instincts.
That time is doubtless distant ; and the more distant because,
with the mass of mankind, the love of speculative truth is
amongst the weakest of impulses. It is only by slow degrees
that the philosopher can hope to disperse the existing preju-
dices, and extend the borders of his intellectual cosmos over
the ancient realms of chaos. We may hope that in the end he
will be triumphant ; for he has the advantage that his con-
quests, if slow, are permanent ; and the gradual adaptation
of the race to its medium, which is the underlying law of
development, implies that there is a tendency towards a
growing conformity between the world of thought and the
world of facts. It is not that every change implies the sub-
stitution of truth for error, but that, in the ceaseless struggle,
truth has at least the one point in its favour that when once
reached it is more likely to be permanently held. Each es-
tablished truth may serve as a nucleus round which all further
discoveries may gradually group themselves.
8. The purely intellectual impulse is thus of the highest
importance, though it corresponds to a feeble desire. When
once the process has begun, when a foothold has been obtained
by the pioneers of intellectual progress, the process will con-
tinue, though often slowly and obscurely, unless the spirit of
enquiry be extinguished by tyranny or atrophied by some
process of social decay. That the process should be generally
slow and obscure follows from the general law of persistence.
Old customs and institutions, even of the most trivial kind,
linger long after their origin has been forgotten and some new
justification has been invented for them. Forms of language
and of thought have a similar vitality, and persist long after
they are recognised as cumbrous and misleading. Every
change must originate with some individual who, by virtue of
his originality, must be in imperfect sympathy with the mass
7. INTRODUCTORY. 7
of his contemporaries. Nor can any man, however versatile
his intellect, accommodate his mind easily or speedily to a
new method and a new order of ideas.
9. A new opinion emerges, as a rule, in regard to some
particular fragment of a creed. An acute thinker detects an
error of logic, or a want of correspondence between theory
and fact. Whilst correcting the error, he does not appreciate
the importance of the principles involved. He fancies that he
is removing a morbid excrescence when he is cutting into a
growth vitally connected with the whole organism. Contro-
versies, which are afterwards seen to involve radically antago-
nistic conceptions of philosophy, begin by some special and
minor corollary. The superficial fissure extends deeper and
deeper, until the whole mass is rent in twain. The con-
troversy which began at the Reformation appeared at first to
turn upon the interpretation of a few texts : it has spread,
until we see that it implicitly involved discussions as to the
ultimate groundwork of all human knowledge. Two different
modes of conceiving the universe and regulating life were
struggling for the mastery. The most heterogeneous forms of
opinion are evolved, as such controversies develop themselves
and affect minds in the most various stages of culture. The
less acute intellects accept incongruous solutions, and admit
a principle in one case, which they arbitrarily reject in cases
logically identical. Illustrations might be given from every
department of thought. One man believes that prayers can
retard eclipses ; a second laughs at his superstition, but holds
that they can hasten fine weather ; a third rejects these views,
but clings to the belief that the course of a plague, or the issue
of a battle, or the development of a character, may be
influenced by the same method. People believe in miracles
which happened a thousand years ago who would ridicule a
miraculous story of to-day. Politicians hold that the suffrage
is the inherent right of every human being ; and add arbitrary
limitations which exclude half or nine-tenths of the species.
Free-trade is admitted to be beneficial to each of two
provinces or two federal states, and denied to be beneficial if
the states become nations. The normal attitude of thought
is to be heterogeneous, and therefore unstable. When the key
of the position is won, a battle has still to be fought over every
s THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
subordinate position. Philosophers, however, may congratulate
themselves upon the inconsistency of mankind ; for if it were
generally admitted that a principle which is true in one case
must be true in all similar cases, philosophy would be crushed
in the shell by the antipathies aroused. Philosophers may
win their way step by step, because the ordinary mind deals
only with special cases, and cares little for the ultimate logical
consequences.
10. But philosophers themselves are subject to the same
illusions in a scarcely inferior degree. The vulgar accept
incoherent conglomerates of inconsistent theories. The
philosopher has a more refined procedure for softening the
process of transition. The ordinary process is familiar in the
history of law. Old rules which are too narrow or clumsy for
complex states of society are modified by judicial interpre-
tation without avowed alteration. Legal fictions grow up
without a recognition of their fictitious character, as the
natural result of the attempt to bring a new class of facts
under the old formula. The original nucleus is lost to sight
under a mass of accretions and adaptations. Rationalizing is
the same process in theology or philosophy. At each par-
ticular step it seems that the old rubric is being expanded or
confirmed, and that its deeper meaning is being brought out
by disregarding trifling changes in the letter ; and though the
initial stage of a theory may differ widely from the final, and
even, in some most important cases, be almost its logical
contradictory, the change at any given moment may be
imperceptible. This may perhaps be regarded as the normal
process. It is conceivable that the whole series of our concep-
tions of the universe, from the most savage to the most philo-
sophical, might have been traversed by a continuous and
imperceptible process. There are, indeed, critical points at
which the change forces itself upon our consciousness, and at
which the system, gradually overloaded by the accumulation
of new observations and interpretations, requires a complete
reorganisation. But the great cause of abrupt changes is the
fact that the process proceeds at varying rates in different
social strata. The vulgar are still plunged in gross supersti-
tions, from which the educated have definitively emerged. A
conflict arises between inconsistent modes of thought, as a
/. INTRODUCTORY. g
conflict arises between different systems of law, when two
races at different points of the scale of development are
brought into contact. The philosophic doctrine, misunder-
stood by the ruder intellect, gives rise to a crude scepticism,
which is but another form of superstition, and the attempt to
accommodate the hostile systems, no longer unconsciously
carried out, but consciously adopted as a device for evading
responsibility, may at times lead to downright dishonesty and
disregard of the great virtue of intellectual candour.
ii. Another process, however, is illustrated by the excep-
tional class of minds which really delights in novelty. Since
truths and errors have become indissolubly associated, the
thinker who perceives the error is tempted to abandon the
truth. If moral teaching has been for ages connected with a
belief in hell, the thinker who sees that hell is a figment
sometimes infers that the moral law is not obligatory. The
ordinary comment upon such cases is that an excess of
credulity engenders an excess of scepticism. Though such
oscillations occur, it is more important to observe that we
easily exaggerate their amplitude. The most unflinching
sceptic really carries with him far more than he knows of the
old methods of conception. He inherits the ancient frame-
work of theory, and, unable to find a place in it for his new
doctrine, cuts away a large fragment to make room for the
favourite dogma. To his contemporaries this sacrilegious act
appears to be the most important ; it is the mark by which
they recognise his peculiar character ; to observers at a dis-
tance it may appear that his conservatism is really more re-
markable than his destructiveness. They wonder more that
he should have retained so much than rejected so much. He
follows the old method or retains the old conception, though
he sees its futility for attaining the old ends. The discord
is the result of an incomplete transformation of thought. He
gives up hell, but he admits that hell is the only sanction
for morality. He retains the old conception of the limited
duration of history, though he rejects the old cosmogony
which served to justify the conception. He is, therefore,
forced to admit a catastrophe, though disbelieving in the my-
thology which reconciled the imagination to the catastrophe.
We are doubtful whether to be more surprised at the boldness
io THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
which rejected the old explanation, or at the timidity which
retained the old assumptions of fact. The common taunt as
to the credulity of sceptics is suggested by such cases. The
heretic propounds a heterogeneous system of thought ; he ad-
mits the validity of part of the orthodox case, whilst explicitly
denying the validity of another part. He is, therefore, led
into contradictions as glaring as those which he has discovered
in the established scheme, whilst their novelty renders them
more offensive. The old misconceptions are sanctioned by
long association ; the contrasts in the novel system of thought
are still marked by the glaring crudity of raw conjecture.
Thus it constantly happens that the innovator falls into an
apparent excess of scepticism simply because he has retained
too much of the traditional method. He sees that the old
paths are crossed by impassable chasms ; and has not yet
discovered the existence of other roads to the ancient truths.
The general tendency to persistence of ideas is, therefore,
illustrated even when we come upon apparent exceptions,
though here the shock of transition is intensified, instead of
softened, by the tendency to adhere to ancient forms.
12. So far, we have been considering the purely intel-
lectual influences which govern the gradual transformation of
accepted theories. The love of abstract truth, the love of
consistency, and even the intellectual curiosity which seeks
to extend the boundaries of knowledge, are motives which
can only be operative in minds of exceptional activity. Any
intellectual impulse, however, necessarily sets up a whole
series of other changes, more appreciable by the ordinary
understanding, and is in turn modified by their influence.
The logician may work out his problems without regard to
ulterior consequences ; but these consequences are the ex-
clusive or predominating considerations in determining the
acceptance of his theories by the great mass of mankind.
Nor does any creed really flourish in which the faith of the
few is not stimulated by the adhesion of the many. What,
then, are the main influences, outside of the more logical in-
stincts, which most obviously affect the progress of a new
system of thought ?
The most obvious of all is the application of any given
theory to the material wants of mankind. No creed, as I
I. INTRODUCTORY. 11
have said, can be permanent which does not imply an ap-
proximate recognition of many facts. A tribe which had an
unlimited faith in the efficacy of charms against poisonous
plants or savage beasts would be speedily extinguished.
Nature would effectually persecute such heretics. But it is
also true that a race may be capable of maintaining itself
in spite of the grossest superstitions, or mankind would not
be in existence. The savage believes in his charms, but he
believes more profoundly in his bow and arrows ; and thus,
many races survive to the present day which still preserve the
intellectual habits of the remotest prehistoric past. Still, an
increase of knowledge is, so far, an increase of power. The
race which possesses some simple acquaintance with rudi-
mentary truths as to the properties of iron has a point in its
favour in the great game of life. It will, probably, end by
extirpating its neighbours. And, passing to the other extreme
of civilisation, the direct utilitarian value of scientific know-
ledge has become a great source of power. Not less than in
the earlier stages, the race which knows most of the physical
laws, and can apply them most effectually, has an advantage
in that struggle for existence which is not less keen because
its character is concealed amongst civilised races. The more
direct influence upon the progress of opinion is equally clear.
Not only does the most scientific race flourish, but it comes
to believe in science. We may denounce, and very rightly,
those coarse forms of utilitarianism which imply an excessive
love of mere material advantages ; but it is not to be for-
gotten that the prestige acquired by modern science depends
in great measure upon its application to purposes of direct
utility. Railways and telegraphs are not everything. Most
true ! but the prospect of bringing the ordinary creeds of
mankind into harmony with scientific conclusions depends, in
no small degree, upon the general respect for men of science ;
and that respect, again, depends materially upon the fact that
men of science can point to such tangible results as railroads
and telegraphs. We need not fear to admit that, if there is
a greater chance now than formerly of the ablest intellects
acquiring a definite supremacy, and resisting the constant
tendency of mankind to lapse into superstition, it is in great
degree because such conquests over the material world can
12 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
be appreciated even by the ignorant, and reflect credit
upon that system of thought with which they are associated.
This utilitarian tendency of modern science is, at the present
day, the first and most direct influence in the transformation
of opinion.
13. But the influence of a change in the pervading modes
of thought acts in other 4 , and perhaps more potent, though less
obvious, methods. There is a correlation between the creeds
of a society and its political and social organisation. The
belief in the supernatural sanctity of a king or a caste, the pre-
valence of some ethical views as to the nature of marriage, or
the true ends of national existence, are essentially necessary
for the preservation of a certain order. If the belief is modi-
fied, the order becomes unstable or disappears. The forces
of cohesion by which men are held together take a different
form. Society may thus be radically altered by the influence
of opinions which have apparently little bearing upon social
questions. It would not be extravagant to say that Mr.
Darwin's observations upon the breeds of pigeons have had a
reaction upon the structure of European society. It is, how-
ever, as clear as it is more important, to remark that the
social development reacts upon the creeds. If, for any reason,
as from the stimulus caused by a geographical or a scientific
discovery, or by the simple accumulation of wealth, a large
class becomes dissatisfied with its position, the attempt to
remodel its relations to the whole may involve an attack
upon the theories implied in the social order. When a natural
organ becomes unfitted for its task when, for example, the
rule of a king or a priesthood becomes intolerable, the religion
which sanctions their authority will itself be questioned. No
great social change, it is probable, can be carried out without
stimulating some such process. Or, again, when two races at
different stages of progress are brought into contact, not only
do the ideas current in each directly affect the ideas of the
other, but the whole constitution may be changed, and a re-
distribution of power modify the theories upon which power
reposes. A struggle between two different types of govern-
ment forces upon each nation a consciousness of its own pecu-
liarities, and may intensify or weaken its characteristic beliefs.
The mere realisation of the truth that other forms of faith
7. INTRODUCTORY. 13
beside the Christian were actually flourishing in a great part
of the world profoundly altered the established creeds during
the period which followed the reawakening of modern Europe.
The extension of commercial activity thus influenced the
spiritual life. Any great shock, in short, to the social order,
or any new relation to the external world, may react upon
the creed. If such changes do not suggest new thoughts,
they provide a favourable opportunity for the application of
new thoughts. The stirring of the soil gives a chance for the
growth of the new seeds of thought. Beliefs which have been
dormant, or popular only amongst philosophers, suddenly
start into reality, and pass from the sphere of remote specu-
lation to that of immediate practice. The more closely we
examine recent developments of opinion, the more, I believe,
we shall be convinced that the immediate causes of change
are to be sought rather in social development than in the
activity of a few speculative minds. A complete history of
thought would therefore have to take into account the social
influences, as well as the logical bearing, of the varying phases
of opinion.
14. The fact becomes more striking when we remember
that the creed of a race shapes other manifestations besides
its industrial activities and its discharge of social functions. It
regulates the play of the imagination, and provides expres-
sion for the emotions. Life is not entirely occupied in satis-
fying our material wants, and co-operating or struggling with
our fellows. We dream as well as act. We must provide
some channel for the emotions generated by contemplation of
the world and of ourselves. A creed is partly an attempt at
a systematic statement of our knowledge, real or supposed,
and partly a more or less poetical embodiment of the feelings
which have no direct relation to our actions. In the earlier
stages of development the distinction scarcely appears. A
child does not distinguish between its dreams and realities.
Its fancies and its observations are inextricably blended ; and
it cannot lie because it cannot speak the truth. In the infancy
of the race, if history is its poetry, it cannot distinguish be-
tween the mythology which represents a vague conjecture
and the traditions which more or less record facts. The at-
tempt to separate the two elements is the more difficult be-
H THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
cause, as I have said, the imagination lags behind the reason,
and persists in reproducing the old dreams in indissoluble
union with speculations as to facts. When the emotions are
roused, the old mode of conceiving the universe revives ; and
any attempt to dispute its accuracy is resented as needlessly
cruel. The new order, constructed by the reason, remains
colourless and uninteresting, because the old associations have
not yet gathered round it.
15. Wordsworth expresses the familiar sentiment when he
wishes that he could be ' a pagan suckled in some creed out-
worn.' The sight of Proteus and Triton might restore to the
world the long-vanished charm. Now, as far as science is
concerned, we are tempted to say that Wordsworth is simply
wrong. The Greek mythology gave an inaccurate represen-
tation of the facts. The more accurately we know them the
better for us. A slight acquaintance with the law of storms
is far more useful to the sailor than any guess about a mys-
terious being, capriciously raising the waves, and capable,
perhaps, of being propitiated by charms. From the purely
utilitarian point of view, we are the better off the closer the
correspondence between our beliefs and the external realities.
But, further, we are tempted to say the same even in a
poetical sense. Why should Wordsworth regret Proteus and
Triton ? Because the Greek derived from the sea the existence
of beings the contemplation of whose power and beauty was
a source of delight to him ? But, in the first place, the facts
are to Wordsworth what they were to the Greek. If the
Greek thought the sea lovely in colour or form, the colour
and the form remain. The imaginary being in whom the
phenomena were embodied could only be known through
the phenomena. The beauty is beautiful still, though we no
longer infer an imaginary cause. Nothing is lost but a dream,
and a dream, which, by its nature, could only reflect the
reality. Why not love the sea instead of loving Proteus, who
is but the sea personified ? And, secondly, we must add that
the dream reflects the painful as well as the pleasurable
emotions. When the superstition was a living reality, instead
of a poetical plaything, we may be sure that it expressed
horror as well as delight. The sailor, imagining a treacherous
deity lurking beneath the waves, saw new cause for dread, and
/. INTRODUCTORY. 15
would often have been glad enough to learn that Proteus was
a figment.
1 6. So far as the myth is simply a rough statement of ob-
served facts, we may admit that its disappearance is a clear
gain. We may admit, too, that ultimately its disappearance
will not be even a loss to the imagination. When the imagi-
native synthesis has overtaken the logical, when the bare
framework of formulae has gathered round it the necessary
associations, we may be able to express our emotions directly
as well as by the intervention of a crude hypothesis. And,
further, we may agree that accurate knowledge does not ulti-
mately alter the apparent balance of pain and pleasure in the
world. The new view will gain as much by dispersing the
old gloomy forebodings as it will lose by dispersing chimerical
hopes. But it must be also admitted that there is an interval,
and a very long interval, of comparatively depressing senti-
ment. The evil is not that a charm has departed, but that
we have lost a mode of expressing our emotions. The old
symbols have ceased to be interesting, and we have not
gained a new set of symbols. The fact, therefore, that we
have dispersed the gloomy along with the cheerful supersti-
tions is not, in this sense, relevant. The mind is quite as
much in need of an expression for its fears as of an expression
for its hopes. We invert the relation of cause and effect
when we consider that our emotions are determined by our
imaginative creeds. We are not melancholy because we
believe in hell, but we believe in hell because we are melan-
choly. The hard facts of the world, the misery which is
blended with every form of human life and every spring of
human action, force us to blend lamentation with rejoicing.
A race, struggling for life, pressed by cold, hunger, disease,
and the attacks of enemies, may try to console itself by a
dreamland of future happiness, but it must also find expres-
sion for its forebodings. No creed, therefore, has a widely-
spread or continuous vitality which has not embodied all
moods of the human mind. Sheer optimism is the least
vigorous of beliefs. Believe in a beneficent Creator, and you
must also believe in human depravity, and the continued
activity of the Devil. Manichodsm may be disavowed in
words. It cannot be exiled from the actual belief of mankind.
16 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
And thus the loss which Wordsworth might fairly lament was
not the loss of a mistaken theory about facts, nor the loss of
a consoling prospect for the future, but the loss of a system
of symbols which could enable him to express readily and
vigorously every mood produced by the vicissitudes of human
life. In time the loss may be replaced, the new language
may be learnt ; we may be content with direct vision, instead
of mixing facts with dreams ; but the process is slow, and,
till it is completed, the new belief will not have the old
power over the mind. The symbols which have been associ-
ated with the hopes and fears, with the loftiest aspirations and
warmest affections of so many generations, may be proved to
be only symbols ; but they long retain their power over the
imagination. Not only respect for the feelings of our neigh-
bours, but our spontaneous impulses, will tempt us to worship
at the shrines in whose gods we no longer believe. The idol
may be but a log of wood ; yet, if it has been for ages the
tutelary deity of a race, they will be slow in discovering that
it is possible to express their natural sentiment in any form
but that of homage to the old god. The importance of some
outward and visible symbol of an emotion is evident in all
religious and political history so evident, that many people
hold the symbol to be everything, and the symbolised nothing.
Some day patriotism may justify itself, but it cannot yet be
expressed except in the form of devotion to some institutional
fetish, or to a particular flag. The flag you say is but a bit
of coloured cloth. Why not manufacture one as it is wanted ?
Unluckily, or luckily, it is as hard to create a new symbol as
to obtain currency for a new word.
17. Thus the gradual ebbing of an ancient faith leaves a
painful discord between the imagination and the reason.
The idols gradually lose their sanctity ; but they are cherished
by poets long after they are disowned by philosophers, and
the poet has the greatest immediate influence with the
many. In the normal case, therefore, we may assume that the
imagination exercises, on the whole, a retarding influence.
Science has to appeal to its utilitarian triumphs in order to
gain allies against the ancient idolatry. There are, however,
times when the emotions take side with the intellect ; when
the old symbols have become for large classes associated with
7. I NT ROD UCTOR Y. 1 7
an oppressive power, and have been turned to account for
obviously degrading purposes by their official representatives.
These are the periods of the moral earthquakes, which destroy
an existing order. It must, however, be remarked that, even
in such cases, the most vehement reformers generally retain
more than they know of the old spirit. They are attacking
rather some corollaries than the vital part of the ancient
creed ; and an alliance produced by temporary community of
purpose between the leaders of the intellectual and the
popular revolt may not be so intimate as it appears.
The ultimate victory of truth is a consoling^ we may hope
that it is a sound, doctrine. If the race gradually accommo-
dates itself to its environment, it should follow that the beliefs
of the race gravitate towards that form in which the mind
becomes an accurate reflection of the external universe. The
closer the correspondence between facts and our mental repre-
sentation of facts, the more vigorous and permanent should be
the creed which emerges. But great forces may work slowly ;
and it is only after many disturbances and long continued
oscillations that the world is moved from one position of
equilibrium to another. Progress is the rare exception : races
may remain in the lowest barbarism, or their development be
arrested at some more advanced stage during periods far sur-
passing that of recorded history ; actual decay may alternate
with progress, and even true progress implies some admixture
of decay. The intellectual activity of the acuter intellects,
however feeble may be its immediate influence, is the great
force which stimulates and guarantees every advance of the
race. It is of course opposed by a vast force of inertia. The
ordinary mind is indifferent to the thoughts which occupy the
philosopher, unless they promise an immediate material result.
Mankind resent nothing so much as the intrusion upon them
of a new and disturbing truth. The huge dead weight of
stupidity and indolence is always ready to smother audacious
enquiries. Men of more imagination and finer emotional
sensibility are equally inclined to hate the inventor of intel-
lectual novelties. To them the reason presents itself as an
' all-corroding ' force, wantonly sapping the foundations of
belief, and desecrating all holy symbols. The daring specula-
tor, sufficiently tasked by the effort to escape from his own
VOL. I. C
1 8 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
prejudices, has a hard struggle against this spontaneous
alliance of the grosser and finer natures. His motives are
often obscure or hateful, and his theories unintelligible. And
yet, if not forcibly silenced, he can find a sufficient fulcrum
from which to move the world. He can point, and with
increasing confidence, to the immediate practical utility of
many of his discoveries. Though a respect for abstract logic
is rare, there is such a thing as the logic of facts. Theories
once worked yito the popular mind, in regard to certain par-
ticular cases, spread slowly to the most closely analogous
cases, though their wider application is still regarded with
horror. His alliance, moreover, though distrusted, is neces-
sary. If the higher intellect of a race is alienated, the popular
creed is doomed to decay. The light may be quenched, but
only at the cost of ensuring the corruption of creeds, which
from that moment lose the principle of vitality. And, finally,
the social changes which result from the growth of knowledge
and the conquest of the material world necessarily react upon
the moral and intellectual order. When the ancient creed no
longer satisfies the aspirations of mankind, the philosopher
has his chance, and too often fails to turn it to account. For
the value of his creed will be tested, not by pure logic, but by
trying its efficacy upon men's minds and hearts. The ques-
tion will be, not only whether the philosophic doctrine can
convince men of reason, but whether it can satisfy the imagi-
nation ; whether it can afford rules for controlling disorderly
passions, and provide a sufficiently vivid imagery for the ex-
pression of emotions. Undoubtedly there is a kind of implicit
logic in this process. The truer and more complete the creed,
the greater, ceteris faribus, the chance that it can effectively
influence mankind at large. But it may be that men are not
yet educated up to the necessary degree of culture, and the
higher creed may be ousted by a doctrine less complete and
satisfactory, but better fitted for assimilation by the ordinary
intellect. The power of the doctrine is tested, we may say, by
feeling and acting rather than by reasoning. Will it work ?
That is the essential question, which is not always answered
completely by proving that it is true. In a progressive society
a creed which is not advancing is retiring. Unless it is making
new conquests, it is falling into disorganisation. And though
7. INTRODUCTORY. 19
one condition of its power is that it should satisfy the keenest
intellects, it is also a condition of its full vigour that the en-
thusiasm of the leaders should be reflected and intensified by
their less intelligent followers.
In studying the development of a system of thought, it is
essential to remember these conditions, though they may not
be the most prominent or the most easily assigned. The logi-
cal strength and weakness of the various creeds which were
struggling for the mastery during the eighteenth century, goes
some way to explain the course of the intellectual history ; but
no explanation can be complete which does not take into ac-
count the social conditions which determined their reception.
Truths have been discovered and lost because the world was
not ripe for them. If Hume's scepticism was a potent in-
fluence at the time, it was not because similar doubts had never
occurred to other thinkers, or never been expressed by them,
but because the social conditions happened to be favourable to
their development. Though I propose to deal chiefly with the
logical conditions in the following pages, I shall endeavour
to indicate briefly what was that peculiar phase of thought
amongst the less accomplished thinkers which decided the
fate of the various germs of thought cast upon a more or less
fruitful soil.
II, THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY.
1 8. The principles thus stated are illustrated by the rela-
tion of the metaphysicians to the main currents of thought.
Newton laid down mathematical doctrines which were speedily
accepted by all mathematicians. To study Newton is there-
fore to study the history of the mathematical investigation of
the time. The difference between his views and those of
other enquirers is simply a difference of extent, not of sub-
stance. One thinker has more knowledge and a wider intel-
lectual horizon ; but all thinkers agree so far as their know-
ledge goes. If the same statement held true in philosophy,
we should simply have to expound the views of Locke and
Hume, and to show how those views were developed by later
enquirers. The thoughts of the greatest man would include
20 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
those of the less, and afford a starting-point for his successors.
In fact, however, we have to consider a complex process
of antagonistic theorising, where every position is in turn
assumed and abandoned, instead of a simple evolution of
thought. Yet, to understand the perplexed guesses of the
weaker reasoners, we must study the conclusions of the most
acute. The metaphysicians did not reach definitive conclu-
sions, or convert the world to their way of thinking ; but it is
essential to notice their theories, in order to give some clue to
the tangled maze of speculations in which similar opinions
were more or less distinctly involved.
19. Men have been arguing metaphysical questions for
many centuries without deciding them. Why are these studies,
so apparently fruitless, so perennially fascinating? Doubt-
less because metaphysics is a vague term, including a number
of enquiries, some of which lie beyond the legitimate sphere
of reason, but which, once disengaged from these hopeless
puzzles, would clear up the most important of all problems.
Under metaphysics we include a number of ontological, theo-
logical, ethical, psychological, and logical enquiries. What is
this world in which we live ? What are the ultimate limits ot
knowledge ? How can it be increased ? From what prin-
ciples must we start ? What methods must we apply ? What
are the rules to be deduced from the conduct of life ? If we
could answer these questions, we could satisfy the demands of
the intellect for a firm basis of knowledge and a systematic
co-ordination of all discoverable truth. But here, as else-
where, the process is slow and complex. The true theory is
reached by blundering into every possible error. We shall
find an infallible guide after following every ignis fatmis that
crosses our path. How to enquire ? Enquire successfully,
and then we shall know. The old saying crede ut intclligas
may be annexed by philosophy. The value of a belief is
tested by applying it. The method which has discovered
truths and interpreted phenomena is the method to follow.
Now that a certain body of truths has been definitely con-
quered, we are beginning to appreciate the significance of the
answer ; but innumerable efforts had been made to anticipate
it, and to take the dark riddle by storm. In the middle of
the seventeenth century the philosophy of Descartes had
II. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 21
given an answer which, like others, before and since, has
ceased to satisfy men's minds, but which determined the
starting-point of much English speculation. The unsatis-
factory nature of the method was already indicated by the
ambiguity of the results.
20. Philosophy was still in close alliance with theology.
The doctrine accepted alike by the reason and the imagination
was that the world was created, governed, and sustained, by
a Supreme Being of infinite perfection. Though we might
point to instances of sporadic scepticism, to individual thinkers
who had more or less distinctly attacked the basis of theo-
logical belief, this conception was adopted, however variously
interpreted, by all the great thinkers. To retain it in some
shape was felt to be essential to the highest moral, social, and
intellectual needs of mankind. The alternative to theology
seemed to be universal scepticism. All truth was guaranteed
by our trust in the divine truthfulness ; all knowledge was
harmonised when the shifting phenomena of the phenomenal
world were regarded as manifestations of the divine will.
Strike away this central truth, and chaos would come again ;
truth be unattainable, and the world a blind congeries of
shifting and changing forces.
21. One curious phenomenon follows. The interest of all
metaphysical enquiry is summed up in its bearing upon these
central questions. Opposite metaphysical systems should
lead, one might fancy, to opposite results. Deny the primary
data and the logical method of a philosopher, and you must
surely arrive at a different conclusion. Yet in practice the
same conclusion seems to be reached by all roads. The ques-
tion was not, is this doctrine proved, but how is it proved ?
Thus we find Descartes elaborately declaring his belief in
Catholicism ; Malebranche, the disciple, and Gassendi, the
opponent, of Descartes, were both Catholics ; Leibnitz was a
Lutheran. If Spinoza and Hobbes were accused of Atheism,
each of them sanctioned his speculation:; by the sacred name
of theology. In England, Locke, though attacking the Car-
tesian philosophy, was a theologian and a sincere if latitudi-
narian Christian ; Berkeley assaulted the older philosophy
expressly and most sincerely and passionately in the interests
of theology ; Hume argued that the premisses admitted by
22 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
Locke and Berkeley led to conclusions irreconcilable with
their theology ; and Reid so far agreeing with Hume-
attacked their premisses in order to support their conclu-
sions. And, finally, Hartley, the materialist founder of a
school which altogether repudiated theology, argued in the
interests of Christianity. Each philosophical school imputes
Atheism to its antagonists, and declares its own method to
afford the only sound basis for theology. In fact, the theo-
logical interpretation so swayed the imagination that philo-
sophy spontaneously sought for its protection. The freed
intellect begins by proving assumptions hitherto taken for
granted. It appears as the ally or the servant of the imagina-
tion before daring to assume an independent attitude. And
thus, we have at once the source of perplexity that all rea-
soners are evidently swayed to some extent by a foregone
conclusion. We cannot take for granted that even the most
candid reasoners are unreservedly abandoning themselves to
a purely logical impulse.
22. Descartes' initial principle of provisional scepticism
was intended to exclude this danger of possible prepossession.
He resolved to doubt whatever could be doubted. Proposi-
tions which proved to be insoluble under this process, carefully
and systematically applied, were to be regarded as definitively
established. Here was the solid rock upon which to erect a flaw-
less and imperishable creed, free from the futile logomachies
of the old scholasticism. Descartes, in fact, denies the dogma
of authority which asserts more or less clearly that a doctrine
is to be believed simply because other people have believed it.
Every traditional faith was to have its credentials strictly scru-
tinised before its soundness could be admitted. Reason, in
fact, is openly asserting its claims to be a judge of supreme
and independent authority, instead of a mere assessor in the
court of authority. The doctrine was gradually working its
way to recognition throughout the century, though Descartes
himself shrank from certain obvious applications.
23. This, however, is the negative side of the doctrine.
Descartes did something more than protest against a blind
submission to arbitrary authority. When resolving to test by
his new method all existing beliefs, he did not in fact doubt
that some such residuum as he sought would be discovered.
II. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 23
He did not really expect that the provisional would have to
be converted into an absolute scepticism. The method, in-
deed, already indicates the character of the truths which will
be discovered. It is likely to disperse any doctrines articu-
lately stated in the dogmatic form, and of which it is evident,
upon inspection, that they rest upon prescription rather than
reason. But it is less likely to be efficacious as against doc-
trines which have insinuated themselves more thoroughly,
because by subtler methods. A belief which is implied in
the very mode of conceiving the universe, which the philoso-
pher, like other men, had unconsciously imbibed from his
infancy, might easily pass itself off as implied in the very
structure of the mind. The only test for discovering the true
nature of such beliefs is afforded by the comparative method,
which enables us to trace their origin and development in
minds different from our own. But this mode of examination
was implicitly repudiated by Descartes' first principle. The
individual mind is regarded as competent to test the validity
of its own beliefs by a process of direct inspection. Descartes,
therefore, assumes that it is possible and he of course con-
verts the possibility into an actuality that we may discover
in the mind some ' innate ideas ' and first principles which are
a sufficient evidence for themselves. This doctrine might
take various forms to evade the criticism of opponents ; but
in some shape or other it is implied in all the philosophical
speculations to which Descartes gave the impulse, that, by
passing under review the contents of our minds, we can dis-
cover some primary truths, which either reveal themselves, or
are recognised as soon as revealed, and which have a validity
altogether transcending that of any knowledge acquired by
experience. They need no further test than their inherent
clearness ; and to deny them is to fall into a contradiction in
terms.
24. The method thus announced seemed to be sanctioned
by a great precedent. Mathematical knowledge was at that
time not merely the typical example of deductive reasoning,
but the only department of science which had been pushed
far beyond its rudiments. It was natural to infer, as was in-
ferred by Descartes and his whole school, that mathematics
exhibited the normal process of all philosophy. If other
24 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
sciences had not advanced equally, it was because in them
men had not been faithful to the same methods of speculation.
Now mathematics start from certain primary axioms which
may be plausibly regarded as independent of all experience. If
we know things as they are, or recognise truths independently
of experience, the knowledge must necessarily be the same in
every man. It is easy to invert the argument, and say what is
the same to every man must be independent of experience.
Every man agrees in the first principles of mathematics;
therefore a mathematical truth is independent of the personal
peculiarities which determine this or that man's intellectual
conceptions ; and therefore it is again inferred, it is indepen-
dent of all men's modes of conception, or it is a universal and
absolute truth. From the primary axioms of mathematics
are evolved a vast body of mutually coherent truths, each of
which has equal validity with the primary truths. The mathe-
matician defines a curve, and by the help of his axioms de-
duces the most remote properties. Let the metaphysician
once discover the axioms suitable to his problems, and define
with equal clearness the conceptions with which he is to deal,
and he will be able to construct a science as complete and
unalterable as that of the mathematician.
25. That is the vision which Descartes endeavoured to
realise, and one difficulty immediately occurs. The mathe-
matician might argue with confidence about his triangles (or
so it seemed) without troubling himself to enquire whether
there ever was or ever could be a triangle in the world. The
propositions are certainly true on the hypothesis that there
are triangles, for they flow by a logical necessity from the
very definition of triangles. But to make the logic useful, we
must know that the idea has a counterpart in reality. In
the same way metaphysicians might construct a complete
logical framework without being certain that it had any more
substance than a dream. Hence the first step is to find a
point of contact with reality. Once get hold of a reality,
and then we have a firm centre from which our know-
ledge may spread along every line of thought. The logical
nexus by which the properties of the idea are inferred from
its definition must correspond to a causal nexus by which
the properties of the object are evolved from its essence.
//. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 25
Given the reality of space, and our geometry must correspond
to fact. The celebrated je pense, doncjesuis, supplies us with
one such reality namely, ourselves ; and by a more laborious
and more easily assailable reasoning, Descartes endeavours
to exhibit the other great idea God as proving its own
reality. We have only to contemplate it to be forced to
acknowledge that it corresponds to the fact which lies at the
centre of the universe.
26. Another discovery follows What is our self ? It is the
single, indivisible, and therefore indestructible unit, which we
call the soul, and from the very mode of proof it is evident
that the essence of the soul is thought Knowing the nature
of the soul by direct intuition, we also know the nature of its
necessary opposite matter. For matter must be that which
does not think, and, further, must be that abstraction which
exists under all the varying forms of the visible world.
Matter, that is, becomes almost identical with space. Its
essence is extension, though we may perhaps throw in the
quality of impenetrability, just, as we may say, to stiffen it
into the necessary consistency. Matter, in short, is simply
the world as conceived by the pure mathematician in his deal-
ings with geometry and mechanics. All other qualities vary
from man to man ; and it is plain, therefore, that we cannot
know them as they are.
27. Here then we have our realities. The antithesis be-
tween subject and object is represented by the two absolute
substances the soul and matter ; whilst God, the eternal and
self-existent substance, sustains and regulates their relations.
And now, having the necessary starting-point, we might pro-
ceed to deduce the world from our ideas, in full security that
the ideas must correspond to facts. But here, unluckily,
occurs the great difficulty which perplexed Descartes and
his followers. What is the soul ? It is the opposite of matter,
and utterly devoid of all material qualities. And what is
matter ? It is the opposite of the soul, and by no alteration or
manipulation can thought be got out of it. If so, how are
we to bridge over the gulf between two contradictories ? How
are we to conceive of any reciprocal action between the two
or of one upon the other ? All our reasoning is to be
guaranteed by the absolute clearness of our ideas ; and yet,
26 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
here at the very root of the system is a fatal contradiction.
The action of any being upon another must follow from their
definitions ; yet the definitions show that matter cannot be
brought into relation to spirit, whilst all scientific knowledge
rests on their mutual connection. The difficulty suggested
various so-called solutions, which really admit it to be in-
superable by calling in the aid of the Deity. Matter, it was
suggested, does not affect the soul, but when a change happens
in one, God causes a change in the other ; or, the soul cannot
be directly conscious of matter, but ' sees all things in God ; '
or, the soul and matter are like two separate clocks wound up
by God to go in perfect correspondence. Thinking, and the
object of thought, being torn asunder by the metaphysical
analysis, God is introduced as the correlating and unifying
principle. But a philosophy which begins by making a diffi-
culty only to be overcome by Omnipotence might well alarm
sober minds.
28. The primary source of the perplexities thus evolved is
doubtless to be traced back to the earliest periods of specula-
tion, and indeed of conscious reason. To reason is to educe
order and permanence out of the shifting chaos apparently
presented by that shifting world of phenomena,
Where nought abiding is but only change.
The records of primeval thought, the very structure of human
language, indicate the nature of the first attempts to organise
experience. Language implies classification. The world of
the senses is regarded as made up of individuals, capable of
being arranged in certain classes. Both classes and indi-
viduals can be contemplated as permanent objects of thought,
and therefore as the subject-matter of true propositions. But
here occurs one series of interminable questions. To say that
a proposition is true is to say that our thoughts correspond to
the facts. Which, then, are the facts and which are our
thoughts ? How, in the technical language of metaphysicians,
are we to draw the line between the objective and the sub-
jective element of knowledge ? It was inevitable that early
thinkers should blunder in the* attempt to solve those ever-
recurring problems upon which generations of acute metaphy-
sicians have exhausted their utmost acuteness. Looking, in
II. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 27
the first place, at the external world, nothing seems simpler
than the idea corresponding to the name of an individual
object, man, or tree, or stone. But the name implies a
whole series of difficulties. The man and the tree change
visibly at every moment ; if the stone does not change so
rapidly, we discover that its qualities are at every instant de-
pendent upon certain conditions which vary, however slowly.
All things, as the old sceptics said, are in ceaseless flux ; and
yet, to find truth, we must find something permanent. The
ordinary mind assumes that the thing corresponding to the
name remains unaltered, whilst some of its qualities change.
Is there a thing more than the sum of its qualities ; and, if so,
what more ? The assumption that the name corresponds to
some persistent entity roughly solves the difficulty of reconcil-
ing change and permanence. For the picture of the world as
it actually presents itself, a picture in which every minutest
fragment gradually blends with its neighbours, and changes
in response to changes at the remotest regions, we have, it
may be said, a kind of mosaic-work, made up of little bits,
each separate, homogeneous and permanent, and producing
the effect of continuity when not too closely examined. We
cannot even speak without using this hypothesis, or, therefore,
without implying some, however infinitesimal, inaccuracy.
If language is taken to be more than an approximation, we
have at once a source of error. The simple statement ' this is
John or Thomas' implies an error, for it implies that the
thing called John or Thomas remains identical, whilst some
of its qualities are altered.
29. Another difficulty follows. If, as language seems to
imply, a thing can be contemplated apart from its relations,
how are things bound together ? We separate the two terms
in imagination, and assume that they can exist apart in
reality. The very mechanism of language forces us to say
fire burns or man lives. We assume that ' fire ' may exist
without burning, and ' man ' without life. But, as experience
presents all things as related, we must restore the broken
link. The confusion between subject and object again in-
troduces itself. The separate fragments are connected by an
anthropomorphic bond. A being, like ourselves, is supposed
to be working behind the facts and keeping the separate
28 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
objects in relation. In some primitive stages of thought the
fire is endowed with human passions. Elsewhere, a more
or less transfigured human being is assumed to be guiding
the rain-cloud and hurling the thunderbolt. Here we
have, then, a principle of order and unity to bring together
the separated fragments. To interpret to ourselves even our
own unity, we imagine man to be inhabited by another man,
who somehow survives the changes of the organism. In
such assumptions we have the germs of all the metaphysical
puzzles of later times. As men are forced to recognise the
constant interdependence of all phenomena, they save the
permanent element by making it a more and more abstract
entity. One by one, each changeable quality is stripped off,
till a mere caput nwrtuum is left behind as a metaphysical
substance. The world of the senses is ' unreal ' because
changeable, and reality is banished to the metaphysical region
lying behind all possible experience. The forces which bind
the separate atoms together become less and less anthro-
pomorphic, and as the supposed real beings fade into empty
concepts, the uniting powers become occult qualities, supposed
somehow to inhere in the substances. The causal nexus,
that is, is regarded as a power which inheres in one body even
when not actually exerted. A correlative process must take
place in the internal world. To find reality is to find the
permanent thing which remains when all qualities of a per-
ceived object are changed. To find truth must^De to find a
proposition which remains in spite of all changes in the per-
ceiving subject. We have to eliminate the error due to the
presence of a ' subjective ' element. Now ' subjective ' means
either the element which varies from one individual to another,
or that which depends upon the nature common to the race.
It is possible to get rid of the first element, or we could frame
no general propositions. The existence of language implies
that phenomena may be described in terms which will be
accurate for all who can speak. It is true for all men every-
where and always, that two sides of a triangle are greater than
the third. But it is supposed to be possible to get rid of the
subjective element in the other sense ; to describe things not
only as they appear to everyone, but as they are ' in them-
selves.' This is but another case of the illusion already
//. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 29
noticed. Separating the two terms of the relation, each is
supposed to have an independent existence. The thing exists
independently of its qualities. The idea, or the relation be-
tween two ideas, exists independently of the perceiving mind.
All knowledge based upon experience implies a co-operation
between two factors, the objective and subjective. But ' sub-
jective ' is taken to mean ' unreal,' therefore the only true
truth is that which exists independently of the subjective
factor ; or, in other words, the truth which is known as we
cannot know it. The knowledge, then, must be of a mira-
culous nature, for it exists independently of conditions.
And thus, as external reality is to be found only in facts
lying outside of all possible observation, so truth is to be found
only in propositions lying outside all possible experience. As
the objects are bound together by a transcendental nexus,
the truths are combined by a transcendental logic. The
knowledge thus obtained is absolute, for it is independent of
all conditions either of external or internal origin. We seek
for the substance which underlies all substances and the truth
which lies beneath all reason. If we cannot find them, we
implicitly pronounce truth and reality to be unattainable
and undiscoverable.
30. These remarks may roughly give the genesis of the
various assumptions of the Cartesian method. The doctrines
of innate ideas, of the three transcendental substances, of
causation, and of necessary truths form part of a coherent
system. It is assumed that, unless you can get a faculty
which discovers the ultimate truths which lie behind reason,
truth must in some sense depend upon the structure physical
or spiritual of the organism that is to say, it must be sub-
jective or fictitious. Unless you can perceive realities as they
are not revealed to our perceptive faculties that is to say,
unless you can discover unperceivable perceptions you are
not in presence of facts, but of phantasms. Unless you can
know causes as they inhere in these objects, and exist even
in the absence of the conditions which lead to their being dis-
played to experience that is to say, unless you can know
inactive activities you know no real cause, but a series of
accidents. If the mind cannot discover a priori truths which
connect the passive ideas, and which explain the very process
3 o THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
of reason, its associations will be only customary, not reason-
able. The various difficulties were brought out by three
great thinkers. Locke attacked the theory of innate ideas ;
Berkeley attacked the doctrine of substance and the theory
of generalisation implied in it. Hume's assault, though
directed against the whole system, produced the most con-
spicuous effects in regard to causation. I must state the
positions of these thinkers in rather greater detail ; but at
present it is enough to emphasise the fact that here as in
most cases the writers inherited the assumptions of the
dogmatists. They admitted, that is, that, if the doctrine
of innate ideas and the doctrines based upon it were destroyed,
the legitimate result would be scepticism that is to say, the
admission that truth was undiscoverable. Locke and Berkeley
saved themselves by not carrying out their assault logically.
Hume became a thorough sceptic, as he was bound to do by his,
logic. Hume, therefore, agrees with Descartes in assuming
that truth was only obtainable as Descartes supposed himself
to have obtained it. He differed from him in maintaining
that the method of Descartes involved insurmountable con-
tradictions. He further agrees with Descartes and all his
predecessors in pursuing the simple introspective method ;
that is to say, in attempting to discover truth by simply con-
templating his own mind. But, unlike Descartes, he finds no
permanent basis for truth in his contemplations ; for, indeed,
in the mind itself he finds nothing, scarcely even a faculty,
and therefore he pronounces truth to be unobtainable.
31. One great thinker pushed the Cartesian doctrine to
its logical results ; to results, indeed, so logical as to cover
him with infamy. Philosophers repudiated deductions, so
inevitable and so intolerable, by swelling the popular outcry
against the ' atheist.' Spinoza was unpardonably thorough-
going. If we are to apply the mathematical analogy, it is
obvious that we must have the mathematician's advantages.
The mathematician is coherent and conclusive because his
reasonings are, so to speak, in one place. The geometrician
deals with our conceptions of space, and does not jump from
the properties of triangles to the properties of thought, or
even of chemical combinations. His subject matter is per-
fectly homogeneous, instead of being made up of perfectly
II. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 31
disparate orders of existence. The metaphysician, then, would
be in an analogous position if he could argue about a single
substance. Each of the three substances recognised by the
Cartesians is described as a negation in some sense of the
other ; but the positive qualities by which they are distin-
guished from pure being are not mutually exclusive, but dis-
parate. Suppose, then, that we regard these qualities as being
in some sense attributes of a single substance, shall we not get
rid of the negation ? God, let us say, is the sole substance
of the universe ; he has infinite attributes ; the soul is God,
known under the attribute of thought ; and matter is God, as
known under the attribute of extension. The difficulty of
securing the co-operation of soul and matter disappears ; for,
to use a rough comparison, as there is necessarily a perfect
correspondence between lightning and thunder, because the
same disturbance causes the sound to the ear and the light
to the eye, so the underlying cause will manifest itself in
two different spheres as spiritual and material. Granting
this, everything falls into its proper place. The internal and
external world are necessarily counterparts. The connection
and order of ideas are identical with the connection and order
of things. God is the first great cause, and the knowledge of
God's existence the primary axiom ; all events follow from
the nature of the self-existent Being, as corollaries in Euclid
follow from the first propositions ; and therefore, so far as our
knowledge is ' adequate,' all truths may be developed from
the self-evident principle, as parts of one consistent whole.
Thus the universe is the incarnation of logic. We have the
highest certainty, for we know that the absolute cause exists
beyond all changes, and the most perfect harmony, for the
remotest truth is but a corollary from the highest.
32. Later writers have wondered I think rather super-
fluously at the injustice which has connected the name of
atheist with the man who has also been called the 'god-
intoxicated.' If Atheism is taken to connote a disbelief in
virtue, in universal order, or in the possibility of attaining
truth, no man ever lived to whom the title was less appro-
priate. But if Atheism means a mode of conceiving the
universe which is radically inconsistent with the old theology,
the name is no longer so inappropriate. The God of the
3 3 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
churches is separate from the universe ; he must punish and
reward, create and destroy, and interpose at intervals to alter
the working of the established order. The conception dis-
appears equally whether the existence of God or not-God
be denied. The divine power seems to become a factor
which enters on both sides of every equation, and may there-
fore be omitted. We may place at the head of any system
of reasoning the proposition A=A; but to most people it
seems to be rather superfluous ; and so Spinoza's universal
theism seems to the ordinary theist to be no theism at all.
The God of Spinoza is pure Being; and though Spinoza
retains for this abstraction the reverence due to the concrete
Person of popular theology, and exhibits his doctrine as a
system of ethics, the ordinary mind fails to regard his
deity as an object capable of exciting emotion or guiding
conduct. The doctrine is, meanwhile, the more dangerous
because it points to the natural euthanasia of theology. Every
theological system tends to glide into pantheism, and by
exalting and widening the conception of deity to render it
nugatory. Theologians, therefore, may well dread the insi-
dious alliance of the Spinozist even more than the direct
hostility of the atheist.
33. In England, the philosophical impulse of Descartes
made no distinguished disciples. John Norris, the author of
the 'Ideal World' a second-rate adaptation of Malebranche
seems to be the only exception to the general indifference.
The English mind, for some reason, is generally averse to the
' high a priori road/ and moves awkwardly and timorously
when forced to take it. The result is, too frequently, that the
English representative of such a system preserves the
essential errors without attaining to the logical symmetry of
his originals. His sense that the foundations are insecure
does not deter him from building; but he somehow fancies
that, by making his edifice clumsy and unpretentious, he
can secure it from collapse. In England, therefore, we
find a philosophy which is half ashamed of itself, but which
yet involves the same fundamental assumptions. Many
English writers of the time had the same conception of a
possible body of metaphysical truths framed upon the mathe-
matical analogy. They reason on the same principles as to
II. THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY. 33
the nature of matter, the soul and God. They do not repro-
duce Descartes' proof of the existence of God, having, it is
probable, some difficulty in comprehending it ; but they are
confident that some solid proofs may be constructed which
will do equally well, and those which they offer imply the same
radical conceptions. Though the Cartesian philosophy failed
to obtain complete naturalisation, a less systematic accept-
ance of similar views, reposing upon similar methods of con-
ception, was thus familiar to English thinkers. It expresses
itself, in particular, in the theology of the rationalising school,
whether Christian or deist. The danger in one direction of
sliding into pantheism, and in another of making an his-
torical revelation superfluous, cramps the intellects of these
reasoners. The orthodox divine fears to become a mere
deist, and .the deist fears lest his theology should fade into
pantheism. We shall have to trace in detail the working of these
principles in the deist controversy. Here it is enough to
remark that the whole essence of the deist position may be
found in Spinoza's 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' A few
of the philosopher's pages have expanded into volumes and
libraries of discussion ; but the germs of the whole discussion
are present. Few of the deists, it is probable, read his works ; l
the name of Spinozism was of course dreaded by them ;
they take care both to avoid the imputation, and to make it
undeserved by carefully scotching their logic. The immu-
table chain of causation recognised by Spinoza is summarily
broken off by the dogmatic assertion of Free-will, which became
a mark of the whole deist and semi-deist school. The legiti-
mate descent of their theories is not the less manifest. And we
may therefore note as. an essential element in the subsequent
evolution of thought, that the English rationalism of the
eighteenth century, so far as it represented a constructive
impulse, was founded upon a decayed system of philosophy.
The assumptions from which it started and the methods
which it employed had already been expounded by more
daring and consistent thinkers. When hard experience has
proved a philosophy to be sterile, a religious movement
founded upon it suffers from deeply-seated delicacy of con-
stitution.
1 Toland is probably an exception. See his Letters to Serena.
VOL. I. D
THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
III. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM.
34. The critical movement initiated by Locke and culmi-
nating- with Hume reflects the national character. The
o
strong point of the English mind is its vigorous grasp of
facts ; its weakness is its comparative indifference to logical
symmetry. English poetry is admirable, because poetry
thrives upon a love of concrete imagery ; whilst Englishmen
have always despised too indiscriminately the dreams of a
mystical philosophy which seems to be entirely divorced from
the solid basis of fact. In metaphysical speculation their
flights have been short and near the ground. They have
knocked pretentious systems to pieces with admirable vigour ;
they have been slow to construct or to accept systems, how-
ever elaborately organised, which cannot be constantly inter-
preted into definite statements and checked by comparison
with facts. As one consequence, we perhaps underrate our
own philosophical merits. Comparing Locke, or his suc-
cessors, with the great German writers, we are struck by the
apparently narrow, fragmentary, and inconsistent views of our
countrymen. If the merit of a philosopher were to be ex-
haustively measured, not by the number of fruitful principles,
but by the variety and order of his applications of his princi-
ples, Locke and his successors would occupy a low position.
If the courage which passes over a difficulty in order to frame
a system be more admirable than the prudence which re-
fuses to proceed beyond clearly established principles, they
must be content with a secondary rank. Nor is it doubtful
that our dislike to pretentious elaboration often blinds us to
the merit of the more daring speculators whose width of view
has stimulated thought even whilst covering many fallacious
generalities. Yet I believe that the merits of our shrewd and
sober, if narrow and one-sided, speculation, will be more
highly valued as we recognise the futility of the cloudy struc-
tures which it has dissipated.
35. Locke is in this sense a typical Englishman. He be-
came the intellectual ruler of the century ; and for the next
two generations the English name was identified by the free-
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 35
thinkers of the Continent with Locke, liberty, and philosophy.
By Locke appears to have been generally meant the denial of
innate ideas. And though the general impression that this
denial constituted the whole sum and substance of his philo-
sophy may be sometimes taken as a symptom that the
eulogist had not got beyond the opening pages of the essay,
the popular instinct was probably right. Locke objected to
all the existing philosophy, as Descartes objected to the
scholastic philosophy, on account of its tendency to run into
mere logomachy. The method by which Descartes would
escape from the old labyrinth was the rejection of all ideas
not clear and all truths not self-evident. Thus would be ob-
tained a firm basis for a mathematically coherent system.
But this test, though sound in itself, was not sufficient. The
discussions of the Cartesians about the relations of matter and
the soul, their attempts to evolve the universe out of their
own consciousness, and to pronounce upon questions in-
capable by their nature of being brought to any definite test,
showed the source of the error. The old scholastic fallacies
were reviving, and to apply an effectual remedy it was neces-
sary to call in the test of experience. Ideas, it was plain,
might be clear and coherent, and yet have no reference to
facts. An imaginary world may be constructed behind the
real world, which may be as symmetrical and coherent as we
please. Nay, any number of such worlds may be constructed ;
and nobody can say which, if any, is the real one. Leibnitz's
monadology may be a true system ; but, also, it may not ;
and our faculties do not enable us to say whether it is or is not.
Locke, therefore, began rightly by exorcising the spirit of false
philosophy. Get rid of the ideas which do not correspond to
actual facts, and of the truths which cannot be tested by ex-
perience, and philosophy will be restrained once and for ever
from these fruitless and endless attempts to raise its flight
above the atmosphere. The theory of innate ideas supplied
the basis from which these flights were made ; and Locke,
therefore, rightly attacked innate ideas. In banishing them,
indeed, he was really banishing more than he intended. He
argued against a crude form of a theory which had in it an
element of truth ; and his answer could therefore not be final.
Doctrine took a more refined shape, to be met again by more
36 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
refined forms of Locke's arguments. For the present it is
enough to say that he really aimed at the most exposed gap
in his opponents' armour, and destroyed for ever the assump-
tions on which the older forms of ontological speculation were
necessarily based.
36. Locke's victory was decisive and of vital importance ;
but he did not fully reap its fruits. His inconsistency is
characteristic, and served to recommend him to his contem-
poraries. He fancied that the old system, or large frag-
ments of it, might survive the attack upon its vital principle,
and his uncertainty is curiously exhibited in his view of the
fundamental ideas of the Cartesian cosmology. No one was
less inclined than Locke to attack the fundamental tenets of
theology ; and yet, the idea of God is with Descartes the chief
instance of innate ideas, and would be in danger of disappear-
ing with them. Now Locke, as we shall hereafter see, was
profoundly sensible of the futility of theological scholasticism ;
indeed, it was probably that form of scholasticism which
chiefly excited his indignation, as its practical effects had
been most disastrous. But he was as anxious to preserve a
purified and rational theology as to limit futile speculations
into the inscrutable and mysterious tenets of theology. His
attack upon innate ideas must not be allowed to weaken the
proof of God's existence. As a. philosopher he argues elabo-
rately that we have no innate idea of God, and holds that
the absence of so important an idea is a strong presumption
against innate ideas generally. 1 But as a theological philoso-
pher, he argues that we can prove the existence of God as cer-
tainly as we can prove that the angles of a triangle are equal
to two right angles. The proof upon which he chiefly insists
is the proof from causation, 2 though he, of course, admits
others, and does not deny the validity even of the Cartesian
proof. Cause, as Hume presently showed, was a doubtful foun-
dation in Locke's system ; but of that Locke was unconscious.
His attitude towards the soul is rather more sceptical. He
denies that the soul always thinks ; he gave great offence by
declaring that we could not tell without revelation whether
the soul were immaterial or immortal ; 3 and his theory that
1 Locke's 'Essay,' book i. ch. iv. 8 to 17. 8 Ib. book iv. ch. x.
* Ib. book iv. ch. Hi., and 'First Letter to Stillingfleet.'
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 37
personal identity consisted in consciousness ! threw a suspicion
even upon the soul's unity and continuity. His theory in
regard to the third great idea is, however, of more importance.
His doctrine, that we have but ' an obscure and relative idea
of substance in general,' 2 is illustrated by one of those happy
comparisons which Locke not unfrequently strikes out. The
' Indian and tortoise ' has become a stock metaphor in our
literature, and seems to imply that of absolute substance we
can by no possibility know anything. But Locke accepted 3
and developed at length the distinction between primary and
secondary qualities to recognise the possibility of that kind of
knowledge which he seems to disclaim. The primary quali-
ties solidity, extension, figure, motion, or rest, and number,
according to his first numeration 4 are those which are in-
separable from matter generally. This presently becomes
identified with the proposition that the primary qualities are
really in bodies, ' whether our senses perceive them or no ;
whereas light, heat, and secondary -qualities no more exist in
them than " sickness or pain " in manna.' 5 Here, then, Locke
is following the philosophy which he assailed. He, like Des-
cartes, is trying to get outside of himself. His distinction
assumes that universal perceptions must be independent not
only of the constitution of this or that man, but of the consti-
tution of man generally.
37. Enough has been said to exhibit the inconsistent
character of Locke's position. Attacking the theory of innate
ideas, he yet retains conceptions vitally associated with that
theory. We know of a being who cannot be manifested
through the senses, though all our knowledge comes through
the senses ; and, similarly, we know some qualities, not merely
as they are manifested to us, but as they exist in themselves.
When such contradictions run through his whole system, it
is not surprising that Locke's theory of reality and truth
becomes confused. It is enough to point out that, in con-
formity with his other views, he admits that all natural science
is radically uncertain. The ' secondary ' qualities being in
1 Locke's ' Essay,' book ii. ch. xxvii. 9, &c. 2 Book ii. ch. xxiii. 3.
3 On the previous history of this celebrated distinction see Sir W. Hamilton's
note to Reid. Reid's Works, p. 825.
4 Book ii. ch. viii. 9. Ib. " 18.
38 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
some sense unreal, all the knowledge conversant with them
must be uncertain, and it would be a contradiction to sup-
pose that we could discover a ' necessary ' connection between
them and the primary qualities, for that connection can by
its very nature be only discoverable from experience. 1 Cer-
tainty is only derivable, as he constantly insists, from the
comparison of ideas in our minds. As we can never trace the
connection between the ideas and the external or primary
qualities which somehow produce them, we can never obtain
true knowledge in regard to the sense-given experience. ' In
physical things scientifical knowledge will still be out of our
reach.' We are, then, already on the road to scepticism, for
it is admitted that sense gives no certainty, and yet all other
avenues of knowledge are closed. Locke imagines that he has
only removed the points which support useless excrescences
where he has really struck at the foundations of a system.
38. Locke's attack upon the existing philosophy was
prompted, as it would seem, partly by his sturdy English con-
tempt for philosophical logomachy, and partly by his special
contempt for its theological embodiment. Berkeley, his intel-
lectual successor, joined to Locke's hatred for jargon a more
directly theological impulse. He thinks that philosophers are
apt to raise a dust, and then complain that they cannot see, 2
and tie speaks contemptuously of the schoolmen, whose
authority yet lingered in the Universities. 3 But 'his more
direct purpose is the confutation of ' sceptics and atheists '
against whom he proclaims war in the title-page to the
'Three Dialogues,' and especially against all whom he takes
to be materialists. 4 Materialism, in an overt shape, was
scarcely a common phase of doctrine at the time, though re-
presented by the dreaded name of Hobbes ; but Berkeley might
be naturally impressed by some parts of the Cartesian concep-
tion. The universe was split into two parts. On one side
was the spiritual atom called the soul. On the other the huge
dead machinery of matter worked by mechanical laws. The
insuperable difficulty of bringing these two opposite theories
into harmony was indicated by the desperate attempts of such
writers as Leibnitz and Malebranche to introduce a permanent
1 Book iv. ch. iii. 26 ; and iv. ch. xii. 9, &c. 3 Ib. i. 148.
2 Works, i. 138. Ib. i. 205, 305.
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 39
miracle. Berkeley might fear that the soul would have the
worst of it in the struggle ; for when all phenomena, inclu-
ding those of the human body, were explained by the pro-
perties of matter, which had at least certain mathematical
attributes, the soul, which had no attribute at all except the
attribute of thought, might be omitted as superfluous, or
reduced to be a mere spectator of the vast machinery, amidst
whose wheels and levers it was hopelessly ensconced. To
destroy matter, then, was to free the soul. Berkeley did not
devote much attention, like his contemporary Jonathan
Edwards, to the problem of fate and free-will, and when he
touches upon the subject his arguments are beneath his
standard. He believed in the freedom of the will ; but his
dread was not so much of necessity as of that hideous necessity
embodied in the laws of dead matter. He wished to get rid
of this gigantic corpse, whose stifling embraces threatened the
annihilation of the living and percipient subject. The pur-
pose of his writings explains the curious limitation of his
philosophy. He brought out with admirable acuteness, and
almost unsurpassed literary skill, the contradictions inherent
in the conception of matter as an unperceivable percep-
tion. He attacked the theory of abstraction involved in
this conception, in order to show that, when every quality
had been picked out of a supposed substance, the residuum
was nothing. An abstract idea was, according to him,
simply the idea of an individual object regarded as symbolical
of other objects. And, finally, he exposed the fallacy of Locke's
mode of distinguishing between the primary and secondary
qualities of matter. There is equally a subjective element in
both, if subjective be taken in its wider sense. The conception
of space depends upon the subject as much as the conception
of colour. If the secondary qualities are to be called unreal
on account of the co-operation of the human organisation, so
must the primary. But there was one side of his speculative
position to which Berkeley flushed with his triumphant
expulsion of matter from the universe paid too little atten-
tion. The vulgar perversion of his reasoning represented him
as bound in consistency to run his head against a post.
Berkeley not only repudiated this doctrine, but claimed that
the common sense of mankind when rightly interrogated
40 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
was upon his side. His theory was the true antidote to scep-
ticism ; for, according to him, the ideas present to our minds
were realities, whilst, according to other philosophers, they were
the unreal representatives of unknowable objects. But it is
still possible that, though Berkeley drew no sceptical inference
from his system, the legitimate inference was sceptical.
Where, in fact, does he find truths and realities ? If matter
vanishes, should not its correlative soul disappear with it ? If
we perceive nothing but ' ideas,' meaning by ' ideas ' a
series of sensations significant only of each other, how can we
obtain the knowledge of the God who is hidden from our
senses ? The answer is remarkable, and exhibits the connect-
ing link between the philosophy of Locke and Hume.
39. Berkeley displays his whole logical skill, especially in
the admirable Dialogues, to establish the proposition, in some
sense undeniable, that ' no idea can exist out of the mind.'
It is impossible for us for it involves a contradiction even to
imagine anything except sensations, perceptions, or emotions.
We cannot even think of anything but ' ideas, ' and ideas are
dependent upon the mind. From this the natural inference is
that, where there is no mind there is no idea that is, nothing.
' Their esse \spercipil l he says of ' unthinking things,' which are
equivalent to ideas. They must, then, vanish with the percipi-
ent subject. This Berkeley admits, but he draws an inference
unlike that which at first suggests itself. ' Sensible things,' he
says, ' do really exist, and if they really exist, they are neces-
sarily perceived by an infinite mind ; therefore there is an
infinite mind or God.' 2 This he calls 'a direct and immediate
demonstration of God's existence a short method of crushing
scepticism.' He tells us again that we know ' by experience '
that sensible things are independent of our minds. There
must, then, be some mind wherein they exist, in the intervals
of our perception, or after our annihilation. 3 This argument
involves some obvious difficulties, and even seems to in-
volve a downright fallacy. How can I know 'by experi-
ence ' that things which, by their definition are dependent on
my perception, exist when I don't perceive them ? And
how, if this be some way proved, does the continued existence
of a thing not perceived by me prove its existence in another
1 Works, vol. i. 157. 2 Ib. i. 304. 3 Ib. i. 325.
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 41
mind ? If by perceiving a thing I meant that I perceived
that somebody else perceived it, it would follow that my
absence would leave it existing in his mind. But this is an
impossible meaning, and Berkeley himself tells us l that we
cannot directly perceive another consciousness. We only
become aware of the existence of consciousness different from
our own by an interpretation of external signs. Yet his
argument seems to imply that a mind is necessary to the
existence of an idea, not only, if we may say so, within, but
without We admit that there must be a mind impressed,
but why should there be a mind impressing ? Are we not
confounding subject and object ? or tacitly assuming an idea
to be a kind of separable thing which may be taken out of
one mind and preserved in another ? Moreover, if we admit
that some substratum is necessary to preserve the continuity
of the external world, do we escape, by calling it ' mind,' from
all the difficulties involved, according to Berkeley, in the con-
ception of matter ?
40. Berkeley has another answer, which, however, is not
clearly distinguished by him from the foregoing. He tells us
that ' all the things which we perceive are visibly inactive.
There is nothing of power or agency included in them. So that
one idea or object of thought cannot produce or make any
alteration in another.' 2 The connections which we perceive be-
tween things are not causal, but symptomatic. The fire does
not cause pain, but is the mark that warns me of pain. 3 Our
knowledge, then, of sensible things can only be derived from
experience. We learn by experience, as is shown in the ' New
Theory of Vision,' to interpret visual ideas as significant of
tactual ideas, and vice versa. We cannot deduce one thing from
another by any process of reason, for the connection is arbitrary
and imposed by the will of the Creator. But and this is his
fundamental doctrine there must be a cause which excites
these separate and inactive atoms. The cause known as matter
is exploded. The true cause must be spiritual and immaterial,
or, in other words, God. It is God who speaks to us by the
symbolism of ideas. ' Vision '(the thought is one of his funda-
mental conceptions) ' is the language of the author of nature.' 4
1 Works, vol. i. 326. 3 Ib. i. 190.
2 II). i. 1 68. * Ib. i. 387.
42 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
But why is spirit the only substance ' according to Berkeley
a more satisfactory explanation than matter ?
41. The answer is given most explicitly in a remarkable
passage added in the third edition of the ' Dialogues.' 2 We
know the existence of spirit, he says, though we cannot know
the existence of matter. We have a ' notion ' of spirit, though
we cannot frame an ' idea ' of it ; and that notion does not,
like the idea of matter, involve any contradiction. What,
then, is the notion ? Spirit, he says, is that ' active being,
whose existence consists, not in being perceived, but in per-
ceiving ideas and thinking,' 3 whereas ideas are inactive and
perceived by the spirit. It follows that we can only conceive
of cause or active power as inherent in a spiritual substance. 4
Now, I am conscious of producing certain ideas at will, and
am equally conscious of being passive in regard to other
ideas. 5 These other ideas must have some cause, and as I
am not the cause, they must be caused by another spirit. An
idea, which is in this sense independent of my mind, proves
the existence of another mind, and the general order of the
universe proves it to be the manifestation of one eternal, infi-
nitely wise, and perfect Spirit. 6
42. It is this line of thought, implicit rather than clearly
elaborated, in the earlier treatises which led to the Platonism
of ' Siris.' The philosophy of the later work remained in
too nebulous a state to affect the general development of
thought. But even in its earlier form, it becomes plain that
Berkeley's philosophy is essentially dependent on his theory
of causation. The one reality in the universe is mind or
spirit ; and mind reveals itself only as will or as the sole
conceivable type of creative force. Spirit perceives and
generates ideas, in themselves inactive. The one omnipresent
Spirit is revealed in the persistence and harmony of the uni-
verse ; finite and created spirits manifesting their own exist-
ence through their spontaneous activity, and recognising the
existence of the Supreme Spirit by the sense of dependence.
This is what remains when we have got rid of matter. There
is one substance spirit ; and the soul of man is in presence of
the Creator, who addresses it through the symbolism of ideas.
1 Works, vol. i. 159. * Ib. i. 228. 5 Ib. i. 170.
8 Ib. i. 327-9. Ib. i. 310. " Ib. i. 232.
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 43
Without considering the logical coherence of this philosophy,
we see that Berkeley, whose writings otherwise anticipate to a
remarkable degree the teaching of Hume, escapes from scep-
ticism by declaring the necessity of efficient causes. The
union of nature depends upon this living bond. Destroy the
conception of cause as a living force, and his philosophy
crumbles to atoms. Nothing is left but a series of sensations,
strictly made up of atomic units. Now it was precisely this
conception which Hume assailed most pointedly, and his
assault upon it was that part of his doctrine which most
impressed his disciples and followers.
43. Hume, unlike Berkeley or Locke, was absolutely free
from theological prepossessions. He, and he alone, amongst
contemporary thinkers, followed logic wherever it led him.
Hume, indeed, may be accused of some divergence from the
straight path under the influence of literary vanity. To that
cause we may partly attribute his singular attempt to ex-
tinguish his early and most complete work, the 'Treatise on
Human Nature.' During his youth, however, he was a
reasoner pure and simple, and the subsequent change in his
literary activity probably implied some real dissatisfaction with
part of the earlier treatise, whilst we shall see that, in another
sense, it was a legitimate consequence of the principles to which
he still undoubtedly adhered. Hume's scepticism completes
the critical movement of Locke. It marks one of the great
turning-points in the history of thought. From his writings
we may date the definite abandonment of the philosophical
conceptions of the preceding century, leading in some cases
to an abandonment of the great questions as insoluble, and,
in others, to an attempt to solve them by a new method.
Hume did not destroy ontology or theology, but he destroyed
the old ontology ; and all later thinkers who have not been
content with the mere dead bones of extinct philosophy, have
built up their systems upon entirely new lines.
44. Hume starts from the positions occupied by Locke
and Berkeley. He regards innate ideas as exploded ; he takes
Berkeley's view of abstraction and of the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities ; he applies and carries out
more systematically the arguments by which Berkeley had
assailed the hypothetical substratum of material qualities.
44 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
But with Hume the three substances disappear together.
The soul is dissolved by the analysis which has been fatal
to its antithesis. All grounds for an a priori theology are
cut away, though this conclusion is, for obvious reasons, not
so unequivocally displayed in the treatise. All our knowledge
is framed out of ' impressions ' and ' ideas,' ideas being simply
decaying impressions. The attempt to find a reality under-
lying these impressions is futile, and even self-contradictory.
We are conscious only of an unceasing stream of more or less
vivid feelings, generally cohering in certain groups. The
belief that anything exists outside our mind, when not
actually perceived, is a ' fiction.' The belief in a continuous
subject which perceives the feelings is another fiction. The
only foundation of the belief that former coherences will
again cohere is custom. Belief is a ' lively idea related to or
associated with a present impression.' ' Reason is ' nothing
but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, which
carries us along a certain train of ideas, and endows them
with particular qualities according to their particular situa-
tions and relations.' 2 Association is in the mental what
gravitation is in the natural world. 3 The name signifies the
inexplicable tendency of previously connected ideas and im-
pressions to connect themselves again. We can only explain
mental processes of any kind by resolving them into such
cases of association. Thus reality is to be found only in the
ever-varying stream of feelings, bound together by custom,
regarded by a ' fiction ' or set of fictions as implying some
permanent set of external or internal relations, and becoming
beliefs only as they acquire liveliness. Chance, instead of
order, must, it would seem, be the ultimate objective fact, as
custom, instead of reason, is the ultimate subjective fact. We
have reached, it is plain, the fullest expression of scepticism,
and are not surprised when Hume admits that his doubts dis-
appear when he leaves his study. The old bonds which held
things together have been completely dissolved. Hume can
see no way to replace them, and Hume, therefore, is a sys-
tematic sceptic.
1 Works, vol. i. 396. Hume is not quite satisfied with this definition. See
Appendix to 'Treatise.'
2 Hume's Works, vol. {.471. * Ib. i. 321.
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 45
45. I must attempt, however, to define rather more closely
the nature of this destructive conclusion. Hume assails
the old theory of perception and the old theory of causation.
What are the elements of which the universe is composed, and
how are they woven into a continuous whole ? ' I see the
sun.' How does that statement differ from the statement, ' I
have certain sensations of light and heat ' ? 'I believe that
the sun will rise to-morrow.' What do I mean by belief,
and what is my warrant for this particular belief? Hume's
analysis of this last question involves the theory of causa-
tion, which is his most celebrated contribution to philosophy.
It became the prominent thesis of the Essays, which gave
Hume's later version of his philosophy ; it suggested Kant's
enquiry into the foundations of philosophy, and it was ac-
cepted with little alteration by the school which followed
Hume's lead in England. It is, however, closely connected
with his other theories. The question, Why do I conceive of
the world as something different from a series of sensations ?
is bound up with the further enquiry, Why do I regard the
world thus constituted as regulated by certain invariable
relations ? Whether reasonably or otherwise, we do in fact
interpret the stream of feelings of which consciousness is
composed as implying an organised system of real existences
or potentialities of experience, underlying each other in
infinite complexity. As a fact, we believe in a set of perma-
nent relations independent of our individual consciousness.
How, and in what sense, is this to be ' explained ' ?
46. Let us begin with the theory of perception. Every
perception must depend upon the perceiving subject. My
sight depends upon my eyes. If they were differently consti-
tuted, I should see differently. Therefore, it was argued by
Locke, colour is a secondary quality. It depends upon the per-
ceiver as well as upon the thing perceived. Therefore it cannot
have that reality which is to be found in the transcendental
world alone, where it is assumed we might see things un-
affected by the character of our eyes. Hume, following
Berkeley, has only to apply this method to the primary quali-
ties. They, as much as the secondary qualities, are perceived
through the senses, and are equally unreal, if the presence of
a subjective factor implies unreality. The ideas of colour,
46 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
sounds, tastes, and smells, are inseparably connected with the
ideas of extension or solidity. Each implies the other, and to
remove one set of ideas is to remove the other. 1 If we take
an object to pieces in our imagination, we find that, when we
have removed all the qualities known to us by our senses, we
have removed everything. The supposed ' abstract idea,'
which remains behind, is, as Berkeley has shown, a mere
empty word. A thing is the sum of its qualities ; and what
we call the abstract idea of a triangle is but the idea of a par-
ticular triangle regarded as representative of an indefinite
multitude of other triangles. 2 Thus, whenever an idea is
suggested as corresponding to some independent reality,
Hume challenges it to give an account of itself. Can we
trace its derivation to some previous impression ? If \ve can-
not, it is an empty word. If we can, it must share the unreality
of the impression which it represents. 3
47. How then do we come by the distinction between ex-
ternal and internal ? If every object of thought is either a
sensation or the representative of a sensation, an actual or a
decaying impression, how can we even think of things as
existing outside of us ? ' It is impossible for us,' says Hume,
' so much as to conceive or form an idea of anything specifi-
cally different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our
attention out of ourselves as much as possible. Let us chase
our imaginations to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the
universe; we never can really advance a step beyond ourselves,
nor can conceive any kind of existence but those perceptions
which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the
universe of the Imagination, nor have we any idea but what
is there produced.' 4 So great is our weakness that Hume
notices as anomalous the case in which we form an idea of a
particular shade of blue, when we have only perceived con-
tiguous shades. 5 The mind is supposed to have no faculty
except that of reviewing past impressions, modified only by
their gradual decay.
48. Yet it is a plain fact of consciousness that we think
of a table or a house as somehow existing independently of
our perception of it. The mind is conscious of a series of
1 Hume, vol. i. 514. a Ib. i. 369. 4 Ib. i. 371.
2 Ib. i. 330, et seq. 5 Ib. i. 315.
777. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 47
sensations of colour, form, and so forth. Some of these
recur frequently in the same relative positions, though inter-
rupted by other terms of the series. Why does the mind,
which can only, as Hume says, reproduce its impressions and
ideas, and reproduce them as they occurred, identify the
recurrent terms, and then suppose them to exist behind the
interrupting terms ? Why are not the group of sensations
which we c*all table supposed to vanish when they are
not felt like the group of sensations which we call toothache ?
'As far as the senses are judges,' he says, 'all perceptions are
the same in the manner of their existence.' l The so-called
qualities of bodies are sensations ; the pain caused by a blow,
the colours of the striking body, its extension and solidity, are
equally feelings in the mind. We have, it would seem, in
each case, the same ground, or absence of ground, for inferring
a corresponding external existence in one case as in the other.
Both inferences are alike reasonable or unreasonable. As
reason does not infer the external existence in the case of a
pain, it should not do so in the case of colour ; and we must
therefore refer to the imagination as the source of our belief
in external existence. Hume traces, in a very ingenious
chapter, 2 the mode in which the coherence and consistency
of certain groups of feelings make it easy for the imagination
to regard the series of similar but intermittent sensations as
continuous and identical. As the attempt to satisfy the de-
mand of the imagination, which thus suggests an independent
existence of our perceptions, and the refusal of the reason to
recognise an unperceived perception as possible, philosophers
have hit upon the expedient of attributing interruption to
our perceptions and independent continuity to ' objects.'
But as an object can only be a perception for we can
imagine nothing but our feelings the contradiction is really
concealed, not evaded. 3 Here, says Hume, is the sceptical
doubt which can never be ' radically cured.' The subjective
element implies unreality. All perceptions have a subjective
element. Therefore, the supposed reality must be a ' fiction.'
49. The doubt, in fact, has not been radically cured. The
struggle between realists and idealists continues, and every
1 Hume, vol. i. 483. * Ib. i. 504-5.
2 ' Treatise,' part iv. 2 ; vol. i. 478, &c.
48 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
philosopher has his own solution. All that can be here
attempted is to indicate the direction impressed upon later
speculations by the doubt thus formally articulated. We
may, perhaps, admit that Hume's account of the process by
which a belief in an external world is actually suggested is
fairly accurate, or that it coincides, as far as the contemporary
state of psychology would allow, with the explanations given
by later thinkers of his school. 1 Further,, the process described
is not strictly reason. A simple inspection of a sensation will
not reveal an external object to which it corresponds. Nor
can we say that the object, in the sense of a continuous
something as it exists out of relation to the mind, ' resembles '
the sensation, for that would be to attempt the contradictory
feat of contemplating an unrelated relation. Still further, we
may admit that the philosophy attacked by Hume, and the
popular conceptions upon which it was based, did involve an
element of ' fiction.' The whole history of philosophical thought
is but a history of attempts to separate the object and the sub-
ject, and each new attempt implies that the previous line of
separation was erroneously drawn or partly ' fictitious.' Such
a familiar fact again as the belief that an object felt in the dark
is coloured as we see it in the light, illustrates the popular
tendency described by Hume 2 to attribute an objective exist-
ence to our own sensations in other words, to believe in a
' fiction.'
50. In what direction, then, are we to escape ? Granting
that Hume has exposed certain contradictions involved in
contemporary philosophy and in all popular conceptions,
are we to regard those contradictions as insoluble ? The first
remark will probably be that Hume's ' fiction ' implies the
existence of a condition which he tends to ignore. If we are
unable accurately to draw the line between the objective and
subjective, and even forced to admit that the attempt to
separate the two elements in perceptions common to the race
implies a contradictory attempt to get outside of our own
1 Compare, for example, Hume's 'Treatise,' part. iv. 2, with Mr. Herbert
Spencer's ' Principles of Psychology,' part vii. ch. xvi. xvii. xviii. Mr. Spencer, of
course, differs from Hume's conclusions, and enlarges greatly his account of the
constructive process ; but the germs of his doctrine are to be found in Hume.
2 See Hume, vol. i. 486.
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 49
minds, we must still admit that the primitive elements of
consciousness imply the necessity of recognising the dis-
tinction. They have, that is, an objective and subjective
aspect, and the power of thus organising impressions implies
the existence of an organised mind. Hume's analysis seems
to recognise no difference between the mind of a man and
a polyp, between the intellectual and the merely sensitive
animal. The mind is a bare faculty for repeating impres-
sions ; the power of grouping and arranging them is re- .
garded as somehow illegitimate. Agreeing that all materials
of thought are derived from experience, we yet have to
account for the form impressed upon them. The destruction
of innate ideas seemed to him, as to the philosophers whom
he assailed, almost to imply the annihilation even of mental
faculties. He could not allow that the function depended upon
the organ without seeming to admit that the organ either
created materials for itself, or was supplied with them from
some source independent of experience. And, in the next
place, the doctrine that belief in the external world is a
' fiction ' is apparently self-destructive. If all reason is fiction,
fiction is reason. It is indeed true that the process by which
the belief is generated is not what we call reason. It does
not imply a reference to general rules ; but that is because
it generates the rules. Feeling precedes reason, and is the
material out of which reason is evolved. We become reason-
able as we become conscious of the law by which our feelings
have been unconsciously determined. Slowly and tentatively
we arrive at a true conception of the division between the ex-
ternal and internal world by a series of approximate assump-
tions, each involving a slowly diminishing amount of error,
and our belief is justified in proportion as the assumption thus
blindly felt out gives coherent and accurate results. Hume
follows the ontologists in trying to find a reason for reason,
and to get the why of the wherefore. When he comes upon a
process which underlies reason, instead of being deduced from
it, he pronounces it to be fictitious as they call it transcen-
dental. Thus we should say that, whilst Hume was right in
limiting the mind to experience, and in declaring the existing
distinction of object and subject to' involve an error, he was
VOL. I. K
5 c THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
wrong in not observing that the very possibility of making
the distinction implied an operative mind, and in not seeing
that the process by which the distinction works itself into
correspondence with facts is legitimate, though not, in his
sense, reasoning. He cannot account for the existence of
the organising power, and he does not understand the process
by which the facts are finally organised.
51. Hume's attack on the theory of causation follows the
same lines. We have nothing to deal with but a series of im-
pressions and ideas. The hypothetical objects to which the
ideas were taken to correspond have vanished, and the
powers inherent in them must vanish equally. The idea of
' power ' cannot be traced to any impression, and is therefore,
by Hume's ordinary test, no idea at all, but an empty word.
We say, for example, that fire burns. That, on the old
interpretation, was explained to mean that fire had a latent
power, which started into activity under certain conditions.
But what is this power ? We have an ' idea ' of fire, because
we once had an ' impression ' of fire. The mental picture is a
copy of a previous sensation. Similarly we have an idea of
' burning ' of a piece of paper, for example, turning black
and crumpling up when exposed to fire. But of the power as
an independent entity, existing independently of the two
phenomena, we have no idea at all, for we can never have had
an impression. Or contemplate the same facts from the sub
jective side. One thing, it had been held, was the cause of
another when the existence of the second followed from the
definition of the first. If we could define fire adequately
that is, if the definition expressed its essence we could
deduce the proposition 'fire burns,' as we deduce from the
definition of a circle the proposition expressive of its various
properties. Now, in this sense, as Hume argues, we can
never know a cause. The various combinations of colour,
form, and so on, might, for anything that we can tell, be re-
placed by any other combinations. We can separate in
imagination any two ideas which have been combined ; for
what is distinguishable is separable. 1 We can think of fire
without thinking of it as burning, of a planet without regard-
ing it as gravitating ; and similarly in all other cases. But, if
1 See Hume, vol. i. 319, 326.
777. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 51
the existence of one thing logically implied the existence of
another thing, such a separation would imply a contradiction.
Erroneous logic may always be forced to yield such a contra-
diction by accurate analysis. In other words, the relation of
cause and effect can never correspond to an a priori logical
nexus ; for it can never imply a contradiction in terms to sup-
pose one body annihilated whilst others remain unaltered.
But if logic implied any necessary connections between ideas,
a contradiction must emerge in such cases. Hence the ob-
jective and the subjective links disappear together, and we
are forced to admit that 'the uniting principle amongst our
internal perceptions is as unintelligible as that among exter-
nal objects, and it is not known to us in any other way than
by experience.' *
52. The nature of this celebrated argument, and its affilia-
tion to previous theories, may perhaps be more closely ex-
hibited by an illustration given by Reid. 2 A magnet attracts
iron. In the earlier stages of thought this phenomenon, if
observed, might have been explained by the assumption that
the magnet had an appetite for iron like that of a human being
for food. As the points of unlikeness became evident, this ap-
petite would gradually fade away into an occult power inherent
in the magnet, and called forth on the approach of iron. The
magnet, regarded as the active factor, was the cause ; the
movement produced in the iron would be the effect. Philo-
sophers supposed that, from a complete definition of the
magnet, this iron-attracting power might be deduced as a neces-
sary consequence of the definition. Hume then argues that
we can form no idea whatever of this supposed power, regarded
as an independent entity. He observed, moreover, that our
knowledge of its existence is nothing else than a knowledge
that, as a matter of fact, magnets have been observed in
previous cases to attract iron. Further, it is impossible to
show by an a priori process that magnets must attract iron ;
were that possible, it would be impossible to conceive of
a magnet as not attracting iron ; whereas nothing is easier
than to imagine the magnet and the iron co-existing with-
out attraction. All that is left, therefore, is, on the one
j Hume, i. 463. 7 Reid's Works, p. 113.
52 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
hand, the fact that magnets have attracted iron, and, on the
other, the ' custom ' set up in the mind of expecting a similar
combination in future. Experience is all, and experience can
never give rise to any logical inference beyond itself. All
such inferences then are illogical or customary.
53. If now we examine the case more closely, we may
see that Hume has made an omission similar to the omis-
sion already noticed in his theory of perception. He is per-
fectly right in asserting that our knowledge of this property
of magnets depends upon experience alone. He is right,
again, in a certain sense, in saying that we may conceive of a
magnet not attracting iron. We have, that is, no a priori
ground for the assertion that all the other qualities discovered
in the magnet its weight, colour, chemical composition, and
so forth may not be hereafter discovered in a body which
does not attract iron. But he implicitly makes another asser-
tion, easily confounded with this last, and yet involving a fun-
damental error the assertion, namely, that we might expect
to find a magnet identical in all respects with the first magnet
which yet would not attract iron. This statement implies the
existence of chance as something more than a name for our
ignorance, and must therefore be denied by all who (on what-
ever grounds) believe in the validity of reason, or the corre-
lative doctrine of the regularity of the external world.
Suppose, in fact, that we found that a so-called magnet did
not attract iron, we should be entitled to conclude peremp-
torily that it was wanting in some quality, discoverable or not,
which exists in true magnets. Its molecular composition, or
the state of its molecules, must be in some way altered. We
cannot hold that the magnet loses one quality whilst all the
others are unchanged, though it may be that all the discovered,
or even all the discoverable, qualities remain unchanged. In
the last case, there is an element of chance in the sense, that
is, that undiscoverable conditions are present ; but there cannot
be in the sense that the same conditions exist and pro-
duce different results. Metaphysicians may still dispute what
is our warrant for this assumption, but its validity is implied
in all reasonings about the external world ; for otherwise the
world is not a system of permanent relations. Hume has
here again come upon an ultimate process implied in all rea-
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 53
son, and not being able to find a further justification for it,
pronounces it to be a mere ' custom.'
54. The point may be stated in a slightly different form.
Every phenomenon is known as the sum of a set of relations.
The total phenomenon -the attraction of the iron by the mag-
net is the effect. The separate factors, the presence of the
iron and the magnet, each of which are decomposable into
various groups of relations to the perceiving subject, and to
each other, are the causes. The same phenomenon can always
be resolved into the same causes. If the phenomenon differs,
some one or more of the components must differ. In this
sense the assertion of the uniformity of causation is resolvable
into something like an identical truth, or at least a statement
of the postulate implied in all reason, and which constitutes
the very reasoning process, that we can make identical propo-
sitions in identical cases. We thus come upon the fundamen-
tal illusion which underlies Hume's scepticism, and which was
inherited by him from preceding thinkers. We fancy that
we can separate the two terms of a relation without altering
them. We take the magnet which is not magnetic, the fire
which does not burn, the planet which does not gravitate, and
suppose that the idea remains unaltered even in the act of
altering it. Hence we come to the contradictory concep-
tions of unperceivable perceptions and inactive activities.
The magnet has no power of attracting independently of the
iron. The two are equally essential factors in the phe-
nomenon ; and when we separate them, and then try to mend
the conception by the fiction of an occult power, we are led to
scepticism by discarding one factor whilst continuing to
regard the other of the connected objects as still entitled to
the name of cause. The true answer to Hume's scepticism is,
therefore, that we cannot conceive of^a non-magnetic magnet ;
for that is to conceive of a magnet deprived of the quality
which makes it a magnet. But it remains true, as Hume
says, that this quality is revealed to us by experience alone,
and that we have no right in any given case to appeal to an
a priori reason. What remains after Hume's scepticism has
been allowed full play is the objective fact of the regularity
of the external world, and the subjective faculty which corre-
sponds to it in virtue of which we assert, not that this or
54 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
that truth, revealed by experience, is universally true, but that
every experience implicitly contains a universal truth. When
two experiences differ, we are entitled, that is, to assume that
there is some difference in the conditions which may or may
not be evident to our senses. To make this assumption is to
reason. Hume's scepticism is justified in so far as it denies
the existence in the mind of a certain list of self-evidencing
truths independent of all experience. It is erroneous in con-
founding this denial with the suicidal denial that the mind
possesses, or rather is constituted by a certain faculty involved
in the recombination of experience. Having emptied the mind
of its supposed innate ideas and a priori truths, he fancies
that the mind itself is dissolved, and that reason is shown to
be ' custom.' The organism remains, though the laws of its
operation are only revealed to us by the experience upon
which it operates.
55. The critical movement, then, of which Hume gave
the last word amounted to the final destruction of the old
assumptions by which philosophers, developing and modi-
fying the earliest modes of conception, had reconciled the
doctrines of the regularity of the universe and the validity
of reason with the observation that all phenomena are
incessantly changing, and that knowledge of the visible
universe can only be derived from the impressions made
by these changing phenomena on the senses. The assump-
tions, themselves the phantoms of earlier assumptions, are
shown to involve irreconcilable contradictions. The sceptic
pulls the constructions of the dogmatist to pieces, and assumes
that no dogmas can be discovered. From the dogmatist he
adopts the introspective method, or, in other words, assumes
that the ultimate truths, if such truths exist, may be found
by simply inspecting our own minds. Now, such inspection
cannot reveal the observing faculty itself, but only the varying
set of experiences which it has observed. Hence, truth can
only be discovered if the mind is stocked with certain ideas
miraculously inserted prior to all experience. But the sceptic
proves against the dogmatist that no such idea is discoverable.
Every idea that can be assigned is traceable to certain obser-
vations, which must be affected by the mind of the observer, or
have a ' subjective ' element. But the sceptic assumes, again,
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 55
with the dogmatist, that the subjective element implies un-
reality. Hence there is no truth discoverable. This mode of
analysis applied to the three great ideas shows them to be un-
real. The bond which holds the external universe together is
non-existent or essentially undiscoverable. The bond which
holds together the corresponding mental construction must be
equally undiscoverable, for the innate ideas and principles upon
which it must be founded have failed to stand the accepted
test. Briefly, the method by which alone, as dogmatists and
sceptics agreed, truth could be discoverable, led to the hope-
less attempt of getting out of ourselves and seeing things as
we do not see them. Scepticism, therefore, was inevitable,
unless a different method could be suggested. It had shown
beyond all dispute that the old conceptions involved an
element of fiction, and, in fact, they were thenceforward
exorcised from living philosophy. Ontology revived, but
it revived by striking out a new path. The conceptions of
God, the soul, and matter were not destroyed, but they
were transformed.
56. The line of escape from these difficulties was indicated
by Kant's theory of time and space. The mind is con-
ceived as a mould which imposes its own form upon the
experience which it received. In every act of perception
there are two factors, the objective and subjective, neither
of which can be conceived apart from the other. Reality
does not imply the absence of a subjective organ, but only
that the organ is operating according to universal laws. It
is not necessary for the discovery of truth to know things
as they cannot be known, or to discover propositions existing
independently of a relation between the perceiving and the
perceived. The two terms of relation, which had been
arbitrarily separated, are again brought together, and the
hopeless attempt to get outside ourselves is abandoned. It
is fortunately needless, however, to touch upon the many
problems suggested by this conception, even in the briefest
terms. Kant's philosophy did not react upon English thought
till a period later than that with which I am dealing. If
Kant had never lived, or had lived in Pekin, English thinkers
in the eighteenth century would not have been less conscious
of his position. It is enough to mention the difficulty which
56 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
would have made his view unacceptable to such a mind as
Hume's, even if it had been presented to him. The theory
of a mind imposing its own forms upon experience seems to
introduce an a priori element. If that element can in any way
be separated in thought from its correlative, there still seems
to be a road to the otherwise hopeless attempt of constructing
a philosophy independent of experience ; and the experiment
was made by some of Kant's German successors. To admit
the existence of an a priori factor in thought might be as dan-
gerous as to admit the existence of a priori truths in the soul.
Locke's attempt to expel the unknowable, and the scholas-
ticism founded upon it, might be evaded by a more refined
procedure. Modern thinkers of Hume's school meet the diffi-
culty by distinguishing between the a priori element in the
individual mind and in the mind of the race. Each man
brings with him certain inherited faculties, if not inherited
knowledge ; but the faculties have been themselves built up
out of the experience of the race. Such a conception, how-
ever, was beyond Hume's sphere of thought, and obviously
could not be attained so long as it was held to be possible
to account for knowledge by simple introspection or the
examination of the individual mind. Experience must be
understood in a far wider sense than that in which Hume
could possibly understand it, before it could explain the
elementary phenomena of thought. Thus we may say that
his scepticism expresses the natural result of trying to explain
thought exclusively by individual experience, and declaring
the unexplained residuum to be mere ' fiction ' or custom, as the
dogmatic theory is the result of the same attempt when the
unexplained residuum is assumed to imply innate ideas.
It is in this sense a crude attempt to apply a sound criterion,
but a criterion which is only sound when applied with a
sufficient appreciation of its meaning.
57. Here, then, we have the last word of the English
criticism. What would be the natural working of Hume's
scepticism, so far as it was accepted by his contemporaries ?
Absolute scepticism, it may be said, is an unthinkable state
of mind. So far as Hume's reasoning tended to show that
all reasoning was absurd, it was self-contradictory and in-
operative. He admits the fact himself in the concluding
///. THE ENGLISH CRITICISM. 57
section of the fourth part of his treatise, where he says that
his doubts vanish as soon as he leaves his study for the
streets. The most unflinching sceptic, of course, believes in
the objections to knocking his head against a post as im-
plicitly as the most audacious dogmatist. To say that belief
as belief is absurd is not only practically, but theoretically,
puerile. Belief is only a custom, therefore it is unreasonable to
believe. But if reason is only customary, this can only mean
that it is not customary to believe. Lower the intensity of
all belief, and you do nothing ; for custom being everything,
the custom which preponderates in one direction \vill be just
as effective as the reason which you have abolished. And, in
fact, though Hume affects to attack equally all reasoning
which has to do with the external world, his scepticism is really
directed against the superfluous hypothesis of an absolute
substratum distinct from the world. The custom which in-
duces us to act upon evidence is still left for guidance in
practical affairs ; the supposed entities which lie behind the
phenomena are shown, so far as his logic is valid, to be super-
fluous or meaningless.
58. Thus the moral which Hume naturally drew from his
philosophy was the necessity of turning entirely to experi-
ence. Experience, and experience alone, could decide ques-
tions of morality or politics ; and Hume put his theory in
practice when he abandoned speculation to turn himself to
history. Whether because they shared Hume's doubts, or
because, without much speculation, they recognised the. failure
of previous philosophers to reach any fruitful conclusions, and
saw no more promising road to success, Hume's ablest con-
temporaries followed his example. The last half of the
eighteenth century, as we shall hereafter see more fully, is
specially characterised by its tendency to historical enquiry.
But it must further be remarked that historical enquiry thus
divorced from philosophy leads in the first instance only to
crude results. The histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gib-
bon, the great triumvirate of the day, have a common weak-
ness, though Gibbon's profound knowledge has enabled his
great work to survive the more flimsy productions of his col-
leagues. The fault, briefly stated, seems to be an incapacity
to recognise the great forces by which history is moulded, and
5 8 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
the continuity which gives to it a real unity. We have but a
superficial view ; a superficiality, in the cases of Hume and
Robertson, implying inadequate research ; and both in their
case and Gibbon's implying a complete acquiescence in the
external aspects of events, and the accidental links of connec-
tion, without any attempt to penetrate to the underlying and
ultimately determining conditions. The defect was inevitable
from the point of view of Hume's philosophy, or in the
absence of all philosophy. The formula that ' anything may
be the cause of anything else ' must obviously lead to a per-
functory discharge of the duties of a philosophical historian.
Any superficial combination may be expected to produce re-
sults entirely incommensurate with its apparent importance.
The slightest accident may change, not only a dynasty or a
form of government, but the whole social constitution or the
beliefs of the human race. The first crude interrogation of
experience reveals to us only varieties of external conforma-
tion, without exhibiting the governing forces which mould the
internal constitution. Hume's philosophy, in fact, when ap-
plied to the examination of history, falls in with a crude
empiricism instead of an experiential philosophy. The world
is a chaos, not an organised whole ; and we are content with
detecting random resemblances and contrasts here and there
without resolving them into more simple and general unifor-
mities. A form of government, for example, is characteristi-
cally regarded as possessing an independent virtue, without
regard to the conditions of the time or the race. We look at
the outward conformation of the mass without asking what are
the molecular forces which bind it together. To apply the
inductive method effectually, it is necessary that the data
given by experience should be properly sorted and arranged.
Our mere collection of curiosities must be formed into an
organised museum. Hume's cruder method tempted the his-
torian to overlook this necessary process. It must, indeed, be
added that the general desire to appeal to experience was an
essential step towards something better. This kind of histori-
cal empiricism was gradually to lead to a genuine historical
method. We may see the germs of a more fruitful investi-
gation of some important problems in such books as Home
Tooke's ' Diversions of Purley,' which is a premature attempt
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 59
to apply philological enquiries to the history of thought ; or,
in Sir W. Jones's studies of Oriental literature, which helped
to found the science of comparative mythology, and in various
attempts, some of which will hereafter be noticed, to apply a
truly historical method to various theological and political
problems. Still, the narrowness and comparative fruitlessness
of the English movement, when set beside contemporary
German thought, is generally and perhaps rightly brought to
show that even an unsatisfactory philosophy may be better
than no philosophy at all. In the last half of the century,
that which is permanently valuable may be regarded as a
feeling after the historical method ; and really great results
were obtained in one direction by Adam Smith, and in another
by the admirable genius of Burke.
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM.
59. A kind of implicit consciousness of the difficulties sig-
nalised by Hume is shown in the aversion with which many
forcible thinkers of the time regarded all philosophical
speculation. Johnson, for example, represents the most
thoroughly national frame of mind. Johnson's love of truth
in the ordinary affairs of life was combined with an indiffer-
ence, or, we may almost say, an aversion, to speculative truth.
If you once ask the ultimate question, he seems to have
thought, you will get no conclusive answer, and be left without
a compass in the actual conduct of life. Burke's dislike to
' metaphysics ' was partly owing to the same conviction. But
men cannot be altogether restrained from asking awkward
questions, nor is permanent doubt a possible state of mind
for any but a few men of rare intellectual temperament.
Some sort of provisional refuge, at least, had to be found for
men thoughtful enough to demand a philosophical system,
when the old theories had been so rudely handled. The general
nature of this permanent resting-place must be briefly indi-
cated. The weakness of Hume's scepticism may be exhibited,
as we have seen, by saying that his method confined him to
the examination of the individual mind. The single method
of discovering truth was to examine the furniture supposed
6o THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
to be stored in that receptacle. If none of it could be shown
to have a transcendental origin, there was no means of dis-
covering ultimate truth. But it was equally clear that some
things remained inexplicable, or at least unexplained, by this
process. This explanation, so far as an explanation is pos-
sible, can only be reached, it would now be replied, when we
introduce the social element. The faculties of the individual
have been built up by the past experiences of the race. The
primary distinction between object and subject is only intel-
ligible as distinguishing between the perceptions peculiar to
the individual and those common to the race. That is real
which would be seen by anyone else in my position. Lan-
guage itself, in which all our thoughts are registered, has been
produced by the co-operation of countless generations, and
bears marks of its origin. We cannot describe a simple sensa-
tion without introducing the intellectual process by which it
has already been classified. And thus, in the attempt to analyse
knowledge, Hume is constantly forced by the mere fact that
he has to use words to assume, in appearance at least, the
very mental processes which he is seeking to explain. Thus
thinkers who were unable to point to the precise source of
the sceptical fallacy were yet impressed with a strong feeling
of the inadequacy of his analysis. Here was clearly some-
thing unexplained. There was an a priori element in the
knowledge of the individual, though the old methods of
representing it had been shown to be fallacious. In some
sense or other, belief in an external world must be more than
a mere ' fiction,' and reason more than a ' custom.' The
answer suggested by Kant remained inaccessible ; and it would
be easy to suggest reasons, derived from the national cha-
racter or social conditions, to account for this inaccessibility.
But reasons which profess to explain such individual phe-
nomena are not often satisfactory. We are not sufficiently
acquainted with the laws which regulate the appearance of
unique genius to say why Kant should not have been an
Englishman.
60. It would be easier to say why the speculation of Kant's
successors and Kant's scholastic mode of exposition were
uncongenial to Englishmen. Our English sobriety and un-
willingness, if I may use the phrase, to make fools of ourselves,
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 61
has checked our philosophical ambition. We have, it may be,
too much sense of humour not to be even pusillanimously afraid
of the ridicule which awaits the daring adventurer when he
falls back to earth from attempts to soar above the atmo-
sphere. One consequence is that, in England, attempts at a
priori philosophy have taken the form of an appeal to common
sense. We cannot be exposed to ridicule when we are
ostensibly endeavouring to confirm everybody's opinion. A
thoroughgoing scepticism is from' this point of view more
absurd than the most daring dogmatism. The sceptic who
could be rightfully challenged to run his head against a post,
must be, it seemed, a greater fool than the philosopher who lost
his head in the clouds. This thoroughly English conviction,
which thus tries to convert the vox populi into the vox Dei,
seems to have been first made popular in the eighteenth
century by Shaftesbury. 1 We shall hereafter have to consider
his application of the principle to ethical problems. Certainly
there is no sphere of thought more carefully to be guarded
from the attacks of the sceptic, or the treacherous support of
the dogmatist, than the sphere of human conduct. Moral
truths must be preserved at all hazards from the sceptical
assault. Shaftesbury 's influence was direct and important in
this department of thought. Hutcheson transplanted his
doctrine to Scotland ; and Reid, though far from sharing in
Hutcheson's ethical views, takes a somewhat analogous posi-
tion in philosophy.
6 1. The genesis of his own theories is clear and indepen-
dent. At one time, he tells us, 2 he had been a disciple of
Berkeley's. He was alarmed, however, by the logical conse-
quences which followed when Berkeley's method was sys-
tematically carried out by Hume. Startled, like Kant, by
the threatened dissolution of every guarantee for truth and
order, he attempted, like Kant, to find some mode of escape.
Unluckily, his intellect was not so keen, and his love of
speculative truth not so unmixed. Kant, we may suppose, was
more startled by Hume's apparent destruction of all basis for
philosophical certainty ; Reid, by the remoter consequences
1 See Reid's reference to Shaftesbury, Works, p. 423, ' On the Intellectual
Powers,' essay vi.
2 Ib. 283.
62 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
to morality and theology. Reid is, at any rate, content
with an apparent solution of the logical problem which
was totally insufficient as a stimulant to new enquiry. His
purpose, as he frequently asserts, is the justification of the
ordinary beliefs of mankind. Ordinary men believe in the
reality of the external world, and sceptics had tried to show
that this external world was a fiction. Where was the gap
in their arguments ? Hume follows from Berkeley, Berkeley
from Locke, Locke from Descartes. 1 The error must be
sought for, then, in the very primary assumption of the
system. This assumption, said Reid, is that which is em-
bodied in the Cartesian doctrine of ideas. Philosophers had
assumed that we could not know the ultimate reality, except
through the ' ideas,' which are the immediate objects of thought.
This was the initial fallacy the fatal error, which vitiated
the whole subsequent system and we must meet it by assert-
ing that we are directly conscious of ultimate realities. As-
sertion, however, is not proof; and it was, therefore, incumbent
upon Reid to confirm his assertion by showing how, or in
what sense, our perceptions reveal the realities. He has
already pronounced Hume's attack upon the Cartesian theory
to be conclusive, and that, of all possible theories, is the one
which he is bound to avoid. Now, it is anything but easy to
say what Reid's theory may have been, and the difficulty is
rather increased than diminished by the efforts of his most
learned and accomplished editor, Sir W. Hamilton. Hamilton,
however, states, in one place, that it was almost identical,
if not with the theory of Descartes himself, at least with the
theory of some of Descartes' interpreters. 2 Any attempt at
an articulate statement brings out the fundamental resem-
blance, though the argument requires a little modification. In
other words, Reid executes a directly retrograde movement,
and that, after repeatedly asserting that the position to which
he has returned was untenable.
62. The statement is by itself sufficient to explain the
fundamental weakness of Reid's philosophy. If, in fact, he
attempted to advance a step beyond the simple assertion that
common sense was right, he must inevitably have followed the
1 See, for example, an explicit statement to this effect, p. 103 ; ' Enquiry,'
ch. i. 7, 132 ; ib. ch. v. 8, 275 ; 'Intellectual Powers,' essay ii. ch. viii.
" Ib. p. 257, note.
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 63
old Cartesian line of thought, known by painful experience to
lead to no fruitful results, and admitted by himself to be
based upon a fallacy. No position could be more hopeless,
though it had a certain superficial appearance of being
reasonable. To a hasty observer, it might resemble the
process of taking what was sound, and refusing what was
extravagant. The process is less promising when we see that
it is equivalent to assuming some plausible first principles, and
denying that anything can be learnt from them. We can
only regard Reid's philosophy as a provisional structure,
possibly justifiable under the circumstances. Since the
attempt to advance beyond our premisses can only lead us
into hopeless scepticism, we may as well stay where we are.
If our principles cannot be justified, we had better take them
for granted. Indeed, Reid persuaded himself that this is a
legitimate process by a theory which had already been turned
to account by Descartes. Whenever he comes to a principle
which cannot be proved, he says that it is implanted in our
hearts by the Almighty. When Reid finds an inexplicable
belief, he calls it a divine instinct, where Hume would say
that it was a fiction. We are unable to explain our know-
ledge of objects independent of ourselves, or to see the links
which connect them. To admit that our knowledge is on
that account precarious, would be to fall into scepticism. We
must therefore call it divine. 1 As with Hume we can only
observe the sequence of phenomena, but we assume that a
divine power causes the sequence to be invariable. 2 We
believe in the existence of an external world, in which the
primitive qualities are embodied. Berkeley denies that the
vulgar really hold the metaphysical doctrine which is attri-
buted to them, or that we have any conception whatever of
the imaginary substratum which is left when all sensible
qualities have been extracted. Reid can only reply dog-
matically that we do believe. Hume says that the supposed
substance is a fiction. God, replies Reid, would not force us
to believe in a fiction, although Reid is in the same breath
explaining the origin of many illusions forced upon us by
1 See e.g., p. 130, Reid's ' Enquiry,' ch. v. 7 ; p. 159, ch. vi. 12 ; p. 187, ch.
vi. 21.
2 Ib. p. 260 ; ' Intellectual Powers,' ch. vi.
64 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
Nature. But why, Hume might ask, do you believe in God ?
I believe, Reid would apparently reply, from the marks of
design in the universe. P, ume, again, argues at great length
that the argument from design is fallacious. To this Reid
answers that the belief that an intelligible order implies a
designer is one of the first principles of our nature. 1 What
more can be said, or why should not Reid say at once with
old Johnson, ' We know that we are free,' or that we perceive
external realities, and ' there's an end on't.'
63. The only value, then, of such a philosophy must be
sought in a different direction. Reid might fairly say that
Hume's analysis of thought and of the various emotional and
intellectual faculties of the mind was insufficient. Something
must be wanting, though he could not precisely say what ; and
meanwhile he might be justified in pronouncing various
mental phenomena to be unexplained, though he might be
wrong in declaring that they were ultimately inexplicable.
The facility with which Reid and other philosophers of the
Scotch school invent as many first principles as they find con-
venient was highly unphilosophical especially in the sense in
which philosophy is understood to involve an explanation of
everything. But if an ultimate principle be taken to mean a
principle not yet analysed, the writers who maintain the exist-
ence of such principles do good service, if only by stimulating
the ingenuity of new opponents. They may be a useful coun-
terpoise to the facility with which others deny the existence of
sentiments or beliefs which will not fit into their system. And
thus, though Reid's influence tended for the time to turn men's
minds away from ultimate philosophical problems, their dis-
cussions tended to call attention to many psychological ques-
tions. This or that, they said too easily, is a primitive faculty
of the mind ; but in trying to discover which were and which
were not primitive faculties, they excited a great deal of in-
genious, and not altogether fruitless, investigation. We are
surprised to find a short philosophical treatise intended to
answer Hume's attacks upon all that passed for fundamental
truth, culminate in a discussion of squinting and the laws of
vision. But we may admit that an enquiry into squinting
might reveal some unsuspected physiological truths. In
1 Reid's Works, 457-9 ; ' Intellectual Powers,' essay vi. ch. vi.
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 65
this direction the influence of Reid fell in with that of
another and chiefly antagonistic school, which arose after the
publication of Hume's sceptical conclusions.
64. The excellent and acute Hartley published, in 1749,
a treatise ' On Man,' destined to exercise a considerable
influence upon English speculation. Priestley and Abraham
Tucker, in the next generation, were his disciples. Coleridge
was greatly impressed by him in early life, and James Mill,
by working out his theories in more detail, and with greater
logical rigour, transmitted his influence to the most recent
school of English psychologists. Hartley and Priestley repre-
sent a curious combination of opinion ; they are theological
materialists ; and though Priestley became a Unitarian, both
writers are vigorous believers in a miraculous revelation. I
need not enquire how far it is possible to combine materialism
and theism without an absolute logical contradiction. His-
torically speaking, the two doctrines are naturally opposed.
Materialism and Atheism are the final expression of a reaction
against the attempt to frame a philosophy by rising into a
supernatural world. The metaphysical doctrine assailed by
Hume tended, when carried to its logical extreme, to identify
reality with reason. The universe, it would seem, is nothing
but a series of abstract truths, related to each other as the pro-
positions of Euclid are related to the primary geometrical
axioms, and substantialised by their reference to God or pure
Being. The existence of this sensible world of concrete facts
seems to be contradictory, because apparently arbitrary or con-
tingent. Time and space are illusions produced somehow by
our inadequate perceptions. It seemed to be impossible to
effect a transition from the world of absolute truth to the world
of appearances revealed to us by our senses. From the opposite
point of view, the whole system appeared to be a mass of futile
logomachy ; a manufacture of cobwebs of the brain ; a trans-
formation, by cunning tricks of dialectic, of identical, and
therefore futile, propositions into the delusive likeness of
fruitful propositions. When Hume's scepticism had thrown
doubts upon the fundamental assumptions of the ontologists,
the materialists proposed to escape to the world of tangible,
visible, sense-giving realities. There at least was sound
footing, in spite of all metaphysical subtleties. The phy-
VOL. I. F
66 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
sical sciences had revealed many new and solid truths,
however humble their pretensions. Make philosophy one of
the physical sciences, and similar results might be anticipated.
If the ontologists took leave of the solid groundwork of
experience, the tendency of the materialists was to get rid of
reason. Not only innate ideas, but innate faculties, seemed to
disappear. The reasoning process itself becomes nothing but a
particular case of the mechanical action and reaction of material
particles ; and so far from the order of the universe being
deducible from some primitive and necessary truths, the
ultimate basis even of order must be chance, in the sense at
least of essentially unknowable processes.
65. So far, then, as theology was founded upon the old
ontology, it necessarily disappeared from the consistent
materialism of the French school. Sensations took the place
of innate ideas, as the sole ultimate substance of the fabric of
our knowledge. The English thinkers here, as in so many
other cases, were less thoroughgoing. Hartley and Priestley
were theologians, though their theology was connected by the
flimsiest of ties with their philosophy. They chose to retain
the old arguments, but their choice was dictated by their
prejudices instead of their reason. The theology is an addi-
tion to their creed, not a natural development ; and when it
entirely dropped out from the later exposition of James Mill,
the system only became more coherent than before. So far,
then, it is plain that no new standing-point could be afforded
for a theory of the universe. The old ideas were simply
retained in their old shape, and retained at the price of an
unnatural alliance.
66. Nor, again, could the escape from mere scepticism by
the dogmatism of genuine materialists be open to them.
The vital objection to materialism, considered as a statement
of ultimate truth, is that the elements into which it resolves
the world are themselves only known by a complex intel-
lectual operation. We can only speak or think of atoms and
forces in terms of time and space which already imply, and
therefore cannot explain, certain mental conceptions. The
materialist might conceivably discover the ultimate laws of
all organic or inorganic matter as seen from outside, but could
still not account for the mind which sees from the inside.
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 67
The ultimate conceivable end is indicated by a phrase of
Priestley's. ' It is not impossible,' he says, ' but that in time
we may see how it is that sensation results from organisa-
tion.' l We might, that is, see the modifications of the nerves
produced by external conditions, and trace the consequent
modifications transmitted to the brain. We should thus de-
tect the laws of the human organism as a visible and tangible
object, and construct a theory of the physical correlates of
the intellectual processes. We might ultimately frame a
complete system of the sensible world, or of the objective
order of phenomena ; and some knowledge of things as thus
revealed to us may be a useful or an essential step towards
obtaining a complete philosophy. But, to say nothing of the
necessity of fusing such a doctrine with the doctrine ob-
tainable from the inverse point of view, it is plain that Hart-
ley and Priestley could not get beyond the very first step.
Their method, if properly carried out, would involve a com-
plete study of the organisation and functions of the brain and
nervous system ; but, in the contemporary state of physio-
logical knowledge, the very outlines of such a theory were
not even dimly perceptible. Hartley's crude hypothesis of
' vibratiuncles ' was little more than verbal, and was already
thrown over by Priestley himself. But when the vibratiuncles
were abandoned, nothing remained beyond the bare state-
ment that some indefinable processes of a mechanical nature
determined the intellectual results, or in some sense were them-
selves the results.
67. The final value of Hartley's system was, therefore,
the impulse given to the attempt to resolve complex into
simple intellectual operations by the help of the laws of asso-
ciation. The weakness manifest in Hartley's original treatise
was still perceptible in most of his followers. His ultimate test
of truth, for example, is curiously unsatisfactory. Truth implies
a correspondence between objective and subjective. If we
put aside the subjective point of view entirely, the word seems '
scarcely to have a meaning. How can a set of vibrations set
up in the brain have any likeness to the external forces in
which they originated ? Or how, again, can a general propo-
sition be obtained ? Since the beliefs in any individual mind
1 ' Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit,' p. 153.
F 2
68 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
are built up out of countless multitudes of experiences, which
may vary indefinitely, the resulting product may also, it would
seem, vary without limit ; and as the external universe is
made of chance, so the internal atoms may be arranged in
any possible configuration. An answer may, perhaps, be
given to such difficulties ; but from Hartley's point of view
the answer is not perceptible, nor is even the need of an
answer clearly present to his mind. No one, indeed, who be-
lieves that all knowledge must be constructed from expe-
rience will doubt that Hartley did a most important service
by bringing into prominence a mode of analysis, already sug-
gested, it is true, by Locke, Hume, and Hobbes, to say nothing
of earlier writers, but capable of a far wider application than
had ever occurred to them. We shall hereafter have to remark
its application to ethical questions ; but here it is sufficient to
observe that, whatever may have been the fruitfulness of the
germ of thought cast into speculation by Hartley, it neither
did, nor could, in the hands of its originator, suggest any
systematic philosophy, nor even a sound basis for a philo-
sophy. Hartley led the way to reducing many difficult
problems, which, as it had seemed, could only be solved by
introducing supernatural or transcendental factors to simpler
terms ; but, instead of asking the ultimate questions, he calmly
filled the void in his system by appropriating an uncongenial
system ; and was hardly alive, therefore, to the tendency of
his own method.
68. A brief reference must suffice to one other thinker of
considerable ability, who, in attempting to assail the domi-
nant philosophy, produced at least a literary curiosity. Lord
Monboddo, following James Harris, the author of ' Hermes,'
attempted to revive the Aristotelian philosophy. His six
quartos upon ' Antient Metaphysics,' and his six octavos
upon the progress of language, contain much acute thought
amidst huge masses of digression, repetition, and apology
for eccentric crotchets. His main point is really a criticism
of Locke and Hume for their confusion of sensation and per-
ception. He makes many of the criticisms which from this
point of view would commend themselves to the metaphysical
school of which he professes himself an adherent ; but he
produced no influence upon thought partly because his doc-
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 69
trine was an attempt to resuscitate the dead ; and even more,
perhaps, because it was overlaid with oddities, some of which
are remembered when his more serious remarks are forgotten.
He attacks Newton because, as he thinks, Newton implicitly
denied the great principle of the inertness of matter, 1 and,
therefore, upsets an argument, accepted by Monboddo from
Andrew Baxter, for the existence of the soul. He believes in
the anima mundi, in the existence of the vegetable, animal,
and intellectual souls, and in other ancient dogmas. He
proves the doctrine of the Trinity by the help of Plato and
Aristotle ; he argues for the physical degeneracy of the race,
and proposes various quaint remedies derived from ancient
sanitary practices. He tries to show that all the higher
knowledge originated in Egypt ; and, most of all, he believes
in the humanity of the Ouran-Outang that interesting
animal being, in his eyes, the representative of man in a state
of nature when he possessed an intellect in capacity, but not
in energy or actuality. His object is apparently to put the
natural man as low as possible, in order to show that all the
qualities by which man differs from brutes imply the exertion
of intellect. Language, for example, was ' invented ' ac-
cording to him, though the art was so difficult as to require
the supernatural assistance of certain ' demon kings ' of the
early Egyptians. But it is unnecessary here to examine fur-
ther into the queer speculations of this very ingenious manu-
facturer of intellectual curiosities. Reid and Hartley each
founded a school ; but Monboddo remained an isolated
being, anointing himself according to the fashion of the an-
cients, growling at the degeneracy of mankind, and regarded
by them as a semi-lunatic, outside the sphere of practical
influence.
69. This brief account of the main currents of English phi-
losophical speculation may sufficiently indicate the ultimate
logical difficulties which lay at the bottom of all the great con-
troversies of the day. The ultimate end of philosophy is to
find the one in the many, to detect the permanent order which
underlies the infinite variety of the universe as revealed to our
1 For example, in the first law of motion, which Monboddo takes for a denial
of his own principle that matter would remain at rest unless acted upon by a
mind. (' Antient Metaphysics,' vol. ii. 349.)
7 o THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
perception. A definitive philosophy must, therefore, satisfy
two conditions ; it must, on the one hand, reveal principles
unconditionally and invariably true ; and, on the other, it
must give formulae applicable to the fluctuating series of inter-
dependent phenomena. It seemed, for the present, as if one im-
pulse could only be satisfied at the expense of the other. You
seek for absolute truth ? Then you must admit that the world
which we perceive is an illusion a mere screen of transitory
appearances which hides the permanent realities behind ; and
you must retire to the world of transcendental reality, where,
indeed, it is possible to obtain absolute truth, but truths
which cannot by any ingenuity be brought into contact with
the facts of perception, or made to influence our conduct.
This was the choice of the ontological dogmatists ; but their
doctrine, already pushed to its legitimate consequences by
the great thinkers of the seventeenth century, was feebly
represented in the English speculation of the eighteenth.
You prefer to be in contact with the observed phenomena,
and repudiate this cloudland where the promise of absolute
truth is fulfilled only by obtaining identical propositions
cunningly transformed into the likeness of significant phrases,
but turning out to be void of any relevant contents ? Then
you have, indeed, to do with phenomena, but you must take
leave of absolute truth, and be content simply to observe the
ceaseless flux of appearances, and to follow custom in the place
of reason. The divorce between truth and reality was com-
plete. No ' scientifical ' truth, as Locke says and Locke agrees
with Descartes on the one hand and Hume on the other is
to be obtained in regard to the world of observation. You
may either spin formulae out of your brain indefinitely, and
be perfectly certain that each is legitimately evolved from its
predecessors, but find after all that your whole certainty
comes to this, that A is A ; or you may give up the attempt
at certainty, and obtain any number of propositions which
have the merit of being applicable to facts, but the demerit
of being radically uncertain.
70. Few men, however, were thoroughgoing sceptics or
dogmatists. Hume probably was the one systematic sceptic,
and the perfectly logical dogmatism was hardly represented
at all. Nearly all the English speculation of the period
IV. COMMON SENSE AND MATERIALISM. 71
lies at some point intermediate between these poles. The
natural escape of the English mind was to some form of what
was called common sense. The aim was to obtain a doctrine
sufficiently plausible to give some kind of unity and of practical
application. The votary of common sense sometimes refuses
to ask the ultimate questions at all. He assumes that
theology has some meaning and contains some truth ; but
he instinctively avoids probing its foundations too profoundly,
or enquiring too rigidly into the connection between its pre-
misses and its conclusions. This, in some form or other, is
the commonest state of mind. Some thinkers leaned to the
dogmatic side, and adopted a metaphysical theology, more
or less straining the metaphysics on the one side and the
traditional theology on the other, to bring them into harmony,
and, according to their individual prejudices, retaining more
or less of the traditional element. Others leant rather to the
sceptical side, and abandoned the attempt to frame a phi-
losophy at all; but here, too, scepticism combined itself
either with a complete rejection of the old tradition, or with
an acceptance of the tradition on the ground of its practical
value. Hence emerges that curious form of heterogeneous
opinion which professes to defend the ancient creed by
attacking its sole philosophical justification, and which has
in later years become more conspicuous in the attempt to dis-
tinguish between faith and reason. Whether it is at bottom
sceptical or superstitious is a question of considerable interest,
not here to be discussed. Common sense, again, might give
itself the air of philosophy, and beg the ultimate questions
which it is admittedly incapable of solving. Or, finally,
it took the form of materialism, which really sets aside half
the problem, thus reducing philosophy to a question of
mechanics. In England, as we have seen, even this form
of thought made a strange alliance with the old theology,
until the crash of the French Revolution forced deeper issues
upon men's minds, and the scepticism which had been latent
under old forms of language, flashed into active life and
indignant renunciation of the ancient dogmas.
71. To trace some of the resulting phases of opinion is the
purpose of the following chapters. The picture, however,
remains incomplete, and the explanation of the most con-
72 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.
spicuous phenomena palpably inadequate, unless we always
remember that the great mass of the population belongs to
no school at all. It does not think, but feels. Below the
social stratum accessible to philosophical thought, or even
to its remotest echoes, lay the great masses, agitated by a
rapid growth of material prosperity, increasing and multi-
plying so as to strain to the uttermost the powers of the old
social framework, and ready, as the recognised leaders of
thought became incompetent, to listen to any who could
speak with authority. For authority in some shape the
authority of sound reason, or the authority of blind tradition,
or the authority of some powerful wielder of imaginative
symbols must always guide the masses of mankind. What
creed could sway the passionate yearnings and the dumb in-
stincts of the multitude ? Could Hume's scepticism fill the place
of the old authoritative teaching, or Reid's common sense, or
Wesley's rehabilitation of ancient dogma, or some new em-
bodiment of scientific thought or dying tradition ? That was the
vital question, the answer to which would govern the develop-
ment of popular opinion. This or that creed may be proved
or confuted to the satisfaction of logicians ; if it cannot stand
that test, its vitality is feeble ; but it must also be capable
of impressing the imagination of the ignorant and the stupid,
or it will remain an esoteric doctrine a germ, it may be,
capable of bringing forth fruit under some new social con-
ditions, but not, for the time, capable of becoming an im-
portant factor in the intellectual development of the race.
NOTE TO CHAPTER I.
The principal authorities for the above chapter and the editions cited
are as follows :
BAXTER, Andrew (1686 or 7-1750), ' Enquiry into the Nature of the
Human Soul ' (no date ; second edition in 1737). ' Matho,' 1740.
BERKELEY, George (1684-1753), 'New Theory of Vision,' 1709. 'Prin-
ciples of Human Knowledge,' 1710. 'Three Dialogues,' 1713.
' Siris,' 1744. Works ; by Professor Fraser. Oxford: 1873.
COLLIER, Arthur (1680-1732), 'Clavis Universalis,' 1713 (reprinted in
' Parr's ' Metaphysical Tracts,' 1837).
NOTE. 73
HARRIS, James (1709-1780), 'Three Treatises/ 1744. 'Hermes/ 1750.
Works. London : 1801.
HUME, David (1711-1776), 'Treatise of Human Nature/ 1739. 'En-
quiry concerning the Human Understanding/ 1748. Philoso-
phical Works ; by Green and Grose. Oxford : 1874-5.
LOCKE, John (1632-1704), 'Essay on the Human Understanding.'
Works. London : 1824.
MoNBODDO (James Burnet), Lord (1714-1799), 'Origin and Progress of
Language/ 1773. 'Ancient Metaphysics/ 1779.
NORRIS, John (1657-1711), 'Theory of the Ideal World/ 1701-4.
PRIESTLEY, Joseph (1733-1804), 'Examination of Scotch Philosophers/
1774. 'Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit/ 1777.
Second edition : 1782.
REID, Thomas (1710-1796), 'Enquiry into the Human Mind/ 1763.
' Intellectual Powers of Man/ 1785. 'Active Powers of Man/
1788. Works ; by Hamilton. Edinburgh : 1863.
STEWART, Dugald (1753-1828), 'Elements of Philosophy of the Human
Mind/ 1792.
74
CHAPTER II.
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
1. BOOKS which may fairly be consider as landmarks in
the history of literature belong for the most part to one of two
classes. They sum up the controversies of the past or open
those of the coming generation. Two such books stand out
as we cross the frontier line between two eras, which in the
sphere of English politics is marked by the Revolution of
1688. From Locke's 'Essay' (1689) we may learn what
were to be the dominant ideas of the next century ; in
Bossuet's ' Histoire des Variations ' we find a summary of
preceding thought.
2. No writer, it is probable, can have laid down his pen with
a more triumphant sense of victory achieved than the great
Catholic Bishop. He had exposed with extraordinary vigour
the endless ramifications of Protestant sects ; he had shown
how, when once the old authority had been repudiated, men,
guided by reason alone, had split and divided and subdivided,
till every possible shade of opinion had found its representa-
tive and caused its schism. If unity be the test of truth, how
could truth be found amongst this huddle of conflicting sects,
or how accept any one solution when against it might be
arrayed a whole series of rival solutions, each equally plausi-
ble, and each appealing ostensibly to the same authoritative
record ? Cease to dispute is the moral, and bow before the
one Holy Church, the depository of the unbroken tradition of
ages. Protestantism as a mere congeries of discordant errors
must lead in speculation to scepticism, and in practice to the
twin monstrosity toleration. Bossuet taunts the Protestant
Jurieu with his audacity in describing as ' inhuman, cruel, and
barbarous,' the opinion which would sentence to damnation
all who did not belong to a single communion. ! The 'glory '
1 ' Histoire des Variations,' book xv. 51.
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 75
of inventing the contrary opinion (' glory ' is used ironically)
belongs to the Socinians. Yet even Jurieu might shrink from
the consequences, of such a theory. ' No one ever believed or
thought that an idolater could be saved under pretext of good
faith ; an error so gross, an impiety so manifest, was not
compatible with good conscience.' l Jurieu had thought that
Arians might be tolerated in the spirit of peace. 'Who
hinders, then, 1 asks Bossuet ironically, ' that in the spirit of
peace the Socinians may be tolerated as the others are toler-
ated, and that charity may be extended even to their salva-
tion ? ' 2 And when Basnage had spoken favourably of Dutch
toleration, Bossuet retorts, ' It only remains to exclaim,
happy country, where the heretic is at rest as well as the
orthodox, where vipers are preserved like doves and innocent
animals, where those who compound poisons enjoy the same
tranquillity with those who prepare remedies ; who would not
admire the clemency of these reformed States ? ' 3
3. The doctrine thus represented by Bossuet as an
absurdity, from which even his adversaries would shrink, was
rapidly becoming a truism with the Protestants. Happy
Holland, they would say in all sincerity, the land which
had sheltered free thought and philosophy through the long
days of trial in the seventeenth century ! The Socinians, if
they had no other title to glory, might at least glory in that
which their great opponent regarded as their shame. The
appeal had lost its force. Deny the authority of Rome, says
Bossuet, and you must deny every organ of authority in
matters of opinion; deny its right to enforce its opinions, and
you must tolerate Socinians ; leave Rome in short, and you
must give up hell in the next world and dragonnades in this.
Englishmen were beginning to think that the loss would not
be irreparable.
4. The noblest English literature in the seventeenth cen-
tury gives the reverse side of these views. From the infinite
variability of opinion our great writers deduced the necessity
of toleration in the place of persecution and of rationalism
in place of obedience to authority. Seeing that men un-
avoidably differ in profound speculations, they learnt to admit
1 ' Histoire des Variations,' xv. 59. 2 Ib. xv. 80.
8 ' Defense de PHistoire,' 3.
76 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
the innocence of error. The most eloquent of Englishmen in
the seventeenth century uttered the sentiments produced in
manly minds by the sight of the endless wars, persecutions,
bickerings, animosities, and furious passions, 'evolved in that
deadly conflict of sects which was inflicting indelible wounds
upon Europe. Milton's ' Areopagitica ' is a permanent monu-
ment of noble thought embodied in majestic language. Jeremy
Taylor's ' Liberty of Prophesying ' bases the duty of almost
unlimited toleration avowedly upon the sceptical ground.
Chillingworth's spirit-stirring words, written some forty years
before Bossuet's History, might serve for a counterblast to the
voice of Church authority. ' Take away this persecuting, burn-
ing, cursing, damning of men for not subscribing to the words
of men as the words of God ; require of Christians only to
believe Christ and to call no man master but Him only ; let
those leave claiming infallibility that have no title to it, and
let them that in their words disclaim it, disclaim it likewise in
their actions ; in a word, take away tyranny, which is the
devil's instrument to support errors, and superstitions, and
impostors in the several parts of the world, which could not
otherwise long withstand the power of truth ; I say take away
tyranny and restore Christians to the first and full liberty of
captivating their understandings to Scripture only ; and as
rivers when they have a free passage run only to the ocean,
so it may well be hoped, by God's blessing, that universal
liberty, thus moderated, may quickly reduce Christendom to
truth and liberty. These thoughts of peace (I am persuaded)
may come from the God of peace, and to his blessing I com-
mend them.' 1 Chillingworth was the countryman of Crom-
well, not the subject of Louis XIV. When Locke, at a later
period, wrote his letters on Toleration, he was but summing
up the convictions which expressed passionate love of truth,
and the righteous hatred of tyranny, of the greatest of his pre-
decessors. The doctrine of toleration had been burnt into their
minds by the struggles in which each party in turn had learnt
by sad experience the evils of persecution.
5. The correlative doctrine of toleration is the necessity
of founding all opinion on results obtained by the freest use
of the privilege granted. Protestantism was doubtless a
1 Chillingworth, p. 198 (edition 1638).
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 77
moral, before it was an intellectual, revolt. The attack upon
Rome was instigated by the corruption of its representatives
more directly than by the errors of its creed. But as the
intellect freed itself from the old authority, the mere stress of
the argument forced Protestants gradually to fall back upon
first principles. Chillingworth's favourite maxim, ' the Bible
is the religion of Protestants,' assumes that the authority of
the Bible is a matter upon which all Christians are agreed.
Whilst the common tenet exists, it is not necessary to go
further back, or to enquire into the ground upon which it
reposes. But if the question be asked, his answer is clear.
'If Scripture,' he says, 'cannot be the judge of any con-
troversy, how shall that touching the Church and the notes of
it be determined ? And if it be the sole judge of this one,
why may it not of others ? Why not of all ? Those only
excepted wherein the Scripture itself is the subject of the
question, which cannot be determined but by natural reason,
the only principle, beside Scripture, which is common to
Christians.' l As sects ramified, it was necessary to fall back
further for a principle common to all ; the same method,
therefore, which caused Chillingworth to appeal to Scripture,
implied an appeal to reason as soon as Scripture authority
should be impugned. And, in fact, the great Protestant
divines of the seventeenth century are rationalist in principle,
though they might long receive as equivalent to an ultimate,
because a universally acknowledged truth, the authority of
the Scriptures or of the early Fathers. Thus, in many of their
arguments it is sufficient to substitute Revelation for Rome to
make the attack upon Catholicism available for an attack
upon all supernatural authority. Their reasoning has a wider
sweep than they imagine. Striking at the most prominent
embodiment of the hostile principle, they are striking at
tenets which they would themselves regard as sacred. Chil-
lingworth found a congenial successor in Tillotson, the writer
of the seventeenth century who was most generally read and
admired in the eighteenth. The admiration extended to his
style. Dryden professed to have learnt English prose from
his writings ; Addison meant to found an English dictionary
upon them, and bestows a copy of his sermons upon the
1 Chillingworth, p. 53.
78 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
excellent chaplain of Sir Roger de Coverley. The most
tangible testimony to his wide popularity is that the copy-
right of his posthumous sermons was sold for 2,500 guineas.
This popularity could not be due to any great merits in the
rhetoric ; for Tillotson can never have been a lively writer ;
but he had the merit, which is naturally confounded with
literary excellence, of expressing fully the vein of thought
most characteristic of his later contemporaries. Now, Til-
lotson, who died in 1694, whilst the struggle against Louis
XIV. was still at its height, is principally occupied with the
Roman controversy ; and his language becomes more nervous
and pithy whenever he feels the presence of the enemy, But,
in assaulting Rome, Tillotson constantly adopts the line of
argument, and frequently uses the very language, afterwards
turned to account by the sceptics. One case is specially
remarkable. Hume avowedly founds his essay on Miracles
upon Tillotson's favourite argument against Transubstan-
tiation l namely, that the doctrine is contrary to the testi-
mony of all our senses, whereas the evidence in its favour
can only rest upon one. The argument is evidently applica-
ble to other controversies than the sacramental ; and this is
only one instance of a general tendency. ' Nothing,' he says
emphatically, ' ought to be received as a revelation from God
which plainly contradicts the principles of natural religion.'
' And nothing,' he adds, ' ought to be received as a divine
doctrine or revelation without good proof that it is so.'
No argument will prove a doctrine to be divine 'which is
not clearer and stronger than the difficulties and objections
against it.' 2 With this unequivocal assertion of the rationalist
principle are connected other arguments which were fre-
quently turned to account by the deists. They are glad to
quote his assertion that, if all the great mathematicians of all
ages met together in synod and declared that two and two
did not make four, he would not believe them. 3 Suppose such
a synod should have said that three and one were the same ?
Or, to give one more instance, can anything be more ' ludicrous,'
he asks, in the ' Rule of Faith,' ' than first to build all our cer-
1 'Rule of Faith,' part. iii. 9. Tillotson repeats it more than once in his
sermons.
2 Tillotson, 'Sermons,' vol. i. 225. 3 Ib. p. 589.
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 79
tainty of the assistance of the Holy Ghost upon the certainty
of tradition, and then afterwards to make the certainty of
tradition rely upon the assistance of the Holy Ghost ? ' l This
is identical with a favourite dilemma, by which Tindal greatly
vexed some of his antagonists ; he urged the absurdity of
making Christian teaching depend upon our belief of miracles,
and our belief of miracles on the truth of the Christian
teaching. Each writer says that to appeal to authority is to
argue in a circle. It was not without reason that Collins
spoke of Tillotson as one ' whom all English free-thinkers own
as their head.' 2 The Protestant writers against Rome were
forging the weapons which were soon to be used against
themselves. The assumptions which were common to them
and to their antagonists naturally escaped any strict
scrutiny, though it was presently to appear that they were
equally assailable by the methods employed against assump-
tions actually disputed.
6. Beyond the limits, however, of this particular contro-
versy, the same tendency is observable in a wider sense. The
unconsciousness with which men like Tillotson put forward ar-
guments capable of being turned against themselves explains
one secret of their strength. If Protestantism was uninten-
tionally acting as a screen for rationalism, rationalism
naturally expressed itself in terms of Protestantism. What-
ever, that is, was gained by reason was gained by the Pro-
testants. The intellect, though it had broken the old barriers,
was still, to a great degree, running in the old channels. Con-
tent with clearing away the grosser superstitions, it gave fresh
life to the central beliefs. The vigour of English theology
at this period and it was the golden period of English
theology is due to the fact that, for the time, reason and
Christian theology were in spontaneous alliance. The theo-
logians of the middle and end of the seventeenth century,
Taylor and Barrow and Cudworth and Leighton, were anxious
to construct a philosophical religion, and they were not alive
to the possibility that such a religion might cease to be
Christian. If they rationalise, as the remarkable school of
Cambridge Platonists rationalised, it is with a sincere belief
that they are only bringing out the full meaning of the
1 Tillotson, p. 742. 2 Co'lins, ' Discourse of Freethinking, ' p. 171.
So THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
doctrine which they expound ; purifying it from human
accretions, and softening the crude edges left by ignorant
interpreters. Such a process is perfectly natural, as in other
times it was natural to fix allegorical meanings upon texts
which shocked the spiritual sense of commentators. It was
not an artifice consciously adopted to evade difficulties, but
the spontaneous aspiration of the free intellect labouring in all
sincerity to bring out the deepest meaning of the divine
teaching. So, too, men like Barrow and Cudworth undertook
the dangerous task of demonstrating the fundamental tenets
of theology. The deist Collins said, sarcastically, that
nobody doubted the existence of the Deity until the Boyle
lecturers had undertaken to prove it. There is some truth in
his satire, for such demonstrations naturally evoked scep-
ticism, if they did not prove that it was already present in a
latent form. But the process had not yet developed itself so
far as to imply any insincerity in the reasoners. A doctrine
is first received as an intuitive truth, standing beyond all
need of demonstration ; then it becomes the object of rigid
demonstration ; afterwards the demonstration ceases to be
conclusive, and is merely probable ; and, finally, the effort is
limited to demonstrating that there is no conclusive reason
on the other side. In the later stages of belief, the show of
demonstration is a mere bluster, or is useful only to trip up
an antagonist. In the earlier, it represents a genuine con-
viction, though a conviction which feels the necessity of justi-
fying itself. The divines of the seventeenth century believed
sincerely that theology could be exhibited as a body of
necessary truth, and, further, that all arguments in favour of
theology must tell equally in favour of Christianity. Scep-
ticism, indeed, had shown itself in principle, and had demanded
the production of proof. Some sceptics, doubtless, had gone
further. In England, the great representative of destructive
opinions was Hobbes, one of the acutest of all English philo-
sophers, and a man whose influence in stimulating thought
it would be difficult to over-estimate. Whatever may have
been Hobbes's real sentiments, and he was exceedingly careful
to give no handle to his antagonists, he was universally set
down as an atheist. He was regarded as the living exponent
of the old atomic philosophy of Epicurus, and was, therefore,
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 81
a convenient anvil for the hammers of orthodox opponents.
His daring speculations were encountered by the attempt to
construct a philosophical theology which could be expressed
in the orthodox phraseology. And thus the religious teaching
of the century, when it did not take the form of controversy
between rival sects of Christians, was the exposition of a
philosophy distinguished from that of Rome because ap-
pealing avowedly to rational tests, and opposed only by a
purely sceptical tendency, which appeared to be wantonly
paradoxical in theory and combined with dissolute maxims
in practice.
7. A change, however, was slowly but inevitably ap-
proaching. Philosophy, hitherto in alliance with Christianity,
began to show indications of a possible divorce. Though
philosophers might use the old language, it became daily
more difficult to identify the God of philosophy with the God
of Christianity. How could the tutelary deity of a petty
tribe be the God who ruled over all things and all men ?
How could even the God of the mediaeval imagination, the
God worshipped by Christians when Christendom was re-
garded as approximately identical with the universe, be still
the ruler of the whole earth, in which Christians formed but a
small minority, and of the universe, in which the earth was
but as a grain of sand on the seashore ? Or how, again, could
the personal Deity, whose attributes and history were known
by tradition, be the God whose existence was inferred by
philosophers from the general order of the universe ; or re-
garded as a necessary postulate for the discovery of all
truth? Jf there was no absolute logical conflict between the
two views, the two modes of conceiving the universe refused
to coalesce in the imagination.
8. The difficulty revealed itself in various directions. The
great astronomical and geographical discoveries enlarged
men's conceptions it is no paradox of the Infinite. As
distant countries, whose existence had scarcely touched men's
thoughts in former ages, or which had been conceived as lying
in some dim borderland rimming the bright circle of Christen-
dom, came daily into closer contact with ordinary life, the
true proportions of human history became manifest. Chris-
tendom was but a fragment of the world. Millions upon
VOL. I. G
82 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
millions of human beings had never even heard of its exist-
ence ; they knew nothing of the one true faith, which to know
was life everlasting, and not to know was to incur everlasting
torment. Could all the Chinese, for example, be damned
because they knew nothing of an event which, so far as they
were concerned, might as well have happened on the moon ?
If not damned, and if, in fact, they were about as happy and
virtuous as Christians, could the Christian faith be necessary
either in this world or the next ? Throughout the eighteenth
century, the deists are always taunting the orthodox with this
startling fact of three hundred million Chinamen whose case
cannot be squared with the old theories. The revelations of
astronomy were even more impressive to the imagination.
Once men could think of their little planet as itself the uni-
verse, consisting of a level plain a few miles in breadth, and
roofed by the solid vault carrying our convenient lighting
apparatus. The revelation, finally clenched by Newton's
astonishing discovery, that the world was an atom in space,
whirling round the sun, itself, perhaps, another atom, utterly
crushed the old imaginations which still survive in Milton's
poetry. The scenery had become too wide for the drama.
It was possible, indeed, verbally to promote the Jewish deity
to rule over the vast territory which had thus sprung into
existence. Newton himself was unconscious of the bearing
of his discoveries upon the traditional theology, and bent
his mighty intellect to that process of solving riddles which
he called interpreting the prophecies. But though the tra-
ditionary mythology was not forced by a clear logical neces-
sity to postulate a limited earth and heavens, it became more
shadowy and dim when confronted with the new cosmology.
Through the roof of the little theatre on which the drama of
man's history had been enacted, men began to see the eternal
stars shining in silent contempt upon their petty imaginings.
They began to suspect that the whole scenery was but a fabric
woven by their imaginations. Another doubt was already
dawning. It was long before science was to be formally op-
posed to revelation, and the Mosaic cosmogony to be directly
attacked. And yet, it was already whispered that the first
chapter of Genesis was hardly an adequate prologue to the
development of the universal drama. Geology, still in its
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 83
earliest infancy, had prompted Thomas Burnet to suggest an
allegorical interpretation of the primitive records. Like many
other rationalisers he fancied himself to be confirming instead
of weakening scriptural authority ; but his intimations in-
dicate that the universe must be extended in time as well as
in space, and that the traditional 6,000 years hardly gave
room enough to the scientific imagination. Controversialists
were beginning to deal with the question destined to excite
so wearisome a series of wranglings. Whiston was already
publishing, in 1696, one of the first proofs that ' the creation
of the world in six days, the universal deluge, and the general
conflagration, as laid down in the Holy Scriptures,' were
' perfectly agreeable to religion and philosophy.'
9. The consequences were already developing themselves
before the close of the century. The problem which pre-
sented itself to the orthodox was to reconcile the ancient with
the modern order of thought. How was the God of Christian
tradition to be identified with the God of abstract reasoning ?
How could Jehovah be equivalent to nature ? Philosophers
aimed at framing demonstrations of theology independent of
any special experience. A theology so framed, though it
might use the old terms, could not be permanently retained
within the old channels. The special form which the diffi-
culty presented was determined by the rapid extension of the
ancient conceptions. The universe, which had been potentially
infinite, was becoming actually infinite. The old formula
' quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' was beginning
to show its power in a new shape. So long as heretics and
heathens could be excluded by the imagination from omnes ;
so long as ubique could be confined to Europe, and semper to
the last few hundred years, it might be used unhesitatingly
by Catholics. But the meaning was altered. If omnes was
to include all the Christian sects whose variations excited
Bossuet's contempt, the true faith must be that residuum
which was common to all so-called Christians. In the lan-
guage of the time this problem thus presented was to make
out a list of fundamentals of articles of faith, that is, which
were necessary to salvation ; and the difficulty of accomplish-
ing the task supplied the Catholic controversialists with many
taunts against their adversaries. But suppose that in omnes
S4 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
should be included not only Christians but the heathen, and
in nbiqne the whole planet ; whilst semper should be extended
backwards to the dim vista of past ages, then the true faith
must be identified with that universal religion of nature, im-
planted in all men's hearts by their Creator, and, unfortu-
nately, evading research more persistently even than the
Christian list of fundamentals. The attempt, however, had
already been made. Lord Herbert of Cherbury published so
early as 1624 his 'De Veritate,' and there sets forth five
fundamental propositions of natural religion ; these affirm the
existence of God, the duty of worshipping him, the importance
of piety and virtue as the chief parts of this duty, the propriety
of repentance, and the existence of a future state of rewards
and punishments. Fifty years later Spinoza, in the ' Trac-
tatus Theologico-Politicus,' gives a similar list, asserting God's
existence, unity, omnipresence, and supremacy ; declaring that
he is to be worshipped exclusively by charity and justice;
that all who thus obey will be saved and others lost ; and
that he will forgive the sins of the penitent. 1 In these lists
there is no specifically Christian doctrine ; and we are thus in
presence of a distinct attempt to construct a religious creed
upon an independent basis. Spinoza's God is nature. What,
then, is the relation of the religion of nature to the ancient
creed ? That is the vital question ; for the contrast had be-
come too unmistakable to be easily masked by any process
of rationalisation. Should there be an alliance or hostility
between the old and the new ? An alliance might be at-
tained, as some thought, by stretching as widely as possible
the meaning of the old language, and by representing the
substance of the two creeds as identical, and regarding the
doctrines revealed by Christ as useful or necessary additions
to the doctrines revealed by nature. That was the natural
course for men who felt the immense importance to man-
kind of religious beliefs, or were comparatively indifferent
to symmetrical reasoning. Surely the old creed, which had
lasted so many centuries, and been moulded by the thoughts
and feelings of so many generations, might be stretched a
little further ! Others, more impressed by the evils of eccle-
1 Spinoza, 'Tractatus,' &c., pp. 235-6.
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 85
siastical authority on the one side, or of license on the other,
might do their best to accentuate the differences of the two
creeds. On the orthodox side, this led to the attempt to ex-
pose the futility of the new creed ; and on the infidel side to
the attempt to expose the weakness of the claims to authority.
The critical movement was already showing itself. Whilst
Chillingworth was unsuspectingly proclaiming that the Bible
was the religion of Protestants, Hobbes was discovering that
the Bible itself must be submitted to the test of historical
criticism, and his remarks, though cursory, give the vital
principle of all later criticism. 1 Spinoza, with greater bold-
ness or perspicuity, carries out the same argument in a more
systematic form in the ' Tractatus.' And by the end of the
century the keen criticism of Bayle was beginning to pierce
in many directions the joints of the orthodox armour.
10. Here, then, is the starting-point of the deist contro-
versy. From the variation of opinions Bossuet inferred that
all, save one, should be stamped out. The inevitable tendency
of such a method was already seen by the more acute minds.
To support a religion by force instead of argument is to admit
that argument condemns it. In other words, it is to sanction
scepticism ; and before the end of the coming century, Bos-
suet's countrymen had to reap the har/est of which the seeds
were sown by this desperate policy. The English theologians,
accustomed to trust in reason, though with some hetero-
geneous admixture of tradition, and to practise toleration,
though with many limitations, adopted a different course.
Since men differ hopelessly on many points, let us take
that in which all agree. That surely must be the essence of
religion and the teaching of universal reason. Thus we
shall be able to found a reasonable Christianity. You must
go further, said the deists, and take only the axioms common
to all men. Thus we shall found, if not a reasonable Christi-
anity, yet a religion of reason: The various eddies of opinion
which were formed by the conflict of these diverging currents
form the staple of the theological discussions of the coming
period.
11. One result of the English toleration and rationalism,
and it may be, of the English love of compromise, necessarily
1 See 'Leviathan' (1651), ch. xxxiii.
86 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
affected the process of thought. In England, in fact, theology
had become so profoundly penetrated with rationalism, that
the attempt to frame a permanent reconciliation had a far
more hopeful appearance than in Catholic countries. The
result was that the most eminent English thinkers were gene-
rally arrayed upon the orthodox side. They could find
liberty enough to satisfy their logical instincts within the old
lines ; and saw no sufficient advantage in pushing forwards
into the unknown regions of Deism. The orthodox party had
thus every advantage which could be given by ability, learning,
and prestige. It would be difficult to mention a controversy
in which there was a greater disparity of force. The physi-
ognomy of the books themselves bears marks of the differ-
ence. The deist writings are but shabby and shrivelled little
octavos, generally anonymous, such as lurk in the corners of
dusty shelves, and seem to be the predestined prey of moths.
Against them are arrayed solid octavos and handsome quartos
and at times even folios very Goliahs among books, too
ponderous for the indolence of our degenerate days, but fitting
representatives of the learned dignitaries who compiled them.
On the side of Christianity, indeed, appeared all that was in-
tellectually venerable in England. Amongst the champions
of the faith might be reckoned Bentley, incomparably the
first critic of the day ; Locke, the intellectual ruler of the
eighteenth century ; Berkeley, acutest of English metaphysicians
and most graceful of philosophic writers ; Clarke, whom we
may still respect as a vigorous gladiator, and then enjoying
the reputation of a great master of philosophic thought ;
Butler, the most patient, original, and candid of philosophical
theologians ; Waterland, the most learned of contemporary
divines ; and Warburton, the rather knock-kneed giant of
theology, whose swashing blows, if too apt to fall upon
his allies, represented at least a rough intellectual vigour.
Around those great names gathered the dignitaries of the
Church, and those who aspired to church dignity, for the
dissection of a deist was a recognised title to obtaining pre-
ferment Sherlock and Gibson and Conybeare and Smalbroke,
and other occupants of the bench, gained or justified promotion
by their share in the crusade; and amongst the rank and file
were such men as Sykes and Balguy and Stebbing, and a
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 87
host of other diligent penmen, now for the most part as much
forgotten as their victims. The ablest of the nonjurors, Leslie
and Law, the most industrious and eminent dissenters, Leland
and Lardner and Foster and Doddridge, fought side by side
with their brethren of the Establishment. Nor was the zeal
for orthodoxy confined to official exponents of the creed.
Lyttelton and Barrington turned from political warfare to
deal a blow at the enemy ; Addison lost some of his natural
amenity in striking at so contemptible a foe ; Pope, though
allied to some refined unbelievers, pilloried the less polished
in the ' Dunciad ; ' Swift dropped some of his bitterest venom
on the antagonists of the Church ; and Young and Black-
more confuted the infidel in verses which were once (Young's
perhaps still are) studied by human beings. The ordinary
feeling for the deist was a combination of the odium theo-
logicum with the contempt of the finished scholar for the
mere dabbler in letters. The names indeed of the despised
deists make but a poor show when compared with this im-
posing list. They are but a ragged regiment, whose whole
ammunition of learning was a trifle when compared with
the abundant stores of a single light of orthodoxy ; whilst
in speculative ability they were children by the side of some
of their antagonists. Swift's sneers seem to be generally
justified ; and their literary power would hardly have attracted
attention if employed upon any other topic. Two of the
deists, indeed, claimed respect as men of rank and of con-
siderable pretensions to taste. But Shaftesbury, though a
man of real power, attacked orthodoxy in the most oblique
fashion ; and Bolingbroke's ' blunderbuss ' missed fire, because
discharged when the controversy was nearly extinct. Mande-
ville, perhaps the acutest of the deists, made, like Shaftesbury,
an indirect and covert assault. Collins, a respectable country
gentleman, showed considerable acuteness ; Toland, a poor
denizen of Grub Street, and Tindal, a Fellow of All Souls,
made a certain display of learning, and succeeded in plant-
ing some effective arguments. Below them we must make a
rapid descent, to find fitting places for poor mad Woolston,
most scandalous of the deists, and Chubb, the good Salisbury
tallow-chandler, who ingenuously confesses, whilst criticising
the Scriptures, that he knows no language but his own.
88 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
Morgan, and two or three anonymous writers, do little more
than reflect the arguments of Tindal and Toland, and Annet,
a broken-down schoolmaster, is a rather disreputable link be-
tween Woolston and Tom Paine. At the end of the deist
controversy, indeed, there appeared two remarkable writers.
Hume, the profoundest as well as the clearest of English philo-
sophers of the century, struck a blow of which the echo is still
vibrating ; but Hume can scarcely be reckoned amongst the
deists. He is already emerging into a higher atmosphere.
Conyers Middleton, whose attack upon miracles eclipsed fora
time that of his contemporary, was a formidable though covert
ally of Deism, but belongs to the transition to a later period.
1 2. The deists suffered from another disadvantage besides
their intellectual infirmity. They had to fight in fetters.
Toleration, acknowledged in theory, was not yet pushed to its
legitimate consequences. The English mind had arrived at
one of its favourite compromises. The Church of England
could no longer persecute, but it was still privileged. A
dissenter was disqualified from office, though not regarded as
a criminal. Near a century and a half was to elapse from the
revolution which had given him a legal right to freedom of wor-
ship before the rights of other citizens were avowedly conferred
upon him. The infidel was a degree lower. He was still
liable to persecution, though seldom persecuted in prac-
tice. Even Locke had drawn the line of toleration above
atheists and Roman Catholics, and certain laws some of
them not even yet repealed made open assailants of ortho-
dox Christianity liable to severe penalties. Occasionally the
weapon, generally held in suspense above the heads of free-
thinkers, was allowed to descend, though with little severity,
and pretty much at random. It was perfectly safe, and in
some classes fashionable, to express sceptical opinions in con-
versation, but it was clearly disreputable, and not quite safe to
publish them. If the governing classes hated priestcraft, and
cared little for Christianity, they had a great value for
decorum. A wretched man called Aikenhead was executed
in Scotland, in the beginning of 1697, for some profane
language to the students in Edinburgh, though he afterwards
recanted and averred his belief in Christianity. 1 But in Eng-
1 See the case in the 'State Trials,' vol. xiii. 918. 8vo edition.
THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM. 89
land little harm was done. The deist books were occasionally
burnt by the hangman, which probably served as an adver-
tisement. Collins at one time thought it necessary to retire
to Holland ; poor Asgill was expelled from Parliament and
ruined, for denying the necessity of death. Whiston lost his
professorship for Arianism ; Woolston was fined and im-
prisoned for language more significant of insanity than of
intentional profanity ; and at a later period Annet was
pilloried and imprisoned for equally insulting language. But,
as a rule, the deists escaped without injury ; their creed
exposed them to much obloquy, but little danger ; and they
were forced, not to conceal their opinions, but to cover them
with a veil of decent ambiguity. Some of them have, in
consequence, been regarded as sincere believers, and, on the
other hand, they have been condemned for insidious dis-
honesty. The question of how far they saw the consequences
of their own logic is of little interest to the historian of
thought. We shall have to notice it incidentally hereafter.
13. When the sceptical movement had passed from
England to France the disparity of intellect was inverted.
Voltaire, the disciple of the English deists, found no disciple
of Butler or Bentley to encounter him with equal ability.
The persecution, on the other hand, by which the French
movement was opposed was of a far more serious character.
The two phenomena are naturally connected. In England,
the rational Protestant could meet the deist half way. The
line of demarcation was shifting and uncertain, and it is hard
to say in many cases whether the old traditional element, or
the modern rationalising element, predominates. Persecution
would be anomalous between sects so faintly discriminated.
In Catholic France a rigid and unbending system was con-
fronted by a thoroughgoing scepticism. Men of intellect
could find no half-way resting-place, and could disguise their
true sentiments with no shreds of orthodox belief. What
passed for Christianity in England would have been rank
heresy in France ; and thus the Catholic Church, unable to
come to terms with the rationalists, met them by a free use
of the weapons of authority. It is generally added that in
England the orthodox party, forced to defend themselves by
reason, won a triumph in argument as conclusive as might
90 THE STARTING-POINT OF DEISM.
be expected from their superiority in learning and ability.
Whatever the truth of that boast, it is certain that the deist
impulse showed rapid signs of decay. Burke could ask before
the end of the century, ' Who ever reads them now ? ' l and
even at a much earlier period the decline is palpable. ' What
is become of all those poisonous books,' asks Seed before
1750, ' that were written about the close of the last century,
nay of some of much later date ? ' 2 Had the deists, in fact,
touched merely the surface of men's minds ? Was their attack
met by a genuine revival of theological belief? The question
is interesting and curious. A survey of the controversy may
suggest some answer.
1 Godwin, too, says in the ' PoliticalJustice,' that it is not absolutely certain
that the deists had the worst of the argument. ' Yet fifty years after the agitation
of these controversies their effects could scarcely be traced, and things appeared
on all sides as if the controversies had never existed. ' ' Political Justice ' (3rd
edition), vol. i. 90.
2 Seed's ' Discourses,' vol. i. 113.
CHAPTER III.
CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
7. INTROD UCTOR Y.
I. A CLASSIFICATION of the writers in the deist controversy
according to the true affinities of thought would by no means
coincide with a classification according to their avowed sym-
pathies. Listen, indeed, to the war-cries which arose from the
field of battle, and nothing could seem more definite than the
issues involved. On one side were arrayed all who professed
and called themselves Christians ; on the other, the despicable
banditti stigmatised by their opponents as deists or atheists
names which, significantly enough, were assumed to be strictly
synonymous. Is the Bible a forgery, or the word of the
living God ? Is Christianity an imposture, or the light which
alone can lighten the world ? Such if we may believe the
Christian apologists were the simple shibboleths by which
the two parties might be distinguished ; and it was only
natural for the more bigoted writers to infer that the same
marks would serve to distinguish good men from bad men,
the wise from the fools, and those who had a fair prospect of
salvation from those who were in imminent danger of everlast-
ing hell-fire. And yet, look a little closer, and the distinction
loses its importance. Many an honest crusader, who had
assumed in all sincerity the badge of the true faith, was, in
fact, a rationalist to the core ; the orthodox flag covered
differences wider than those which separated its followers from
its enemies ; and in many cases nothing was wanting but a
slight change in the point of view, or a little more knowledge
of critical results, to alter the whole distribution of the forces.
The Christianity of many writers consisted simply in express-
ing deist opinions in the old-fashioned phraseology. But
the substantial similarity of opinion did not invariably soften
the bitterness with which the adherents of the old formulae
regarded those who declined to put the new wine into old
92 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
bottles. No one is more offensive than the man who strips
your thought of the disguises most carefully prepared.
2. As a natural result, the controversialists were even more
short-sighted than usual ; perplexed by the noise and confusion
around them, they failed to perceive certain tendencies of
thought sufficiently clear to men standing upon the vantage-
ground of later experience. Their eyes were fixed on the
superficial ripple which seemed to them a storm of serious
magnitude, though to us interesting chiefly as indicating the
direction in which the great tidal movements were setting
beneath the surface. The arguments used on both sides have
lost much of their meaning to us. Many of them rested on
historical assumptions, long since dispersed into thin air ;
others implied a partial glimpse of truths whose real bearing
could not then be appreciated ; and some involved the use of
philosophical assumptions as exploded as any philosophical
error can be that is to say, now disguised under an entirely
different form. The entrenchments thrown up by the or-
thodox, and the batteries pointed against them by unbelievers,
are as obsolete as the feudal castles in the days of modern
artillery. And yet, though the issues are perplexed, the
methods inadequate, and the disputants imperfectly con-
scious of their own meaning, the controversy has its interest,
not merely in an historical sense, but as anticipating many
later developments of thought.
3. As religious speculation began to withdraw from the
controverted dogmas, and for the appeal to churches or
Scriptures to substitute an exclusive appeal to reason,
the framework of supernaturalism began to show symptoms
of weakness. The question occurred whether that framework
was not altogether superfluous. Why not knock away these
antiquated props, and leave a symmetrical edifice of rational
doctrine, the firmer when freed from supports that had
become encumbrances ? To this it was replied, in the first
place, that an efficient creed could not be constructed without
the aid of revelation. Unassisted reason could not lay down
such a chart of the universe as would suffice for human
guidance. It was asserted, in the next place, that, as a matter
of fact, a supernatural intervention had actually occurred.
Christianity, in short, supplied a vital want of human nature,
/. INTRODUCTORY. 93
and the facts which it asserted could be satisfactorily proved.
The controversy thus fell into two divisions, corresponding
to what were called the internal and external evidences of
Christianity. Though both questions were raised from the
beginning of the period, the argument on the internal evi-
dence has the priority in the order of thought. The doubts
as to the facts were preceded by the doubts as to the value
of the established creed. Christianity was called upon to
show its title-deeds, when it failed to satisfy the moral and
intellectual needs of the time. Certain doubts about Eve's
apple and Balaam's ass might be smouldering here and there,
but they only gained importance as the creed in which they
were held to be inextricably bound up was assailed for
other reasons. They were not the original cause of offence,
though they were irresistibly tempting to scoffers when
once the prestige of the creed was weakened. I shall begin,
therefore, with that current of feeling which sprang from
the deepest sources and most profoundly affected men's
minds.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND.
4. Though there had been many premonitory symptoms
of the coming storm, the controversy may be said to have
first come definitely to life in the last years of the seven-
teenth century. Two books appeared in 1695 and 1696
respectively, whose titles are curiously significant : Locke's
' Reasonableness of Christianity,' and Toland's ' Christianity
not Mysterious.' The conjunction was rather unfortunate,
though not accidental. Toland attempted to gain a place in
social and literary esteem by boasting of intimacy with Locke,
and by engrafting his speculations upon Locke's doctrines. 1
Locke emphatically repudiated this unfortunate disciple,
whose personal acquaintance with him was slight, and whose
theories he altogether disavowed. The connection, indeed,
1 Pope says, in a suppressed couplet of the ' Essay on Man,'
' What partly pleases, totally will shock :
I question much if Toland would be Locke '
meaning to say, as Warburton tells us, that a little man would not change places
with a great man in his own line.
94 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
was little calculated to reflect credit upon the great man, and
yet there was an uncomfortable plausibility in his follower's
claim to be at least a humble adherent Locke, though his
manifest irritation at the charge made his conduct to Toland
rather harsh, was unmistakably free from the slightest com-
plicity, direct or indirect, in any attack upon the authenticity
of the Christian revelation. Locke's candour breathes in every
line of his work. He has an unmistakable right to his place
in that roll-call of eminent believers which is to this day thun-
dered from pulpits against the pride of the infidel. No child or
clergyman of the present time could accept the plenary inspira-
tion of the Scriptures with a simpler faith than this intellectual
progenitor of the whole generation of eighteenth-century ico-
noclasts the teacher of Toland and Collins, the legitimate
precursor of Hume and of Condillac, the philosopher before
whom Voltaire is never tired of prostrating himself with un-
wonted reverence. There is no sign of a consciousness that
biblical criticism may turn out to be a destructive agent, and
scarcely of a consciousness that it exists. Like Chilling-
worth, whose congenial intellect excites his admiration, 1 he
accepts the authority at once of reason and of the Bible ; and
never suspects that there will be any difficulty in serving the
two masters. Some persons, indeed, may conceivably reject
the whole book as an imposture, but he recognises no medium
between that monstrous hypothesis and the acceptance of
every word as inspired. If, in this respect, Locke was behind
the more cultivated writers of his time, the origin, the method,
and the whole tone of his treatises are curiously characteristic
of the thought of the coming generation. Whatever his -other
merits or defects, Locke strikes, in all subjects of which he
treats, the keynote of English speculation in the eighteenth
century.
5. One day, so he tells us, he was thinking of a contro-
versy then raging amongst dissenters, vvhen it occurred to him
to enquire into the ' question about justification,' and thence,
by a natural transition, to ask what is the faith which jus-
tifies ? 2 To satisfy himself, he adopted a plan analogous to
that which had produced the ' Essay on the Human Under-
standing.' Casting aside the infinite masses of learned specu-
1 Locke's Works, vol. iii. 275 j vol. vi. 252, 276, &c. 2 Ib. vi. 187.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 95
lation under which the whole subject had been buried, till it was
crushed and distorted out of shape, he resolved simply to use
his eyes to see what was before him. The process was so un-
common that it might be expected to produce novel results. In
short, he read his New Testament without note or comment,
as it might have been read by a youthful disciple of a modern
dissenting preacher. No such student could have more sum-
marily swept aside the labours of commentators, divines, and
the whole tribe of exegetical Dryasdusts, than this venerable
philosopher. As he read, the old words, doubtless familiar
enough, dazzled him with new light. The meaning seemed
to him so plain that he could not understand how anyone
could have missed it. As the discovery grew upon his mind,
he wondered more and more at the harmony which slowly
disclosed itself at the indications of the ' marvellous and
divine wisdom of our Saviour's conduct,' and at the conclusive
proof afforded both of the truth of the narrative and of the
utility of its teaching to mankind. The studies thus simply
conducted had been undertaken for his own private satisfac-
tion. But at length his conviction that he was able to place
in a new light the infinite superiority of the Gospel-teaching
to all human wisdom, and to obviate objections resting upon
the confusion between the true Gospel and the spurious theo-
logy elaborated by scholastic divines, induced him to give his
conclusions to the world. They were apparently destined, in
his mind, to sweep away the rubbish of theologians, as his
essay was to sweep away the rubbish of metaphysicians.
6. The sincerity of the narrative is obvious, and the con-
struction of the book bears witness to it. The greater part is
a long, and as his adversary justly remarks, a tedious, catena
of texts, intended to establish his great discovery. Locke, to
say the truth, has the weakness not uncommon with men of
robust intellect and strong persuasions. He is capable of
becoming tedious. He produces his materials at full length,
and plods steadily through the Gospels and the Acts, accu-
mulating proof after proof of his discovery. Stated simply, it
amounts to this : Christ and his apostles, on admitting con-
verts to the Church, did not exact from them a profession of
belief in the Athanasian Creed, the Thirty-nine Articles, or
the Westminster Confession, but were satisfied with the
96 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
acknowledgment that Christ was the Messiah. This, then, is
the one essential article of faith, except, indeed, that to it
must be added, unless it be taken to include, a belief in the
one true God. ' Nobody can add to these fundamental
articles of faith, nor make any other necessary but what God
hath made and declared to be so.' Here, then, is a plain
simple religion, fitted to the comprehension of ' labouring and
illiterate men,' and free from those niceties with which ' writers
and wranglers in religion have filled it,' as though there were no
way into the Church but through the ' academy or lyceum.' 1
7. Locke's discovery is not in itself very startling ; and it
is rather odd, though characteristic of his indifference to au-
thority, that he should have supposed it to be new. A book,
for example, called the ' Naked Gospel,' by Arthur Bury,
rector of Exeter College, had been burnt by the University
of Oxford in 1690 for its defence of a very similar doctrine.
Locke's treatise provoked an attack from a Mr. Edwards,
who was excusably angry at any attempt to lower the con-
ditions of salvation. He thought it hard that anybody
should be saved who differed from himself in regard to
original sin, justification by faith, the atonement, and in in-
definite lists of other doctrines. Locke, it appeared to him,
was at one fell swoop demolishing the whole creed, with the
exception of a single article, and he was scandalised at the
prospects held out by implication to an infinite variety of
sects. Locke, at great length, explained the sufficiently
obvious point that a belief in Christ involved a belief in all
the doctrines known to come from Christ. No man can be a
Christian who at once admits that Christ teaches a given
doctrine, and asserts that the doctrine is false. But we can
only demand from him an explicit belief of the doctrines
which he apprehends to be taught in the Scriptures, and an
implicit belief of ' all the rest, which he is ready to believe so
soon as it shall please God .... to enlighten him.' 2 Hence
it follows, and this is Locke's main point, that the attempt to
fix ' a catalogue of fundamentals ' is illusory. This ' every-
one alone can make for himself ; nobody can fix it for him ;
nobody can collect or prescribe it to another ; but this is ac-
cording as God dealt to every man the measure of light and
1 Locke's Works, vi. 157. 2 232.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 97
faith ; and has opened every man's understanding that he
may understand the Scriptures.' 1 Locke's view, in short, is
that every man becomes a Christian who accepts allegiance
to Christ as his King. He must obey, so far as he knows
them, the King's laws ; but he need not know them all an
obligation, as he observes, never yet imposed upon the sub-
jects of any kingdom. 2 To the faith, indeed, which he shares
with the devils, that Christ is the Messiah, he must add re-
pentance and willingness to obey. But those conditions
being fulfilled, he may be ' solemnly incorporated into the
kingdom,' 3 and must live as becomes an obedient subject.
Yet some shred of the old invincible prejudice which attaches
sinfulness to honest opinion, still perplexed even this straight-
forward intellect. Sensible men do not like to go into ex-
tremes, and therefore it is that men of sense make so many
blunders. Locke, indeed, asserts boldly that those who lived
before Christ could not be doomed for the want of Christian
faith, and that for the plain reason that ' nobody was or can
be required to believe what was never proposed to him to
believe.' 4 He seems, however, to be thinking chiefly 5 of those
whose prospective faith in the fulfilment of God's promises of
a Messiah might stand in lieu of the retrospective faith that
the Messiah had already appeared. He says that there
seems to be 'something more of weight' 6 in the difficulty
as to the heathen who had never heard a word of the pro-
phecy or of its fulfilment. The same principle, one would
have thought, might cover this case also ; and Locke, though
in more guarded language, accepts the charitable conclusion.
If, however, the further difficulty had been raised as to the
fate of those who, having heard, had not been convinced, he
would apparently have been staggered a little. The tendency
of his logic is plain enough : the qualifications for heaven are
reduced to a minimum ; but he does not explicitly reach the
conclusion that intellectual error is not by itself sinful.
8. Thus far Locke is following in the track of the old
controversies. He is still discussing that strange question
evolved by the collision of rival sects, to what erroneous
opinions God had annexed the tremendous penalty of eternal
1 Locke's Works, vi. 233. 3 Ib. p. III. 5 Ib. p. 128.
2 Ib. p. 231. * Ib. p. 128. Ib. p. 132.
VOL. I. H
98 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
damnation. So faint a shadow of the old ferocious doctrine
now creeps about the dark places of the world, that it is not
without amazement that we see it still haunting, even in the
most attenuated shape, so wise and tolerant an intellect
During the ensuing controversies it pretty well disappears
from sight ; and shows itself, at most, by occasionally
prompting an expression of spitefully charitable hope for the
soul of an antagonist. But as the ghastly superstition dis-
appeared, there naturally arose the further question, which
was to occupy men's minds for the coming years If men of
all creeds might be saved, what need was there of a Saviour ?
Is not the light of nature sufficient ? When Christian theo-
logy is not guarded by this dreadful phantom, why should we
believe in its special sanctity ? If all creeds open a path to
heaven ; if Socrates and Cicero may be saved as well as Paul
and Peter, why should one creed be exalted as essentially
superior to others ? To such question Locke gives the
answer which was urged in various forms against the whole
race of deists. It is short and plain, and though the mode of
expression seems crude to modern readers, it is, perhaps, not
widely different in substance from that which meets ac-
ceptance at the present day. At any rate, it may be briefly
summed up as giving the text afterwards expounded through-
out a voluminous literature. Its essence lies in the assertion
that Christianity is practically useful. Without its aid, in-
deed, ' the rational and thinking part of mankind ' l might,
and in fact did, discover the ' one supreme, invisible God ; ' l but
to the great bulk of the race, that central light remained in-
accessible. Revelation was shut up in a little corner of the
world. The vast multitudes of Gentiles ' could have no attes-
tation of the miracles on which the Hebrews built their
faith,' 2 except by difficult and rare communications with an
obscure race. The Christian miracles, on the contrary, were
so frequent and so public as to be notorious to the whole
world, and could not be impeached by the enemies of the
new creed, 'no, not Julian himself.' 3 Without the aid of
Christianity, again, philosophers might discover the law of
nature, though human reason 'never from unquestionable
1 Locke's Works, vi. 135. 2 Ib. p. 137.
3 Ib. p. 138,
//. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 99
principles by clear deductions made out an entire body ' * of
that law. Assuming what, however, he does not admit
that all moral precepts of the Gospel have been discovered by
some one or other of the philosophers ; by Solon and Bias, and
Tully, and Confucius and Anacharsis, yet mankind at large
would not without the Gospel possess an ' unquestionable rule
of life and manners.' 2 And still less could a number of ' in-
coherent apophthegms ' possess a binding legal force. A phi-
losopher has not the authority of a legislator. Christ has
given us a complete code, and produced Divine testimony for
his authority. Morality, even if not extended, is placed on an
immovable basis. For the mass of mankind the difference is
vital. Even if philosophy had 'from undeniable principles
given us ethics in a science like mathematics, in every way
demonstrable,' 3 yet demonstration flies above the heads of the
crowd. Doubts, when they arose, could only be solved by
following out a complex ' thread of coherent deductions ; ' and
hence ' you may as soon expect to have all the day-labourers
and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairymaids, perfect mathe-
maticians, as to have them perfect in ethics in this way.' 3
Christianity, again, enables us to practise the code thus au-
thoritatively set forth. It substituted a pure and spiritual
worship for the complex rites and ceremonies of ancient
religions. ' Decency, order, and edification ' alone were re-
quired, instead of ' stately buildings, costly ornaments, pecu-
liar and uncouth habits, and a numerous huddle of pompous,
fantastical, cumbersome ceremonies.' 4 Yet more potent was
the substitution of the sure and certain hope of a resurrection
for the vague talk of poets about manes and ghosts, about
Styx and Acheron and Elysian fields, savouring more of ' the
inventions of wit and the ornaments of poetry than the serious
persuasions of the grave and sober.' 5 Christ brought life and
immortality to light, not merely by the clear revelation of the
truth, but by the assurance conveyed in his own resurrection
and ascension. And, finally, Christ has bestowed upon us
one more advantage in the promise of his assistance. We
know not how the spirit of God will work upon us, but we
1 Locke's Works, vi. 140. * Ib p. 146. 4 Ib. pp. 147-8.
2 Ib. p. 141. s Ib. p. 149.
HZ
ioo CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
cannot doubt henceforward that an Almighty arm is ready to
guide us through the dangers and temptations of the world.
9. Here, then, is the thesis laid down by the typical
thinker of the age, to be incessantly attacked and defended
through the next century. Locke's view of Christianity
entirely ignores the aspects of the faith which have in
other days been most prominent. A rationalist to the core,
he does not even contemplate as possible an appeal to
any authority but that of ordinary reason. The truth of
Christianity is to be proved like the truth of any historical
or philosophical theory. It was simply a question of evidence,
and especially of the overwhelming evidence of the Christian
miracles. The fact, indeed, that those miracles were wrought
in confirmation of a perfect system of morality, made it pos-
sible to accept them. But the excellence of that system
appeared not from its transcending the limits of human know-
ledge, but from its entire coincidence with the teaching of
the unassisted intellect. Christianity is regarded less as the
revelation of the true relations of man to his Maker than as
a new promulgation of the moral law. It makes notorious
to all men the sanctions by which that law is enforced, and
which they had previously dimly conjectured rather than
decidedly believed. It regulates the mode in which men are
to approach their Creator, and promises assistance in obeying
him ; but though regulating and systematising the dictates
of common sense, it does not nay, it is its very glory and
the proof of its supreme excellence that it does not run
counter to them or materially alter them. No visible out-
ward guardian of the sacred mysteries, and no sublime
internal faculty of insight into heavenly things, is neces-
sary to maintain this prosaic but thoroughly sensible
religion. The world, as Locke conceived it, had been in
trouble owing to a mysterious alienation from its ruler. It
had, indeed, confused recollections that such a ruler existed,
and a dim knowledge of the general design of his legislation.
But practically an anarchy existed, as when an Eastern despot
has retired into the recesses of his palace and left his people
to mind their own business. Christianity was a great legis-
lative reform. The law was codified, published, and enforced
by adequate sanctions, but not materially altered. In that
//. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 101
sense, Christianity was reasonable in the highest degree, and,
in fact, was little more than a ratification of the vague rules
established by unauthorised thinkers, with some promise of
more active interference in future.
10. Locke's tendency to view Christianity as intended by
its Divine Author to give new authority to the dictates of
reason, though it did not lead him to exclude, naturally in-
clined him to assign to a subordinate position, those doctrines
which are obviously unattainable by our unassisted intel-
lects. He admitted, but he laid no stress upon them. The
Almighty Ruler had, as Christians believed, condescended to
reveal awful glimpses of the mysterious depths of his own
nature, and into the mode of his government of the universe.
Men of reverential spirit would regard those revelations in
humble awe, without venturing to correct by their own specu-
lations the direct intimations of the Deity. They would feel
that the place whereon they stood was holy ground. Divines,
however, had brought their metaphysical scales and measur-
ing-rods into that Holy of Holies, where angels would stand
with averted gaze, and had pried and measured and tested
and wrangled, as though God was a natural curiosity, and
they were intelligent scientific observers. Thus handled and
controverted, the awful utterances were in danger of sinking
into profane or simply nonsensical dogmas, the very mention
of which was calculated to excite rather disgust at the pro-
fanity and litigiousness of believers, than a reverential sense
of the Divine presence. Locke's feeling towards these dogmas
was apparently compounded of traditional reverence for their
sanctity, and disgust for the profane discord of which they
had been the symbols. Others, however, were inclined to go
further, to cast aside the reverence and retain the disgust.
Sweep these obsolete formuke out of the temple, and we
should obtain a pure, simple, and universally intelligible
creed. A suppressed rationalism showed itself in the Trini-
tarian controversy which raged towards the end of the cen-
tury ; but a more decided step was inviting, and the first man
to take it openly was the strange adventurer, John, properly
called Janus Junius, Toland.
ii. From his earliest days Toland was a mere waif
and stray, hanging loose upon society, retiring at intervals
102 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
into the profoundest recesses of Grub Street, emerging
again by fits to scandalise the whole respectable world,
and then once more sinking back into tenfold obscurity.
His career is made pathetic by his incessant efforts to clutch
at various supports, which always gave way as he grasped
them. The illegitimate son, as it was said, probably out of
mere malice, of an Irish priest, he became a convert to Pro-
testantism at sixteen, and was supported by certain dissenters
at Glasgow, Leyden, and Oxford. He repaid their generosity
by acquiring a considerable amount of learning, and then by
suddenly firing ' Christianity not Mysterious ' in their faces.
It was a luckless performance so far as his temporal interests
were concerned. The Grand Jury of Middlesex presented it
as a nuisance ; the uproar which it excited followed him to
Dublin ; there for a time he braved the storm, and was
foolish enough to maintain his opinions at ' coffee-houses and
public tables ; ' l whereas infidelity, till a much later period,
was, like hair-powder, an acknowledged perquisite of the
aristocracy. Poor Toland fell into debt ; it became dangerous
to speak to him ; and as South triumphantly declared, whilst
wishing that English zeal were equally warm, 'the (Irish)
parliament, to their immortal honour, sent him packing, and,
without the help of a faggot, soon made the kingdom too
hot to hold him.'
12. For the remaining twenty- five years of his life, poor
Toland lived on his wits. We catch sight of him dimly
flitting backwards and forwards between England and the
Continent ; at one time a bookseller's hack, at another living
on the patronage of foreign princesses and English noblemen
of freethinking tendencies, and sometimes it would seem a
political spy. In a curious letter to Lord Oxford, 2 he ex-
presses his contempt for that character, but at the same time
his willingness to serve as ' private monitor ' and purveyor
of general information. Like his fellow-pensioner, De Foe,
he defended himself by professions of public spirit, of which
it is now impossible, as well as useless, to estimate the sin-
cerity. From the court of Berlin he was driven, as his bio-
1 See correspondence between Locke and Molyneux in 1697.
2 See the letter in 'Collection of Pieces,' vol. ii. 220. See also Disraeli's
' Calamities of Authors' for a good account of Toland.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 103
grapher provokingly tells us, by ' an incident too ludicrous to
be mentioned.' The Electress Sophia and the Queen of Prussia
ladies, so his biographer assures us, ' who will ever be ac-
counted the glory of the fair sex, for the sublimity of their
genius,' l and other good qualities amused themselves by listen-
ing to his philosophical dissertations. Leibnitz criticised him
respectfully. At one time he was supported by the gene-
rosity of Lord Shaftesbury, and other friends at home and in
Germany ; and he finally died as the pensioner of Lord Moles-
worth, who had promised to secure him the necessaries of life.
An epitaph, composed by himself, set forth his independence
of spirit, his love of liberty, his wide knowledge of literature,
and his acquaintance with more than ten languages. That
was the last gleam of the vanity which Locke had noticed as
a dangerous failing, and which, as his orthodox opponents
proclaimed, had been the animating principle of his whole
career. Had it been a little stronger, it might have been called a
consciousness of great abilities. But though it prompted him to
attempt, it did not support him in carrying out, any important
design. The poor man did not know how to starve, and the
numerous pamphlets which he published are mere scraps and
tatters and unfinished fragments. Many are political. Some
are experiments towards a proposed account of the Druids.
Others bear more or less directly upon theological topics. An
unlucky passage in the Life of Milton, referring to the Eikon
Basilike, was construed into an indirect attack upon the
authenticity of the Gospels, and led to a controversy upon the
canon. The theological have a more or less pronounced ten-
dency to rationalism. In one he tells the story of Hypat.ia,
as an illustration of the wickedness of priests ; in another he
endeavours to prove that the pillar of cloud and fire was not
a miraculous phenomenon, but a signal contained in an iron
pot hoisted to the top of a pole. 2 ' Nazarenus ' is a perplexed
and rambling performance tending, it would seem, to support
the doctrine, afterwards maintained by Priestley, that the
early Jewish sects, the Nazarenes and Ebionites, who still ob-
served the Mosaic law and believed in the humanity of Christ,
were the genuine Christians. The inference would follow that
1 See the Life in ' Collection of Pieces,' vol. i. Ivi.
2 ' Tetradymus,' p. 45.
104 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
the essence of Christianity consists in its moral precepts, and
that the dogmatic and ceremonial superstructure of the later
Church was a gross corruption of the original creed. Of the
letters to Serena intended for the Queen of Prussia the first
remarks upon the mode in which prejudices grow up without
reason, though reasons are afterwards found for them ; and
the second traces the belief in immortality to the Egyptian
funeral rites. He says, indeed, ostensibly that the doctrine
is proved by revelation ; but the natural inference from his
arguments is to place the belief amongst the prejudices, which
suggest, instead of following, proof. The particular explana-
tion is, of course, absurd ; but perhaps this attempt to account
for the origin of beliefs otherwise than from reasoning shows
a kind of nascent historic sense. Two other letters to ' a gen-
tleman in Holland,' contain, under cover of an attack upon
Spinoza, a defence of the doctrine, then held to be atheistical,
that motion is essential to matter. In the scarcely serious
pamphlet called ' Pantheisticon/ of which he only distributed a
few privately printed copies, as a means of asking for presents,
it was supposed that he gave a more open expression of his true
sentiments. The book contains a rather eloquent statement
of the doctrine of the eternal flux of creation as opposed to the
popular belief in the catastrophe of the Deluge, and ends with
a dialogue between the president and members of a philoso-
phical society, who read passages from ancient philosophers. It
is so printed and arranged as to suggest a parody of Christian
liturgies, and amounts to a distinct avowal of Pantheism.
There are other indications l that Toland more or less inclined
to that creed, but the point may well remain doubtful.
1 3. These, and many other pamphlets, are of small interest,
except as showing that Toland's mind was employed upon
some questions, especially as to the historical origin of
beliefs, which have since assumed greater importance ; they
are melancholy remnants, speaking of considerable talents
1 Though Toland ostensibly attacked part of Spinoza's teaching in the ' Letters
to Serena,' he mentions him with unusual respect. (See ' Tetradymus,'
pp. 185-6.) To the tract on Socinianism is prefixed advice from a Pantheist to an
orthodox friend ; and a phrase in the epitaph written by himself looks like an
avowal of Pantheism :
' Ipse vero est aeternum resurrecturus,
At idem futurus Tolandus nunquam."
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 105
and wide reading, wasted by unpropitious circumstances, and,
in short, the work of one whose ambition has outlived his
efficient will. His first book, however, the ' Christianity not
Mysterious,' more carefully and forcibly written than his later
productions, excited a warmth of indignation which will cer-
tainly not be roused in any modern reader. It was the signal
gun which brought on the general action, and, like most
successful books, gave articulate expression to a widely
diffused, but as yet latent, sentiment. Locke had argued that
Christianity was reasonable. Toland added that there was no
nonsense in Christianity. What was the difference between
the two propositions ? In the opinion of his antagonists, the
main difference was that the very title of the book involves a
subterfuge. Christianity must be taken to mean not the
historical creed of Christendom but pure and undefiled re-
ligion ; and as the accepted creed undeniably includes
mysterious doctrines, his argument amounted to the assertion
that the creed was so far false. Undoubtedly this was the
tendency of his reasoning. How far he was conscious of the
equivocation involved is a matter of little importance at
the present time. It is fortunately not our duty to determine
whether Toland and his like deserved damnation, but to dis-
cover in what way they affected thought When we see how
frequently other later writers, whilst sapping the base of
orthodoxy, persuade themselves that they are merely removing
superficial accretions, and especially when we remark how
frequently they make use in the most entire good faith of an
accurate reproduction of the old deist artifice, and try to
keep the prestige of sacred names on their side, whilst alto-
gether changing their application, we may easily be charitable
to the deists. Yet I will add that, in my judgment, the
deist writers did in fact mean a great deal more than they
ventured to say. The shame, as one of their most candid
opponents remarks, 1 ought to lie with those who made plain-
speaking dangerous.
1 Foster's 'Answer to Tindal,' preface. Toland, in a tract on the esoteric
and exoteric philosophy of the ahcients, gives a very sound canon ; to the effect
that, when a man maintains the common and authorised opinions, his sincerity may
be doubtful ; but that when he attacks those opinions, there is at least a presump-
tion in favour of his sincerity ('Tetradymus,' p. 96).
io6 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
14. Toland's argument starts with the customary remarks
upon the impossibility of extracting any certain rule of faith
from the conflicting authorities of popes, fathers, councils, and
the whole wilderness of discordant churches. Reason, he
says, must be the only foundation of all certitude. 1 By a
more daring logic he proceeds to argue that assent should
follow demonstration alone. 2 Starting from Locke's definition
of knowledge as the perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of ideas, 3 he argues that ideas must be clear in order to
admit of comparison. When we reason, we are like a car-
penter who applies his foot-rule first alternately to two objects,
and, in order to compare them, must necessarily be able to
have a distinct view of each in turn. They must be alike
tangible, visible, and accessible. Theologians had generally
demanded an assent to propositions which, if not contra-
dictory to reason, deal with matters in which the light of
reason can be at best fluctuating arid uncertain. Toland
maintains that, in the absence of demonstration, we must hold
our judgments in suspense, except, of course, in practical
questions where we are forced to act upon probabilities. 4
There is, he says, no distinction between self-evident truths
and those which require intermediate proofs. All demon-
stration becomes at length self-evident. ' I banish,' he de-
clares in a new sense, ' all hypotheses from my philosophy.' 3
So long as a thing is only probable, our judgments must
remain in suspense. But we can obtain absolute certainty
even in regard to matters of fact not open to direct observa-
tion. When such truths as the existence of a foreign
country are duly attested, by persons, that is, who cannot be
' justly suspected,' they become as ' certain and indubitable '
as if we had seen them with our eyes. 6 Twilight disappears
from the intellectual world ; we are either in utter darkness or
in the full daylight of mathematical demonstration.
15. How do these theories which it would be superfluous
to criticise at length affect our theological beliefs ? They
would, in the first place, entitle us to disbelieve, or rather
1 ' Christianity not Mysterious,' p. 6. 2 Ib. p. 22. a Ib. p. 12.
4 Ib. p. 21. These words are not in the first edition. I quote from that of
1702.
4 Ib. p. 15. Ib. p. 17.
77. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 107
they show that it is impossible to believe anything which is
'contrary to reason,' or, in other words, anything which
involves a contradiction. They entitle us again to demand
strict proof of the historical statements of the Scriptures. It
would be mere superstition to accept them without due attes-
tation ; or, as he says, it is a ' blamable credulity and a
temerarious opinion,' to believe ' the divinity of the Scripture or
the sense of any passage thereof without rational proofs and
an evident consistency.' * A revealed truth must be distinctly
proved, and must show the ' indisputable characters of divine
wisdom and sound reason.' 2 Precedents are not wanting
for our guidance in the holy records themselves. We are
invited to admire the example of the Virgin, who, ' though of
that sex which is least proof against flattery and superstition,
did not implicitly believe that she should bear a son . . .
until the angel gave a satisfactory answer to the strongest
objection that could be raised.' 3 Toland proceeds to argue,
in apparent good faith, that Christianity will satisfy this
rigorous test ; nor, though he refrains from expressly identi-
fying Christianity with the body of doctrines generally known
under that name, is there anything in this argument neces-
sarily incompatible with orthodoxy. Perhaps, however, it was
pardonable in divines to look with a certain distrust upon a
theory which contemplated the propriety of occasionally cross-
examining an archangel.
1 6. The difficulties thicken as Toland ventures into the
delicate enquiry about the Christian mysteries, which was
the main design of his book. He maintains that, as nothing
is contrary to reason, so there is nothing ' above reason ' in
the Gospel. We are required to believe nothing that is in-
conceivable as well as nothing that is contradictory. He
argues at considerable length, and with much show of learning,
that the word mystery, as used both in the writings of
classical authors and in the Scriptures, does not signify a
proposition inconceivable to our minds, but simply a proposi-
tion known to us by revelation alone. 4 The veil once with-
1 'Christianity not Mysterious,' p. 37. 2 Ib. p. 42, 8 Ib. p. 4.
4 Ch. iii. especially p. 108. The same doctrine, as Mr. Pattison reminds us,
was maintained by Archbishop Whately. It is also explicitly stated by Sherlock,
Works, i. 83.
loS CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
drawn, the mystery may, and indeed must be, as simple as any
other truth, and a mysterious doctrine is merely one which
for some reason or other has been concealed from certain
classes of mankind. In this sense the existence of America,
for example, would be a mystery until Columbus had dis-
covered it. Was there not a danger that mysteries understood
in the other sense of doctrines essentially incomprehensible
by our understandings would be dissipated when brought
under the broad glare of reason ? If the hidden nature of
the Deity be inscrutable by our feeble organs, under the
ordinary light of day, and if, as Toland seems to maintain,
there is no twilight, and no supernatural illumination ad-
dressed to any faculty but the reason, must not the whole
subject be buried in impenetrable night ? All faith now in
the world, he tells us, is ' entirely built upon ratiocination.' l
Faith in the New Testament means ' persuasion built upon
substantial reasons.' 2 Faith, then, must deal with doctrines
which can be intelligibly construed by our minds. Proposi-
tions about things inconceivable would, in plain words, be
simply nonsense. ' Could that person,' he asks, 'justly value
himself upon his knowledge who, having infallible assurance
that something called a Blictri had a being in nature, in the
meantime knew not what this Blictri was ? ' 3 The answer
is so far clear ; and indeed it did not require an elaborate
logical apparatus to prove to us that mere gibberish cannot
be an article of reasonable faith, and that there would be no
intelligible meaning in requiring a man to believe, under the
penalty of damnation, that a hocus-pocus is an Abracadabra. 4
The real question remains, what are the propositions which
are thus inaccessible ? Are we at liberty, for example, to
substitute Trinity or the Deity or the Real Presence for
Blictri ? It was obviously essential to Toland's argument
that he should in some way define the powers of the human
understanding, and point out where daylight ends and tenfold
night begins. The nearest approach to a definite answer is
given in a chapter designed to prove that a thing is not a
mystery, 'because we have not an adequate idea of all its
properties, nor any at all of its essence.' He says, in Locke's
phraseology, that we may know the ' nominal ' but not the
1 'Christianity not Mysterious,' p. 127. * Ib. p. 128.
2 Ib. p. 132. 4 Ib. p. 134.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 109
' real essences ' of things. Our knowledge, that is, is purely
relative, and hence it follows that, in one sense, every object is
mysterious, and, in another, no object. If a thing is to be
called a mystery because we do not know its real essence,
then a pebble or a ' spire of grass ' l is a profound mystery.
This is a sense which would destroy all knowledge. But in
the other sense, according to Toland, neither the soul nor
God himself is a mystery. We cannot form any idea of the
ultimate essence of either, but we know the properties of the
soul as clearly as we know the properties of the body, and ' as
for God, we comprehend nothing better than his attributes.' 2
Religious doctrines, it would therefore appear, are mysterious
in the sense, and only in the sense, in which scientific proposi-
tions are mysterious ; or, as he prefers to say, they are not
mysterious at all. We can make intelligible propositions
about God and the soul, as well as about the sun or the human
body, and in each case the source of our knowledge is the
same, his final analysis of its origin, as indeed the whole of his
philosophy, being substantially derived from his master, Locke.
17. The explanation leaves us at a loss. What doctrines
may not be accepted under the saving clause ? If the Divine
Being be no more a mystery than a blade of grass, scholastic
theology is a possible science. The most obvious interpreta-
tion of Toland's words would admit of pure Deism, but con-
demn speculations as to the nature of the Deity. One passage,
in fact, seems to be directed against the doctrine of the
Trinity, 3 though Toland declared in a subsequent Apology
that he was thinking only of such extravagant reasoners as
Eutyches. 4
The evasion seems to be palpable ; for Toland's argu-
ments are directed not against particular conclusions, but
against the possibility of reaching any conclusions. They,
therefore, condemn Athanasius just as distinctly as Arius or
Eutyches. Toland, however, avoids any detailed statement,
promising to give further details in a second volume, which
never appeared. The only doctrine which he distinctly at-
tacks, as falling under his canon, is that of Transubstantiation.
In the tract called ' Vindicius Liberius,' written on occasion of
an attack upon him in Convocation, Toland apologised for
1 ' Christianity not Mysterious,' p. 79. * Ib. p. 27.
2 Ib. p. 86. * 'Apology,' p. 33.
no CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
the ' undigested notions ' ' of twenty-five, and besides declaring
his belief in God and a future world, added that he believed in
Christianity, and in particular that he willingly and heartily
conformed to the doctrine and worship of the Church of
England. 2
1 8. It is difficult to believe in his complete sincerity; but
it is true enough that his notions were undigested, and that
the argument, though not wanting in vigour, was not carried
to a systematic conclusion. Like many other men of far
greater power, he had an easy task so long as he was only
proving that two and two made four ; but became perplexed
so soon as it was a question of applying his method to the
solution of difficult problems. The proposed excision of
mystery from Christianity reduced itself to an excision of
mere jargon, without any distinct decision as to what was and
what was not jargon. The conclusion to which his arguments
seem to point would have been contrary to his own belief.
For, in truth, there is one way, and only one way, in which
mystery may be expelled from religion, and that is by ex-
pelling theology. A religion without mystery is a religion
without God. Toland, as we have seen, maintained that our
knowledge of God was as intimate as our knowledge of a
spire of grass. He had asked the really significant question,
but he had not the metaphysical acuteness necessary for
giving a plausible answer ; nor were his contemporaries pre-
pared to pursue the investigation. Toland is a follower of
Locke, and in the path which leads to the purely sceptical
solution of Hume. And yet he is ready to accept the dying
metaphysical system, and to discuss the attributes of God
with Leibnitz or Clarke. He does not see that his arguments
strike at the root of his assumptions. A little more prudence
was considered desirable both by Toland and his followers,
instead of an entire renunciation of a fundamentally hopeless
task. Like most of the later deists, he was convinced that
reason was not only sufficient for our guidance, but sufficient
to do all that theology had professed to do. The whole
school believed firmly in its own omniscience. Like the
Egyptian magicians, they did not deny the reality of their
rival's miracles, but asserted that they could produce equal
1 ' Vindicius Liberius,' p. 105. 2 Ib. p. 106.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. in
wonders. They would pare away some of the bolder extrava-
gances into which divines had been betrayed ; but they were
ready to erect a new scholasticism, convinced that the main
doctrines would be all the firmer when they had been purified
of a few irrelevant freaks of fancy. For this reason, the path
opened by Toland remained comparatively untrodden. No
critical acid could be devised which would remove mystery
without biting into the substance of natural religion. The
main attempt to rationalise Christianity was made, as we
shall presently see, by a different method. The impulse
given by Toland tended indirectly to encourage the later
writers in their attempted construction of a religious theory
which should treat of the Divine nature, and yet be as simple
as the first book of Euclid ; but its immediate result was a
rather purposeless ebullition of metaphysical controversy.
19. Toland's book set Locke and Stillingfleet by the ears,
and some very hard hitting ensued between the Bishop and
the philosopher, at which we may fancy Toland chuckling
with all the vanity of gratified mischief. Stillingfleet was
joining in the Trinitarian controversy, which marked the close
of the century, and rightly felt that Unitarianism was a
blight on the true faith, due to the presence in the intellectual
atmosphere of incipient scepticism. It was an attempt to
accommodate the dogma of the Trinity to a pure monotheism.
Toland was suspected of making Unitarianism a step to
Deism ; and Toland sheltered himself under Locke's au-
thority. The Bishop, as Locke put it, found that Toland's
theories joined Unitarianism on one side, and the doctrines of
the ' Essay ' on another ; and who, he asks, * can deny that,
so ranged in a row, your Lordship may please yourself so
that we may seem but one object, and so one shot be aimed
at us altogether ? ' l The bishop's instincts were better than
his reasoning powers. Locke, the Unitarians, Toland, form
a genuine series, in which Christianity is being gradually
transmuted by larger infusions of rationalism. But many men
can detect a rogue who cannot give proofs for their suspicion ;
and writers who seem to be incapable of forming a coherent
syllogism, are endowed with a dumb faculty of recognising
the family likeness between different systems of thought.
1 Locke's Works, iii. 108.
U2 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM,
Stillingfleet felt the presence of the accursed thing, but failed
signally in his attempt to make it evident to others. So far
as Toland was concerned, the Bishop's efforts were directed
to saddling Locke with the inferences which Toland had
drawn from Locke's account of the reasoning process. Locke
explained at great length that, although reasoning consisted
in perceiving the agreement or disagreement of ideas, and
although our reasoning would be made clearer by the pos-
session of clear ideas, he never asserted or thought that it was
impossible to obtain certainty about obscure ideas. 1 For ex-
ample, he held it to be demonstrable that there was some
such thing as substance, though we could have no distinct
idea of what substance was. The argument extended over a
great many other topics ; and the Bishop endeavoured, un-
skilfully enough, to bring the old methods of scholasticism to
overwhelm Locke's new philosophy. The Bishop answered
the philosopher's defence, and the philosopher replied to the
Bishop's answer ; and yet another answer to the reply and
reply to the answer to the reply appeared before the contro-
versy was ended. Each of the antagonists thought it neces-
sary, after the old-fashioned method, to give a distinct answer
to each paragraph, and almost to each sentence in each para-
graph, of the argument directed against him. It is unneces-
sary to attempt to follow the wearisome dispute, though
certain fragments have their interest as illustrating Locke's
philosophical principles, because it is not only tedious and
obscure, but has no direct bearing on the controversy with
which we are now concerned. The dispute, which started
from Deism, lost itself in the morasses of metaphysics.
20. Toland's book produced various replies. John Norris,
better known as the author of the ' Ideal World,' defended
the distinction between things ' above ' and things ' contrary '
to reason in his ' Account of Reason and Truth.' The obvious
truth that we can believe on evidence, propositions which
we can neither demonstrate nor fully understand, is set forth
with a cumbrous apparatus of scholastic logic and Male-
branchian metaphysics ; though he scarcely comes near
enough to the real questions at issue to show that the distinc-
tion as applied to the Christian mysteries does not correspond
1 Locke's Works, iii. 42, and elsewhere.
II. LOCKE AND TO LAND. 113
to a distinction between the meaningless and the contradictory.
Another assault is more remarkable. Peter Browne, then a
Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, attacked him in the
genuine theological spirit, and is said to have acknowledged
a certain amount of gratitude to his victim l as having been
the indirect means of his elevation to the bishopric of Cork.
Browne called Toland a fool in great variety of phrase ; he
believed, moreover, in a secret cabal of Socinians and infidels
and atheists, with emissaries in all parts of the world, sup-
ported by contribution. ' There could be little doubt,' he
adds, ' that their design is at length to show us that all do-
minion, as well as religion, is founded in reason' 2 the con-
sequences of which would be something dreadful. Toland's
prospects in the next world were of the most discouraging
character ; and he thoroughly deserved the strongest mea-
sures in this. Toleration was not for ' blasphemy and profane-
ness,' and Browne would deliver this sinner ' into the hands of
the magistrate, not moved by any heat of passion, but by
such a zeal as becomes every Christian to have for his pro-
fession.' 3 The fire would burn equally well, whether lighted
by zeal or passion. Browne's argument, when not interrupted
by these outbursts of controversial wrath, is a curious anticipa-
tion of some more recent speculations. Its author long after-
wards expanded it into two books, the ' Procedure, Extent,
and Limits of Human Understanding,' and 'Things Super-
natural and Divine conceived by Analogy with things Natural
and Human,' which appeared in 1728 and 1733 respectively.
The doctrine maintained in these writings is substantially the
same, and Browne seems to think that it will gain strength by
incessant repetition. It illustrates the great difficulty which
pressed upon contemporary theologians. What attitude should
be assumed in regard to the intrusive faculty of the reason ?
Admit it to prove the articles of the faith, and there was a
danger lest the ally should become a master, and substitute
mere natural religion for the characteristic tenets of Christian
1 Chalmers, ' Biog. Dictionary,' Art. ' Browne ;' but it seems more likely that
Toland claimed, than that Browne acknowledged, this influence. See Toland's
' Pieces,' ' Life,' p. xx.
2 Browne's ' Answer ' to Toland, p. 169. * Ib. p. 142.
VOL. I. I
H4 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
theology. But deny its competence altogether, and the greater
danger appeared of a scepticism more thoroughgoing than
"Poland's. Doctrines which could not be construed to the
human intelligence, would appear to be mere jargon about a
' Blictri.' A man cannot really believe anything about what is
avowedly inconceivable. How was the intellect to be repre-
sented as endowed with a receptive faculty, whilst entirely de-
void of any critical faculty, in regard to the dogmas proposed
for its acceptance ?
21. Browne took up the dangerous position of humiliating
the intellect to the utmost possible extent. He accepted the
dogma ' Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu ' to the
fullest extent, 1 and declared that the vital error of meta-
physicians was the belief that the reason had any materials
besides those supplied by the senses. And yet, whilst con-
demning Locke for putting reflection beside sensation as a
source of knowledge, he charged Locke with a tendency
to Atheism. 2 The argument by which he reached this posi-
tion strongly resembles that maintained by the late Dean
Mansel, in his ' Bampton Lectures.' It may be shortly de-
scribed as an 'attempt to out-infidel the infidel. He claimed
explicitly that the orthodox were 'as vigorous defenders of
the use of reason in religion as he (Toland) could be;' 3 and
asserted that our whole Christian faith is grounded on the
strictest ratiocination. 4 Reason, in fact, provides us with a
logical instrument capable of cutting away the ground from
under the infidel's feet. It shows that we are not only igno-
rant of God as he is in himself, which in a sense may be said
equally of Toland's ' spire of grass,' but that his attributes
and mode of operation are totally inconceivable by human
faculties. King, Archbishop of Dublin, argued, in a sermon
on Predestination, preached in 1709, that we could ascribe
wisdom and foreknowledge to God only ' by way of resem-
blance and analogy ; ' 5 and said that to reason upon his attri-
butes, and to 'extend the parallel further than that very
instance which the resemblance was designed to teach us,' 6
was to fall into such errors as would beset a man who inferred
1 'Procedure,' &c., p. 55. * ' Answer to Toland,' p. 120.
a 'Analogy,' p. 127, &c. 4 Ib. p. 126.
4 King's Sermon (edition by Whately in 1821), p. 8. * Ib. p. 19.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 115
from the resemblance between a map and a country that the
country was really made of paper. 1 A more popular illustra-
tion was given by Synge, Archbishop of Tuam, who an-
swered Toland, in an appendix to a very popular little book,
called ' A Gentleman's Religion.' Human knowledge of
divine things, according to him, was like a blind man's know-
ledge of light and colour. 2 Browne works out the same
illustration at great length, 3 though he holds it to give an in-
adequate notion of the extent of our knowledge. 4 In his two
later books he adopts and expands King's argument.
22. He begins by insisting upon the narrow limits of our
powers. It would be impossible for a modern positivist to use
stronger language as to the utter incapacity of our minds to
judge of the Divine nature. He exhausts himself in the attempt
to convey any adequate measure of the depths of our ignorance.
'We can,' he declares, 'have no ideas or conceptions at all,
either in whole or in part, distinct or confused, clear or ob-
scure, determinate or indeterminate,' 5 of God's real nature and
attributes. His veracity, justice, and mercy, differ not merely
in degree, but in kind, from the qualities which go by the
same names amongst men. Nay, 'we are as little able to
conceive the divine manner of externally exerting the intrinsic
moral perfections in the Divinity as to conceive the real in-
ternal perfections from which they proceed.' 6 He adds that, if
his opponents can mention any one instance in which the divine
goodness operates like that of man, it shall decide the con-
troversy. 'The true nature and manner of all the divine
operations of goodness is utterly incomprehensible.' 7 This
doctrine was scarcely likely to commend itself to ordinary theo-
logians, who thought that a demonstration that human beings
must of necessity be, in the modern phrase, Agnostics, was an
awkward foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity. Berkeley ^
noticing King's sermon in the ' Minute Philosopher,' puts the
argument into the mouth of one of his infidels. ' The belief of
a God,' says one of them, ' may be attended with no great ill-
consequences. This, I know, was the opinion of our great
1 King's Sermon, p. 21. * Ib. p. 237.
2 'A Gentleman's Religion,' p. 2 1 6, &c. Ib. p. 269.
1 'Analogy,' pp. 20, 216. * Ib. p. 333. '
* Ib. p. 411.
I 2
n6 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
Diagoras, who told me he would never have been at the pains
to find out a demonstration that there was no God, if the re-
ceived notion of a God had been the same with that of some
fathers and schoolmen ; ' ' and he proceeds to point out that
'the belief that there is an unknown subject of attributes
equally unknown, is a very innocent doctrine, which the acute
Diagoras well saw, and was, therefore, wonderfully delighted
with this system.' Browne, now a bishop, was, of course, fu-
rious at this attack from a brother bishop, and retorted the
accusation of Atheism. As, he said, the human and divine
attributes are essentially different, all the ordinary arguments
in which their identity is implicitly assumed are necessarily
worthless. It is curious to see how the advocates of an opinion
are distracted between the desire to retain every argument,
good or bad, that seems to make in its favour, and the jea-
lousy with which they regard all rival theories. The problem
as to whether it is better that the patient should die than that
he should be cured by a quack doctor is often very perplexing.
In this case, the conflict between the rival theologians was too
direct to admit of a coalition ; and cynical infidels had, there-
fore, the amusement not for the first or the last time of
seeing two pillars of orthodoxy proclaiming, with abundant
emphasis, that the rival structure was a mere heap of crumb-
ling rubbish, totally unable to support the weight placed upon
it. Hume probably took some hints from this controversy in
writings to be hereafter noticed
23. Browne's method of extracting light from darkness
was simple enough. King had said that knowledge, goodness,
and so forth, when applied to God, were used metaphorically.
Browne thought that this language was a little unguarded ;
but the difficulty was entirely surmounted if for ' meta-
phorical ' was substituted ' analogical.' The difference be-
tween the two words is that a metaphor implies no real
likeness, whereas an analogy does imply some such likeness
between the two things compared. Thus, though words
failed him to express the difference between the meaning of
4 good ' as applied to man and as applied to God, goodness
in the one case might be considered as in some sense or other
a faint reflection of goodness in the other. Thanks to this
1 Dial. iv. 1 6, 17.
II. LOCKE AND TOLAND. 117
artifice, our ignorance of the divine nature was reconcilable
with the assertion that ' nothing is more clear and evident to
our understanding than the doctrines themselves concerning
mysteries.' 1 The primitive believers were content with be-
lieving that Christ was the Son of God in the ordinary sense
of the words ; and it would be well if we could preserve
that simple faith in the present day. 2 Unfortunately rest-
less and inquisitive infidels have insisted upon stirring up diffi-
culties, to meet which ' the doctrine of the divine analogy has
now become absolutely necessary,' and is likely to continue
as long as the ' present strain of infidelity lasts,' which will not
improbably be till 'the latest posterity.' 3 Analogy enables
us to make a belief in the fatherhood of the first person of
the Trinity, taking the word fatherhood in its ordinary sense,
representative of a belief about ineffable mysteries, in which
every term represents a something utterly inconceivable to
the human intellect. Browne has a whole apparatus of theory
to reconcile the apparent difficulties of this doctrine ; and to
show that knowledge by analogy is, if anything, clearer and
more satisfactory than any other kind of knowledge. The
conceivable and inconceivable are in some way blended, like
body and spirit, and the ' gross earthly proposition is sancti-
fied ' by the higher meaning which it bears with it. 4 By a
theological trick of legerdemain, he even persuades himself that,
though God's knowledge is not, in any intelligible sense, know-
ledge at all, it is yet knowledge in an infinitely higher sense
than human knowledge. But into these metaphysical enigmas,
now buried in tenfold night, it is unnecessary to penetrate
further, or to endeavour to reconcile Browne's assault upon
all a priori demonstrations of God's existence and character
with his own use of the same arguments in a slightly different
dress.
24. Berkeley touched him to the quick by a simple remark
in his own style, from which he struggles in vain to extricate
himself. Wise and good, says the Christian advocate, in the
' Minute Philosopher,' must be understood in the same sense
of God as of man : ' Otherwise it is evident that every syl-
logism brought to prove those attributes, or (which is the same
1 'Analogy, 'p. 188. * 'Procedure,' p. 288.
2 'Procedure,' p. 284, &c. * 'Analogy,' p. 238.
1x8 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
thing) to prove the being of a God, will be found to consist of
four terms, and consequently can conclude nothing.' l Browne
attempts to escape this obvious dilemma ; but it is plain
enough that the effort is fruitless. None of his nostrums will
save him. The phrase about analogy, like so many other me-
taphysical phrases, is convenient enough for throwing dust in
the eyes of the simple persons who are awed by the primary
assumption of many metaphysicians that the invention of a
new phraseology is equivalent to the discovery of a new set of
truths. But all Browne's ingenious contortions were as much
thrown away as the contortions of abler men. No verbal
machinery can ever be constructed for manufacturing sound
belief out of pure negation. From the premiss that we do not
and cannot form any conceptions of God, the commonplace
and the acute thinker will alike draw the inference that theo-
logy lies beyond the limits within which the human intellect
can work effectively.
25. A complete investigation of the questions raised by
Toland's treatise would thus have involved a determina-
tion of the true bounds of human speculation. And, if the
logical were also the historical order of the development, such
an enquiry should have preceded the attempt to construct a
philosophical theology. Before offering to lead us through the
dimmest regions of thought, our guides should provide them-
selves with some credentials of their capacity. Have they, or
has any human being, the power of soaring into the thin air of
ontological speculation, or are we chained to the earth by the
mortality of our nature, and liable only to fail the more igno-
miniously in proportion to the audacity of the attempt?
Before you would fly, it is worth while asking whether you
have wings. Toland's question, however, failed to impress
this necessity upon his opponents. He had caught but a
partial glimpse of a problem which he was incompetent to
solve ; and the disputants were rapidly involved in a bewilder-
ing vortex of metaphysical disputation, where their brains
became so giddy that they could not judge the direction of
their blows. The controversy became a mere offshoot from
the main currents of speculation, which led to conclusions of
a very different nature to those contemplated by Toland.
1 'Dial.' iv. 22.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 119
The judicious precaution of determining beforehand the limits
of your capacity is one which can be seldom or never adopted.
Hard experience is here, as elsewhere, the only teacher, and
bruises and broken limbs the only satisfactory proofs that
flying is not a human art. Philosophers are still labouring,
like the cunning artificer in ' Rasselas,' to patch up some kind
of artificial apparatus which might enable them to pass the
barriers hitherto insurmountable by the human intellect.
The most distinguished manufacturer of such logical flying-
machines in England was a writer whose posthumous fame
probably bears a smaller ratio to his fame amongst his con-
temporaries than is the case with any other author of the time.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON.
26. Samuel Clarke was a man of sufficient intellectual
vigour to justify a \ery high reputation, and his faults were
those which are less obvious to the eyes of contemporaries
than of posterity. He was deficient in originality and acute-
ness. He had perspicuity enough to avoid some of the extra-
vagances of the school to which he belonged, but not enough
to detect its fundamental fallacies. His contemporaries might
therefore regard him as a bold, yet wary, logician ; to us he
appears to be a second-rate advocate of opinions interesting
only in the mouths of the greater men who were their first and
ablest advocates. He somewhat resembles a more recent
Cambridge philosopher, Dr. Whewell, and stands to Leibnitz
in the same sort of relation which Whewell occupied to modern
German philosophers. In softening the foreign doctrines to
suit English tastes, he succeeds in enervating them without
making them substantially more reasonable. Clarke was the
great English representative of the a priori method of con-
structing a system of theology. He was sufficiently tainted by
rationalism to fall into certain errors in regard to the doctrine
of the Trinity ; and his incipient heterodoxy has caused later
theologians to look upon him with suspicion, and has helped
to reduce his name to a humble position in the list of eminent
defenders of the faith. A more special characteristic resulted
from his being regarded by himself and others as a theological
120 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
lieutenant of Newton. In defence of that great name he
plunged into a remarkable controversy with Leibnitz, from
which he was held to have emerged with honour. The whole
tone of his writings is coloured by the same influence. His
ambition apparently was to compose a work which should be
to Christianity what the ' Principia ' was to astronomy. More
than any English writer he clothes his arguments with that
apparatus of quasi-mathematical phraseology which was
common to most of the followers of Descartes.
27. The two books of Clarke's with which we are at
present concerned were originally delivered as Boyle lectures
in the years 1704 and 1705. Together, according to the
design of the writer, they would form a symmetrical edifice of
pure theology, resting on the immovable basis of intuitive
truths, cemented and dovetailed together by irrefragable
demonstration, and essentially independent of any external re-
velation, although admitting, if not rigorously requiring, some
such supernatural crowning of the work. Like the Tower
of Babel, it was intended to reach heaven from the earth,
in defiance of any future deluge of infidelity. Clarke never
doubted that, by the help of a series of axioms, propositions,
and corollaries, a safe foundation might be laid above that
' Serbonian bog,' in which whole armies of divines and philo-
sophers have been lost. Divines looked askance upon labours
which, however judiciously devised, threatened to supersede
the necessity for a supernatural architect ; and sceptics might
raise doubts as to the validity of the processes involved.
Clarke betrays no hesitation, and he represents in its greatest
completeness one of the characteristic impulses of the time.
The first set of lectures in which he demonstrates the exist-
ence and attributes of the Supreme Being are a slight modi-
fication of the arguments prevalent in the schools of Descartes,
Leibnitz, and Spinoza. Like those great men, he makes un-
sparing use of the ordinary metaphysical assumption which,
in its various forms, comes to this that our conceptions are
necessarily the measure of objective existence ; and by the
Leibnitzian argument of the sufficient cause, converts our
ignorance into a positive ground of knowledge. Hobbes and
Spinoza are named as adversaries on the title-page ; but he
might be more accurately described as following the argu-
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 121
ment of Spinoza up to the point where its logic becomes
irreconcilable with the ordinary theism.
28. A chain of twelve propositions is supposed to demon-
strate the existence, the omnipresence, the omnipotence, the
omniscience, and the infinite wisdom and beneficence of the
Creator as plainly as Euclid demonstrates the equality of the
angles at the base of an isosceles triangle. The supposed de-
monstration is that cosmological or ontological proof for the
two run into each other which Hume's philosophy would upset
and which Kant more systematically attacked in the ' Critique
of the Pure Reason.' It is a contradiction in terms to sup-
pose that there can have been an infinite chain of dependent
beings. There must, therefore, have been an eternal and self-
existent Being, whose non-existence would imply a contradic-
tion an argument which Clarke labours to distinguish from
the well-known argument of Descartes. 1 The material uni-
verse cannot be this necessary Being, as Spinoza (so Clarke
understands him) maintained, 2 for we can suppose matter to
be altered or destroyed without contradiction. There is, then,
a ' self-existent ' Being, the cause of all other existence, whose
essence, indeed, is absolutely inconceivable, but many of whose
attributes are demonstrable. 3 Here Clarke agrees with Toland,
though he appears to reckon Toland, 4 as well as Spinoza,
amongst the atheists. This Being must be eternal, infinite,
and omnipresent, because what is necessary in one place or
time must be necessary in another. He must be one, because
if there were two beings, either could be supposed to exist
without the other. He must be intelligent, because the cause
must be more perfect than the effect, and intelligence is a
distinct quality, not compounded out of mere figure and
motion. He must be a free agent, because freedom is implied
in intelligence, and because, if all things were necessary, it
would imply a contradiction for anything to be different from
what it is ; as, for example, for a horse to have six legs. 5 He
must be omnipotent ; but here Clarke comes upon the danger
which assails all such speculations. He has, in short, to limit
the infinite, lest the universe should be swallowed up in Deity.
29. Spinoza had revealed once for all the inevitable ten-
1 Clarke's WorPs, ii. 529-30. 2 Ib. p. 533. * Ib. pp. 537-539.
* Ib. p. 531. The reference is to Toland's Letters upon Spinoza. 5 Ib. p. 551.
122 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
dency of this mode of thought, and Clarke does his best to over-
whelm that formidable antagonist, admitting that here lies, in
great measure, the 'principal difference between us and the
atheists.' 1 In the effort, Clarke really sacrifices the whole effi-
cacy of his theory. Everything in it depends on the unbroken
series of causation, leading us back to a first cause, though, in
accepting a first term to that series, he is assuming the truth of
one branch of the inevitable controversy. The logical expedient,
which Clarke adopts, is the ordinary one. Liberty is defined
by him to be a power of ' self-motion.' He has demonstrated
to his own satisfaction that this power exists in the Deity. He
declares that it is a power which can be communicated to the
creature, because the only powers not capable of such com-
munication are those ' which imply self-existence and absolute
independency.' 2 For the fact that it actually has been com-
municated, he appeals, as usual, to our consciousness. Thus,
in some sense, every free agent is, in fact, a first cause on a
small scale ; for it is significant that Clarke avowedly appeals,
in proving the possibility of such a power in the creature, to
the same arguments which have proved its existence in the
case of the Creator. 3 Thus the circuit is broken, and the in-
ferior agents become independent sources of power, instead
of mere channels for transmitting force from the prime source
of all power. And this step once taken, it is easy to explain
the origin of evil (in a short paragraph) and to demonstrate
the existence of supreme goodness, wisdom, and justice in the
Deity.
30. These arguments, though attacked by Hume and
Kant, survive to the present day, and satisfy many acute rea-
soners. The form, indeed, has changed more than the sub-
stance. The same reasons have been adduced ever since men
felt that theology required some foundation in reason ; and
the same inevitable difficulty recurs to be met by the same
expedients. The attempt to weld the arguments into an in-
dissoluble chain of logic is seldom, indeed, repeated with the
same frankness and the same indifference to those warnings
against dealing with the Infinite and the Eternal which have
in our days paralysed the framers of theological systems.
Leaving this insoluble dispute, I proceed to the second trea-
1 Clarke's Works, ii. p. 554. 2 Ib. p. 558. 3 Ib. p. 560.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 123
tise, which has a closer connection with the deist controversy.
From the chain of propositions just described is to be sus-
pended another, demonstrating with equal cogency the truth
of revealed religion. The chain in this case consists of fifteen
links. Their solidity and coherence have been so amply
tested that they will be sufficient to drag the most inveterate
infidel that ever raised a superfluous cavil at the chariot
wheels of this invincible master of logic. The argument
deserves notice as illustrating in the clearest manner the great
perplexity of the rationalising divines. How was a religion,
resting upon abstract demonstration, to be fused with a re-
ligion resting upon, or at least involving, a certain series of
historical beliefs ? The records of a particular tribe, or family
of nations, may be an insufficient basis for a religion which is to
sum up the experience of the whole human race ; but it is still
more difficult to effect any plausible combination when the his-
torical evidence of the creed is supposed to rest on the proof of a
few miracles occurring within narrow limits of time and space,
and the internal evidence upon truths universal and absolute as
those of geometry. The two elements jar upon our minds as
though a statement that London was at a certain distance
from Paris formed part of a chain of demonstration in a
treatise of pure mathematics. Clarke's oscillation, as he
stands with one foot planted on absolute a priori truths,
and the other on a fragment of concrete evidence, is natural
and curiously characteristic of the whole contemporary
theology.
31. He starts by insisting upon the clearness, immutability,
and universality of the law of nature. Morality, like mathe-
matics, is founded upon ' the eternal and necessary differences
of things.' To deny the primary duties to be binding is as
absurd as to assert that ' a whole is not equal to its parts, or
that a square is not double to a triangle of equal base and
height.' l A man who refuses to obey the law of doing to
his neighbour as he would that his neighbour should do to
him, is as unreasonable as he that ' should affirm one number
or quantity to be equal to another, and yet that other at the
same time not equal to the first.' 2 A rational being can no
more forbear giving his assent to the eternal rule of right
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 609. 2 Ib. p. 61;.
124 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
and equity, than ' one who is instructed in mathematics can
forbear giving his assent to every geometrical demonstration
of which he understands the terms.' l Clarke does not shrink
from maintaining that moral obligation is antecedent even to
the consideration of its being the rule of God. As mathe-
matical operations give a constant solution of certain problems,
' so in moral matters there are certain necessary and unalter-
able respects or relations of things which have not their origin
from arbitrary and positive institutions, but are of eternal
necessity in their own nature.' 2 Things are not holy and good
because commanded by God, but are commanded by God
because holy and good. The perfections of the Divine nature
make it necessary for him to observe the law, and the law,
and not barely the infinite power of the Creator, is ' the
true foundation and the measure of his dominion over his
creatures.' The question as to which of two necessarily coin-
cident powers is logically antecedent, may seem to modern
ears to be somewhat frivolous, and the attempt to answer it
to border upon presumption. Neither is it necessary to con-
sider how far the apparent meaning of such statements is
neutralised by such an assertion as this : ' The nature, indeed,
and relations, the proportions and disproportions, the fitnesses
and unfitnesses of things are eternal, and in themselves
absolutely unalterable ; but this is only upon supposition that
the things exist, and that they exist in such a manner as they
at present do. Now that things exist in such manner as
they do, or that they exist at all, depends entirely upon the
arbitrary will and pleasure of God.' 3
32. Without puzzling ourselves in this scholastic labyrinth,
it is enough to remark that Nature, the true metaphysical deity
of Clarke and his school, is sometimes identified with God, and
sometimes appears to be in some sense a common superior of
man and his Creator. The law of nature thus becomes a code
of absolutely true and unalterable propositions, strictly analo-
gous to those of pure mathematics. The old puzzle as to
whether God could make two straight lines enclose a space
recurs in regard to the moral law. The human being is re-
garded as a colourless unit, whose duty may be determined by
proper diagrams or the application of established formulae, like
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 614. 2 Ib. p. 626. * Ib. p. 640.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 125
the relation between numbers or geometrical magnitudes. And
thus by a different path from Locke's we reach the perplexing
problem : Why is an inspired system of morality more needed
than an inspired system of mathematics? If St. Paul is
merely the Newton of morality, why should not Plato or
Aristotle have done the work as well as the Apostle ? The
Greeks could discover that a square was twice the area of a
triangle on the same base and altitude ; why could they not
discover with equal certainty that a man was bound to do to
his neighbour as he would wish his neighbour to do unto him ?
Reason is apparently exalted to such a pitch that revelation
becomes superfluous. How is it to be shown that their
spheres are not coterminous, and that an organ is required in
morality which is not wanted in mathematics ?
33. One answer is obvious. Though revelation was scarcely
required to reveal a code of morality, it was perhaps necessary
that it should promulgate the sanctions of the code. Clarke,
though an intuitive moralist, is by no means prepared to dis-
pense with hell. Though virtue is worthy to be chosen for its
own sake, and though, but for the corruption of the world, it
would bring happiness to the individual as well as to mankind
at large, yet as matters actually stand, we are forced to re-
gard it rather as a means than an end. But for the prospect of
future reward, a man who died in a good cause would be no
happier than the man who died in pursuit of any frivolous am-
bition. 1 Are we, then, to suppose that the purpose of revela-
tion was to set before men those surpassing rewards, and those
awful penalties, without which virtue would be an empty dream,
and which the dim light of reason was unable to discover ?
That, as we have seen, was Locke's position, and the favourite
one of contemporary divines. Locke had admitted, with
his usual candour, that the immortality of the soul was not
demonstrable by reason, and had asserted that few Christians
rested their belief in immortality upon any other ground than
revelation. 2 Such modest tactics were little to the taste of
the bold logician who considered human reason amply quali-
fied to grapple with the mysteries of the Divine nature.
Stating the usual argument from the justice of providence,
which Locke notices with some hesitation, Clarke declares
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 643 and 646. 2 Locke's Works, iii. 477.
126 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
that ' it seems to amount even to a demonstration.' l Four
other ' very good and strong arguments ' are adduced to sup-
port this powerful bulwark of truth. If he stops from claiming
a mathematical fulness of proof, his reluctance is obviously
due to the desire not to cut away all ground for revelation.
In the sphere of practice, indeed, there is still plenty of room
for supernatural interference. Potentially the arguments for
immortality were irrefragable ; but, as a matter of fact, men
' could not forbear doubting ' a future state of retribution, in
spite of ' the strongest arguments of reason.' 2 The careless-
ness, prejudice, and absorption in worldly business of mankind,
and still more their vice and debauchery, have hindered their
belief. Perhaps the facts alleged to explain the failure of
the theory were felt to throw some doubt upon the theory
itself. If the dogma of a future life is as demonstrable as a
sum in arithmetic, men might neglect, but could hardly dis-
believe it. Clarke indeed has little trouble in showing from
history how feeble a guide the intellect has been to these
essential truths ; and yet it is rather an awkward conception
of revelation that God sent messengers into the world to
proclaim, on supernatural and infallible authority, that two
and two make four. Surely a result more worthy of Divine
interference should be discovered !
34. Besides repeating the familiar arguments already used
by Locke, as to the moral value of a revelation, Clarke intro-
duces a distinction, often used by the divines of his time.
There are certain things which God may do if he pleases, but
which he is not bound to do. They are, so to speak, acts of
supererogation ; they are done, if done at all, from excess of
goodness ; they are not set down in the bond ; and though we
must be grateful for them when done, we cannot complain if
they are left undone. Here, then, is left a wide range within
which positive legislation is admissible. Though reason may
obtain something like demonstrative knowledge of the funda-
mental laws and constitution of the universe, there is a cate-
gory of divine acts, wherein the constitution leaves freedom of
action to the sovereign, and wherein, accordingly, nothing but
his own explicit assertion can inform us of the course which
he has adopted. In such problems reason may raise a strong
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 652. * Ib. p. 667.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 127
presumption, but requires to be checked, corroborated, or
perhaps supplemented, by direct revelation. Thus, for ex-
ample, philosophers might anticipate that God would accept
repentance instead of obedience. But the presumption falls
short of demonstration. ' For it cannot positively be proved
from any of God's attributes, that he is absolutely obliged to
pardon all creatures all their sins at all times ' (observe the
caution of the statement), ' barely and immediately upon their
repenting.' l Nature makes us anxious to appease the Deity,
but does not show us the necessary means ; and hence arise
those superstitious observances and sacrifices which did not
fully satisfy the wisest of the heathen. With the same cau-
tion he insists, again, upon the practical impotence of the
reason in discovering immortality. Some philosophers, he
says, denied this great truth ; he is unable, it is true, to regard
this fact as of ' any very great moment,' because these sects
were ' very weak reasoners,' or otherwise what would become
of his own view as to the clearness of the demonstration ? 2
He declares, however, that the best philosophers had found it
difficult to rest in the conclusions they had reached ; and'
when their own minds were clear, had neither the will nor the
authority to enforce them duly upon the world.
35. By insisting sufficiently upon such considerations,
Clarke thinks that he has cleared the ground for revelation.
Reason can raise presumptions all but indistinguishable from
demonstration, but they are distinguishable enough to require
clenching ; reason can even demonstrate the most important
truths, but then the demonstration will not persuade the fool-
ish and the vicious, or rouse sufficient zeal in the teachers of
mankind ; and thus, though the grounds for expecting a re-
velation appear to be narrowed, Clarke takes courage to
declare that there was ' a necessity of some particular revela-
tion' for the effectual reformation of mankind. 3 But once
more his argument brings him into danger at its culminating
point. His victory threatens to be fatal to him. Though a
divine revelation is pronounced to be necessary for the re-
covery of mankind, the statements in subsequent sections
become more moderate. It is ' agreeable to the dictates of
nature and right reason to expect or hope for such a divine
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 662. * Ib. p. 662. 3 Ib. p. 667.
128 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
revelation ; ' l but he guards himself, and for an excellent rea-
son, against the decisive assertion that natural theology entitles
us to pronounce with certainty that a revelation must have been
granted. For that assertion would have brought him into col-
lision with notorious facts. The vast numerical majority of
the world having never even heard of Christianity, his argu-
ments would either collapse or lead to the deistical conclu-
sion that the light of nature was the only guidance vouchsafed
to mankind. Clarke, therefore, modifies his conclusion ; on the
one hand, ' there is great ground from right reason and the
light of nature to believe that God would not always leave
men wholly destitute of so needful an assistance ; ' on the
other hand, 'it does not from hence at all follow (as some
have imagined) that God is obliged to make such a revela-
tion.' 2
36. The incongruity of this fragment of merely presump-
tive and conjectural inference imbedded in the solid mass of
mathematical demonstration continues to press him, and he
returns more than once to the argument. His most power-
ful engine of assault is one which did good service to the
apologists of Christianity, and consists in the retort of the
difficulty upon his antagonists. If revelation be not univer-
sal, he says, neither is natural religion ; there are poor bar-
barous nations as ignorant of one as of the other ; and the
argument that every man must have had a revelation im-
plies the assumption that God was bound to make all his
creatures equal ; to make men angels ; or, at least, to give to
all the same opportunities of knowledge that were given to
any. 3 As this was notoriously not the case, the deist must
admit that his doctrine is beset by difficulties as great as
those which were objected to the advocate of Christianity.
Here, as in many other places, we are brought in sight of
Butler's argument. Meanwhile, it is plain that Clarke's ad-
mission, though he labours hard to give it the air of a claim,
destroys the special character of his argument. Setting forth
with the air of one who will give a mathematical demonstration
of the need for a revealed religion, he is confronted by the
fact that a revelation, limited in time and space, can by no
means satisfy the requirements of his topic. He is driven to
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 668. 2 Ib. p. 671. ' Ib. p. 672.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 129
abandon the high a priori road, and at the very utmost can
only demonstrate that some revelation or other is probable.
That any given revelation is the true one can only be proved
by evidence applicable to it alone, and consequently of the
ordinary a posteriori kind. Clarke, accordingly, concludes his
book by seeking to prove that Christianity satisfies the internal
test of fitness to conformity, to right reason in its moral teach-
ing, and in the motives by which that teaching is enforced, and
of sufficient external evidence. There is, he says, no religion
but the Christian which has any pretence to be such a revela-
tion ; and he proceeds to prove, though we need not follow
him, that Christianity satisfies all the tests thus suggested. 1
37. Clarke occupies a middle position between the ortho-
dox and the deists. He adopts almost entirely the deist
method, but applies it on behalf of the colourless doctrine
which was in his mind identified with Christianity. More
fitly than Tindal, who claimed the name for himself, 2 he might
be called a Christian deist As such he may be considered, as
the chief intellectual light of what was then called the Low
Church party. Though not an originator of thought, he re-
presented that modification of current opinions which com-
mended itself to the most freethinking party within the
borders of the Church. Around him clustered a little group
of men, chiefly members of his own University, who were
amongst the most vigorous controversialists of their day ;
though now, almost without exception, consigned to utter
oblivion. Poor half-mad Whiston was an admiring friend
and biographer. Sykes, Jackson, and Balguy were amongst
his attached adherents. Hoadiy, the leader of the Latitudi-
narian party, was his intimate friend and warm admirer ; and
concludes the Life prefixed to an edition of Clarke's works, by
expressing the hope that he would be known in ages to come
as 'the Friend of Dr. Clarke.' Young men of promise,
such as Butler, Hutcheson, Kames, and Collier (the rival of
Berkeley), appealed to him in philosophical difficulties ; and,
though assailed by the orthodox, led by Waterland, and ac-
cused of dishonest compliance with the articles, he plainly
1 Clarke's Works, ii. 673.
2 ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 336.
VOL. I. K
1 3 o CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
exerted a powerful influence upon the more liberal thinkers of
the day.
38. A name often coupled with Clarke's is that of William
Wollaston. Wollaston was a clergyman who, on coming
unexpectedly into possession of a fortune, retired it is the
proper word to the city of London. Here, in the centre of
the busiest city in the world, he led a contemplative life, reading
much, thinking more, and observing a methodical punctuality
worthy of an industrious tradesman. For the last thirty
years of his life, he never passed a night away from Charter-
house Square. His life approached that of a monastic student
as nearly as is possible to a man who begets eleven children.
It was with difficulty that he summoned up courage to pub-
lish ; and he burnt many treatises as being ' short of that
perfection to which he desired and had intended to bring
them.' The ' Religion of Nature,' however, slunk into publi-
city. First printed for private circulation, it rapidly became
so popular, that 10,000 copies were sold ' in a very few years ; '
it reached a seventh edition in 1750, and is quoted with pro-
found respect by contemporary writers. Wollaston's death, in
1724, prevented its completion according to his original design.
39. Thirty years' profound meditation had convinced
Wollaston that the reason why a man should abstain from
breaking his wife's head was, that it was a way of- denying
that she was his wife. All sin, in other words, was lying.
The crotchet was one of those which can only be obtained
by a long course of solitary meditation. Substantially, how-
ever, it is a repetition of Clarke's theory of morality. Like
Clarke, he affects the forms of the mathematical demon-
stration. His system of morality, too, like Clarke's, is entirely
independent of revelation ; and the absence of any direct
reference to the Bible gave some scandal to theologians. He
deduces the commandments of the first table from general
principles, without any explicit reference to Moses. 1 He
admits the doctrine of a particular Providence, and of the
efficacy of prayer ; but seeks to reconcile them with a philo-
sophical view of the uniform order of nature. 2 His ultimate
appeal is in all cases to reason, and he quotes Cicero, Seneca,
1 'Religion of Nature,' &c., sec. v. prop. xix.
Ib. sec. v. prop, xviii.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 131
Plato, and Aristotle, more frequently than Moses or St.
Paul.
40. I notice the book here (I shall touch upon it again in
discussing the moral philosophers) chiefly for the sake of a
passage which embodies one of the typical arguments. In
order to prove the immortality of the soul, he argues that the
Almighty is bound to form no creature in whose existence
the unavoidable pains will, on the whole, overbalance the
pleasures. 1 Every being must either have a surplus of happi-
ness, or be itself to blame for its suffering. Yet, when we
seek to confront our theory with the facts, the prevailing
misery of mankind is but too palpable. Happiness is rare,
and is by no means an invariable consequence of virtue.
Think of the war, tyranny, slavery, corruption, disease, and
poverty under which the world has groaned for centuries ;
think of all the hideous stories which deface the pages of
history ; look back to the martyrdoms of the early Christians
and the records of the Inquisition, and you will agree that
' the history of mankind is little else but the history of un-
comfortable dreadful passages, and a greater part of it, how-
ever things are palliated and gilded over, is scarcely to be
read by a good-natured man without amazement, horror, and
tears.' 2 Nay, it is impossible to take up a newspaper, or to
look out of window, without catching sight of suffering. In
the recluse of Charterhouse Square there was potentially a
Candide. Even to that quiet retreat, though not then border-
ing on the masses of squalid pauperism which now startle our
comfortable good-natured optimists, there had penetrated
echoes from the great chorus of human anguish. In his
youth, indeed, Wollaston had suffered from the impecuniosity
of himself and his nearest relatives, and had turned the Book
of Ecclesiastes into ' Pindarics ' in order to give vent to his
feelings. 3 How are we to reconcile to the stern realities of the
world our beautiful mathematical system of virtue rewarded
by happiness, and our neat demonstrations of the infinite
beneficence of an Almighty ruler ? Of the millions who
have suffered, there must be multitudes whose griefs and
1 ' Religion of Nature,' &c., sec. ix. prop. viii. p. 20O. See a similar argument,
carried out to its logical extreme, by A. Tucker.
2 Ib. p. 202. 8 Nicholl's ' Illustrations of Literature,' i. 199.
K2
1 32 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM,
pangs have far outweighed ' all their enjoyments.' l Were not
such persons daily making the melancholy journey almost
in sight of his windows from Newgate to Tyburn tree ? And
yet we have demonstrated that such persons cannot exist.
The only solution, then, is to assume the existence of some
place where the ' proper amends may be made.' 2 We must
call a new world into existence to redress the balance of the
old. If the soul be not immortal, then either 'there is no
God upon whom we can depend, or he is an unreasonable
being, or there never has been any man whose sufferings in
this world have exceeded his enjoyments without his being
the cause of it himself ' 3 propositions all of them opposed to
the plainest reasoning or the widest experience.
41. Wollastonis confident enough in his reasoning to colour
this world as darkly as possible in order that the prospects of
a future life may stand out against it as brightly as possible.
If this life be all, he says, ' the general and usual state of man-
kind is scarce consistent with the idea of a reasonable cause.' 4
He is ' apt to think ' that even the most favoured of mortals
would scarcely be willing to lead their lives over again, 5 and
for one that makes the voyage so happily, thousands are lost
in storms. Nay, ' if the souls of men are mortal, the case of
brutes is much preferable to that of men.' 6 Their pleasures
are genuine, and they are not tormented by cares for the
future. And yet we cannot help adding, if Wollaston's argu-
ment be sound, there is a cab-horse or two that might put in
claims for future compensation.
42. A slight misgiving apparently intruded itself. He be-
gins, he says (and this is the only reference in his book to
revelation), to be ' very sensible how much he wants a guide.' 7
An objector asks the very significant question, how can we be
certain that God will reward virtue in the next world more
liberally than in this ? Wollaston briefly, if rather illogically,
replies that the inequality in this world is one of the argu-
ments for an equality hereafter, and adds that, in some way
or other, the defects of the present world are owing to our
' bodily wants and affections, and such things as proceed
1 ' Religion of Nature, ' &c. p. 202, * Ib. p. 205. 6 Ib. p. 210.
Ib. p. 203. s Ib< p- 207 . 7 Ib- p> 2II>
J Ib. p. 203.
///. CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 133
from them,' being ' intermixed with human affairs.' l It is
impossible to say whether this theory, derived from an older
school of thought, afforded him any solid satisfaction. Boling-
broke affected to be much scandalised by Wollaston's
argument. 2 In his eyes it was an illustration of the tacit
alliance supposed to exist between divines and atheists. They
united in declaring that the world was full to overflowing of
hopeless misery, of virtue unrewarded and crime triumphant.
The atheists were perhaps more consistent in arguing that
this fragment of the universe was a fair specimen of the
whole, than the divines, who, whilst they professed to infer the
existence of God from the manifold works of his wisdom and
benevolence, declared in the same breath that our life was so
wretched as to force us to seek relief in the prospect of a
better. Such doubts whatever their solution pressed upon
the acutest thinkers of that time, as they are likely, in one
shape or other, to torment all men who refuse to take refuge
from hard fact in the dreamland of fluent theories. Butler
is distinguished from almost all the contemporary writers by
his profound sense of the heavy burden of human misery.
Swift was driven by oppressive vision into savage misan-
thropy. Voltaire sought refuge from it in the bitterness
veiled in mockery of Candide ; Hume in calm scepticism ;
whilst the shallower Bolingbroke affected a flimsy optimism,
more in harmony with the ordinary taste. Most of the deists
and their opponents passed with averted eyes, and seem to have
faintly consented not to press the question home. Deists
attacked the Christian theory of a monopoly of revelation as
unworthy of the common Father of us all. Christians retorted
that the religion of nature was equally limited in its sphere of
operation. Behind both parties lay the terrible question
whether the Deity, in whom they professed a common belief,
had in fact revealed himself by his works or his word. Was
revelation to be found in the Bible, in the heart of man, or
even on the face of nature ? It was easy enough to introduce
a future world to round off incomplete systems with apparent
harmony. But it was easier to slur over that awful problem
till more manlier intellects ventured to probe our doubts to the
1 ' Religion of Nature,' c., sec. ix. prop. xii.
2 Bolingbroke, 'Fragments,' Works, vol. v. 372.
134 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
bottom. Meanwhile such rare glimpses into the nether abyss,
as Wollaston had hastily caught, were allowed to pass without
notice. Both parties continued to build up their comfor-
table schemes of theology without looking too closely
at the foundation, and disputed only as to the propriety of
investing them in the old language of orthodoxy, or in
the symmetrical language of pure reason. The recollection
that there is always this spectre in the background gives a
certain sense of hollowness to the discussion ; but, for the
present, we must be content to follow the development of the
narrower controversy.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS.
43. The theory thus elaborated by Clarke and Wollaston
gave rise to no distinct controversy for some years. The
writings of Collins and Woolston, the most prominent of the
deists, turned upon the external evidences ; and though
Shaftesbury touched upon the question, he did not explicitly
discuss it in such a mode as to provoke an answer. In 1730
appeared a book, which may be said to have marked the
culminating point of the whole deist controversy. The time
was favourable. Politics were subsiding into the stagnation
of the Walpolean era. George II. had quietly succeeded his
father ; Jacobitism was slowly decaying from within ; and
even the storm of the excise troubles had not yet ruffled the
calm surface of affairs. Voltaire had just left England (1728),
after imbibing from the English deists the principles which
stored up in his keen intelligence were to be radiated forth in
the shape of the keenest of all human sarcasm, and to precipi-
tate in helpless mist the cloudy structures of old superstition.
That arch iconoclast appears to have studied with lively sym-
pathy, and turned to good account in his own writings, the
argument put forward in ' Christianity as Old as the Creation.'
Its author, Matthew Tindal, was a Fellow of All Souls', and
must have been a resident at Oxford when Toland, some
twelve years his junior, opened the campaign against super-
naturalism. The careers of the two men were strongly con-
IV. TIN DAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. t$$
trasted. Tindal sheltered himself during a long life behind .
the corner of a comfortable fellowship, and so avoided the
strange Bohemian existence of his more impulsive colleague.
The calm retirement of an English university suppressed any
rash impulsiveness. The chief incident that has been recorded
in his life was his temporary conversion to Romanism in the
troublous days of James II. He speedily returned to the
fold according to his enemies, because he was guided both
in his desertion and his return by a judicious regard to his
interests ; according to his own account, because he trod in
all sincerity the path which has often been followed since his
time, and having been seduced by High Church principles into
transgressing the lawful limits, found the absurdities of Popery
intolerable, and rebounded indignantly into rationalism. His
movements, however, were deliberate, as became the member
of an ancient corporation. He was about thirty at the time
of his first escapade ; at the ripe age of nearly fifty, he
first attracted notice by a book called ' The Rights of the
Christian Church,' which was a vigorous assault upon his
former High Church allies ; and he was already past seventy
when he produced the first volume of ' Christianity as Old as
the Creation.' The second, which should have followed, was
quietly burked by Bishop Gibson, into whose hands the MS.
fell after the author's death, and who acted on the principle
that prevention was better than cure. The first volume, how-
ever, had done its work. It has not the force of style or the
weight of thought which could secure a permanent place in
literature ; and has become rather heavy reading at the pre-
sent day. The arrangement is confused ; it is full of repe-
tition. Yet it had the merit of bringing out with great
distinctness the most essential position of the deists. Tindal
was, in reality, just one stage in advance of Tillotson, Hoadly,
Clarke, and other latitudinarian divines from whom he bor-
rowed, and whose authority he freely quotes. He was to
Clarke what Toland had been to Locke. The indignation which
he produced amongst their followers was the livelier because he
seemed to be unmasking their secret thoughts, and formula-
ting the conclusions for which they had already provided the
premisses. Are you aware, asked some disputant, that the
necessary inference from your argument is so and so ? Yes,
1 36 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
replied his antagonist, but I don't draw it. Tindal insisted
upon drawing it, and was reviled accordingly.
44. The main argument of the book may be stated in
half-a-dozen lines. God is infinitely wise, good, just, and
immutable. Human nature is also unchangeable. Therefore
the law which God lays down for men will be perfect and
unalterable. The intermediate proposition, as then under-
stood, was tautologous. Human nature was that property
in man which was found by abstracting from individual men
all the qualities in which they differed. To say, therefore,
that it was uniform, was merely to say that, whatever was
common to all men was common to all men. To transform this
proposition into the very different one, that men in all ages have
been the same for all religious purposes, was a fallacy easy
enough of detection when once stated, but which runs through
all the philosophy of that age, and is still vigorous in many
contemporary reasonings. Setting this aside for the moment,
Tindal's argument goes very closely to the root of the matter.
The difficulty to which he gave partial expression was the
great difficulty of an historical religion. God is the creator of
this vast universe ; the Almighty Creator and Ruler of man-
kind, the source of all wisdom, the supreme legislator from
whom all morality derives its sanctity, the inscrutable Being
whom all men more or less dimly acknowledge in their hearts.
Do we, then, render befitting homage to this august conception
when we identify the God of reason with the God who selected
a small, barbarous and obscure tribe in one little corner of the
earth as the sole recipients of his favour ; when we declare
that he imposed upon them a number of frivolous and absurd
laws, or gave them commands which shock our sense of justice
and humanity ; when we hold that he allows a favoured class
of mortals like ourselves to enjoy a monopoly of his grace,
which they may retail to their humble followers ; reveals to
them the sole knowledge of the mysteries of his nature, and
damns to everlasting torment all who by ignorance or mis-
fortune are disqualified from receiving their magical privileges ?
Bring into contact, in short, the two conceptions the God
before whom we bow as the highest object of all our hopes
and aspirations, and the God of Moses, or even the God of
Christian theologians and see whether the two can be made
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. itf
to coalesce. Tindal's rather dry and formal argumentations
are an attempt to exclaim in the dialect of the day :
The builder of this universe was wise ;
He planned all souls, all systems, planets, particles :
The plan he shaped all worlds and aeons by
Was heavens ! was thy small nine-and-thirty articles !
45. Tindal, indeed, was not, like the writer of those lines,
dazzled and overwhelmed by the terror of the Infinite. His
Deity was not shrouded in thick clouds and darkness ; nor
was it his objection to the Articles that they profess to mea-
sure heaven and hell with a foot-rule. 1 He was perfectly
capable, for that matter, of fathoming the Divine nature, and
of providing good working drawings of the universe, admi-
rable for their simplicity and clearness. He and the 'judi-
cious Dr. Scott,' for example, knew precisely why God loves
himself; 2 he speaks as though he had been present when the
contract upon which was founded the Law of Nature was
drawn up and signed by the respective parties ; and he can
define with the utmost accuracy the reciprocal rights and
duties of man and man's Creator. But, in spite of this failing,
Tindal held strongly to a conviction which gives a certain
elevation to his tone. Tindal's Deity, if rather too definable,
is not petty or capricious in his dealings with the world.
That hypothetical contract must, he is convinced, have been
perfectly fair as between God and man, perfectly impartial as
between God and the different races of man, and throughout
rational, just, and intelligible. He, therefore, repudiates
with genuine indignation all the arbitrary enactments which,
as he maintained, had been foisted by priestcraft into the
original code ; and declines to accept the more or less in-
genious devices by which Clarke and his school had smug-
gled in a certain number of purely Christian by-laws, on the
plea that they were merely corollary and supplementary
enactments.
46. Unable, or unwilling, explicitly to deny the reality of
1 ' The wise and righteous governor of the universe may not, perhaps, square
his measures by any system of divinity now extant,' says Titidal'a follower, Dr.
Morgan ( 'Phy si co -Theology,' p. 297),
* 'Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. i<). Scott was the author of the
'Christian Life' (1681-6) ; a book very popular during this generation, and
highly praised by Addison in the ' Spectator,' No, 447.
138 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
a revelation, he substantially argues that it was superfluous,
or rather that it amounted to a mere duplicate of the original
document as written upon the hearts of men. Natural and
revealed religion, he declares, differ not in their substance but
in their mode of communication ; ' the one being the internal,
the other the external, revelation of the will of a Being who
is alike at all times infinitely wise and good.' l Natural and
revealed religion, as he puts it elsewhere, must, ' like two
talkers, exactly answer one another ' 2 a statement sufficiently
explanatory of the title of his book, itself borrowed from a
sermon in which Sherlock had declared that ' the gospel was
a republication of the law of nature, and its precepts declara-
tive of that original religion which was as Old as the Creation'
Statements, indeed, of a very similar kind abound in the
writings of all the liberal theologians of the day, and Tindal
is at no loss for confirmatory quotations. The unassisted
reason of man is abundantly able to discover the few and
simple truths of which genuine religion consists. The argu-
ment of the Churches is dexterously inverted. Man, they
urged, cannot by his own powers discover the mysteries of
revelation ; therefore, he must bow to the authority of those
to whom God has confided the only key to the truth. Man,
retorted Tindal, cannot discover your mysteries ; but God
must have dealt equally with all men ; and, therefore, doctrines
not revealed to all cannot be doctrines imposed upon all by
God; reason, the only faculty granted to all men, must of
necessity be sufficient to guide all men to truth. Reason is of
necessity the sole judge, for universal scepticism is the only
alternative ; ' the very attempt to destroy reason by reason is
a demonstration that men have nothing but reason to trust
to/ 3 and as reason is the sole judge, so its tendency to pro-
mote the happiness of mankind is the sole test of the truth of
any creed, It would be blasphemy to suppose that God can
require anything for his own sake, or that he can inflict
punishments except with a view to reformation a doctrine
which, as he sufficiently hints, it will be hard to reconcile with
a belief in an eternal hell. 4
47. Modes of worship and all positive regulations must be
1 'Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 2. 3 Ib. p. 158.
2 Ib. p. 51. < Ib. p. 36,
IV. TIN DAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. itf
judged by their fitness to promote human happiness. The
view that such observances have an absolute value because
required by God for his own sake, has been fostered by
priests, who have found their account in the irrational super-
stitions thus engendered. 1 In short, Tindal's view is that
obedience to nature is the one sufficient principle. ' Whoever
so regulates his natural appetites as will conduce most to
the exercise of his reason, the health of his body, and the
pleasures of his senses taken and considered together (since
herein his happiness consists), may be certain he can never
offend his Maker ; who, as he governs all things according
to their natures, can't but expect his rational creatures should
act according to their natures.' 2 Religion consists of those
simple truths whose very familiarity causes us to overlook
them. According to Selden's ' somewhat homely ' illustra-
tion, men look after it 'as the butcher did after his knife,
when he had it in his mouth.' 3 Briefly stated, it consists 'in
a constant disposition of mind to do all the good we can, and
thereby render ourselves acceptable to God in answering the
end of his creation.' 4 It may be epitomised in the maxims
of the Sermon on the Mount, or, as Tindal would add, ex-
pressed more reasonably by Confucius. 8 He is thus radically
opposed to the views, common to many divines, which laid
the whole stress upon the external evidences. Miracles, the
only external proof, may prove anything, and have been
alleged in behalf of all religions. 6 The one satisfactory test,
therefore, for distinction between the true and false miracles,
must be the coincidence of the revealed doctrine with the
teaching of our own reason. ( It's an odd jumble,' he says,
and the argument provoked a good deal of laborious contro-
versy from his opponents, ' to prove the truth of a book by
the truth of the doctrines it contains, and at the same time to
conclude those doctrines to be true because contained in
that book.' 7
48. Starting from these principles, Tindal makes a clean
sweep of all those dogmas in which the simple precepts of
1 ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 40. Ib. p. 310,
2 Ib. p. 14. 8 Ib. pp. 169-70.
Ib. p. 54. ' Ib. p. 164.
< Ib. p. 18.
140 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
morality are clothed by the orthodox. Asceticism in all its
forms is summarily condemned ; for God can take no pleasure
in the self-torture of his creatures. Nothing can be added to,
any more than anything can be subtracted from, the Law of
Nature. To impose additional duties is to abridge the liberty
to which all men have a right under that law. To impose
arbitrary duties is utterly unworthy of an immutable and
perfect Being. To the growth of a belief in such duties is
due the power of priests, with all its natural accompaniments
of bloody persecution and religious strife ; and priests in
search of power have fostered the growth of these super-
stitions, or, indeed, have deliberately invented them. They
have erected trifling observances into sacred duties, and con-
verted them into sources of power and profit This hatred
of priestcraft in the abstract is pointed by a bitter sarcasm
against the nonjurors and high-churchmen of his day. He
touches, though with comparative reserve, upon some of the
doctrines common to almost all Christian Churches. It wants
little ingenuity, for example, to interpret such a statement as
this. What, he asks, can be more absurd than the errors into
which people fell when they deserted the Light of Nature, or
when the pagans believed that god Mercury could be sent on
a message by god Jupiter ? There was nothing too absurd
for them to maintain ' after they had destroyed the unity of
God, except it was that Jupiter and Mercury, the sender and
the sent, were the same God.' l The Roman Catholic super-
stitions could be more openly assailed. What right, he asks,
has a Papist who rubs a dying man with oil to laugh at the
Indian who thinks it will conduce to his future happiness to
die with a cow's tail in his hands ? 2 What should we think
of a stranger who announced to us as a divine revelation,
that the salvation of our children depended on our having
their nails pared with certain ceremonies by certain people at
a certain time ? 3 Yet, he says, the Mahommedans think that
their nails must be pared when they are mortally sick an
analogy which we are left to apply for ourselves. But the
full strength of Tindal's batteries is directed against the Jew-
1 ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 75 ; and see a stronger passage, p.
379, where the theory of the Atonement is openly and vigorously attacked.
2 Ib. p. in. Ib.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 141
ish legends. Judaism is, of course, the typical instance of a
religion in which positive precepts are combined with moral
laws ; and on every occasion Tindal manages, under some
flimsy veil of reserve, to express for the whole Hebrew race
that aversion which was, for this reason, amongst others, cha-
racteristic of all the deist controversialists. He ridicules, for
example, the practice of circumcision, borrowed by the Jews,
as Marsham had proved, from the Egyptians, and denounces
the whole theory of sacrifice as implying a low conception
of God. 1 The biblical history supplies innumerable examples
of the necessity of checking the extravagances of super-
stition by calm reason. From the stones of Balaam's ass
and of Abraham's peculiar mode of securing his wife from
the attention of princes, up to the more revolting accounts
of the ferocious massacres of the Canaanites, and the prac-
tice of human sacrifice, 2 he finds abundant illustrations of
the evils of priestcraft and 'enthusiasm.' In this respect,
Tindal, with incomparably inferior powers of sarcasm, is a
predecessor of Voltaire. Admiration of the Chinese and
hatred of the Jews, the typical examples of the two opposite
religious systems, were natural characteristics in the man
whom his great successor approved as ' the intrepid defender
of natural religion.' This part of Tindal's book provoked a
remarkable controversy, to be noticed hereafter. At present,
it is enough to notice the concluding chapter, in which he ex-
plicitly attacks the arguments by which Clarke had sought to
reconcile the deist argument with the orthodox conclusions.
49. The general line of argument is the same as that
which precedes. Tindal vigorously presses Clarke with his
assertions of the clearness and sufficiency of the Law of
Nature, in order to show the inconsistency of his attempt to
escape on the ground of a necessity of certain supplementary
revelations. Tindal's final conclusion is sufficiently indicative
of his position. There are, he says, 3 some things whose internal
excellence sufficiently proves their divine origin ; there are
others, which, though of no intrinsic value, are useful as means
to an end ; and they must necessarily be left to human dis-
cretion and vary according to circumstances. And, finally,
1 ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 78. 3 Ib. p. 390.
2 Ib. p. 8l.
I 4 2 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM,
there are some things so essentially indifferent as to be useful
neither as means nor ends ; the observance of which, as a
part of religion, is highly superstitious. ' He that carries
these distinctions in his mind will have a truer notion of reli-
gion than if he had read all the schoolmen, fathers, and
councils.' l
50. There is, however, one part of the argument which de-
mands a little further notice, as curiously characteristic of the
contemporary point of view. If anyone should now argue
from the immutability of God and of human nature that reli-
gion must be the same in all times and places, the reply
would be obvious. Theologians and men of science would
unite in answering that the history of the human race is a
history of development. Whether that development be de-
scribed as a process of divine education or as an evolution
determined by natural laws, it would be equally admitted on
all hands that man in the infancy of the race was fitted for an
order of ideas entirely different from that which would be
appropriate at a later epoch. But in all the contemporary
controversies there is a curious inability to accept this view ;
and nothing can more distinctly indicate how modern is that
conception of progress which is now so familiar to us all.
When pressed with the difficulty thus distinctly brought
forward by Tindal, theologians endeavoured to evade the
argument by bringing forward the theological dogma of cor-
ruption. They admitted that God was bound to reveal his
will to man in the original state of innocence ; but things were
different after Eve had eaten the apple. Clarke had adopted
this theory, and theologians continued to reassert it without
taking much notice of Tindal's forcible answer. It, in fact,
amounts, as he shows, to accepting the degrading view which
the deist sought to fix upon them. If men are always ac-
countable to God, this doctrine would imply that God un-
justly demanded from them a religious knowledge which
they had no means of acquiring. ' If men alike, at all times,
owe their existence to God, they at all times must be created
in a state of innocence capable of knowing and doing all God
requires of them.' 2 Clarke is, in fact, supposing that 'God
had left all mankind for 4,000 years together, and even the
1 ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 391. s Ib. p. 340.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 143
greatest part to this day, destitute of sufficient means to do
their duty.' 1 Our a priori perception of the injustice of such
a course must override our a posteriori inference that it was
actually the case. But the facts, according to Tindal, are as
conclusive as the argument. He endeavours to vindicate the
ancient philosophers from Clarke's attack, and to prove that,
as a matter of fact, they had discovered the whole religion of
nature for themselves. On the other hand, he ridicules the
biblical story of the Fall, on which Clarke relied to prove the
corruption. Did it not, in fact, prove, if it proved anything,
that Adam and Eve were as weak as any of their descen-
dants ? How can we suppose that Adam's understanding
was injured when the result of the transaction is summed up
in the words 'the man is become like one of us, to know
Good and Evil ' ? And, moreover, does not the whole narra-
tive bristle with childish absurdities, which are set forth in the
genuine Voltairian spirit? 2
51. Tindal, however, pushes his argument still further. It
is rather curious to find that, in the writings of this time, the
position of theologians and their opponents is inverted, and
belief in the reality of moral progress was then a Christian,
as it is now, on the whole, an infidel dogma. One chief
reason is doubtless that, since the world has departed further
from the old beliefs, their adherents have thought that it must
be deteriorating. At that time, the Christian apologists were
eager to show that, much as they were in the habit of rebuking
the faithlessness of the time, men were, nevertheless, better
under the Christian dispensation than of old. 3 Tindal, on the
other hand, is eager to show that human nature has been the
same in all ages ; men have, if anything, rather fallen off.
' What impartial man,' he asks, ' who has compared the
former and present condition of mankind, can think the
world much mended since the times of Tiberius ; or, though
ever so well versed in Church history, can, from the conduct
of Christians, find that they arrive to any higher state of per-
fection than the rest of mankind, who are supposed to continue
1 ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 339. 2 Ib. p. 348, &c.
* E.g., see Berkeley's 'Minute Philosopher,' dial. v. 12 ; Stebbing, 'On the
Use and Necessity of Revelation,' p. 104; 'Leland against Tindal,' Preface,
p. xlvi.
144 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
in their degeneracy and corruption ? ' * Leibnitz is quoted as
preferring the Chinese as the moral superiors of Christians ;
and it seems that a missionary attributed it to the special pro-
vidence of God that that exemplary race did not know what
was done in Christendom, ' for otherwise there would be never
a man among them but would spit in our faces.' Christianity,
said Bishop Kidder, would perhaps be the last religion a wise
man would choose, if he were guided by the lives of those
who profess it. Tindal himself observes that, whereas man
is naturally, on Clarke's showing, a benign and social creature,
and natural religion tends to improve this temper, the doc-
trine which generally passes for Christianity has made him
fierce and cruel, and caused him to act towards unoffending
people in such a manner ' as could not have entered into the
hearts of men to conceive, even though they were in the
doctor's unavoidable state of degeneracy and corruption.' 2
52. Tindal, it has been said, was a Christian ; and the state-
ment may be accepted if by Christianity is meant a belief
in the laws of ordinary morality. There is no difference, as he
characteristically says, between religion and morality, except
that one is ' acting according to the reason of things considered
in themselves ; the other acting according to the same reason
of things considered as the rule of God.' 3 In so far as the
Christian faith differs from a simple code of morality, it would
seem that Tindal's state of mind was pretty much that of Vol-
taire. He attacks not merely the Old Testament, but the
New, 4 and explicitly assails the mysteries of which Toland had
indirectly sapped the foundation. 5 Such, at any rate, was the
impression which he made upon his contemporaries ; and, in
spite of the affected contempt of the orthodox, he was con-
sidered, and with some justice, as a formidable enemy. His
argument, indeed, strikes the weak point of Clarke's peculiar
form of rationalism. It was in vain that, after exhausting their
eloquence to prove the competence of human reason and the
absolute clearness and simplicity of religious truth, writers
of that school laboured to establish some narrow standing-
ground for revelation. They had, in their own opinion, raised
1 'Christianity as Old as the Creation,' p. 366. * Ib. p. 233, &c.
* Ib. p. 367. 5 E.g. p. 182.
* Ib. p. 270.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 145
such immovable pillars for the support of morality, that the
old-fashioned props became first superfluous and then offen-
sive. When their necessity was no longer felt in practice,
men had leisure to remark upon their antiquated and gro-
tesque design, and to observe how inadequate they were for
the task imposed upon them. So far, Tindal's victory was
undeniable ; though his own flank was equally liable to be
turned, and his antagonists were not slow to perceive their
advantage. So long as the controversy was confined within
the prescribed limits, nothing could run more easily than
Tindal's logic.
53. There must be, so at least it appeared from the
generally admitted premisses, a plain and simple code of rules
which every man could discover for himself. But when this
charming theory came to be compared with the facts there
was evidently a gap somewhere. Man in the abstract has
an indefeasible right, it may be, to know the first four rules
of arithmetic ; but, as a matter of fact, nine-tenths of man-
kind in the concrete know nothing about them. Cicero,
perhaps, and Confucius, and a sage or two up and down
the world had worked out the problem and found the correct
answer ; but look at a brutal cannibal, or at the first ten
people you meet in the streets of London, and then talk, if
you can, about the universality of the Light of Nature ! If
reason be so partially distributed by its Divine source, why
should the equally partial distribution of revelation raise any
presumption against its coming from the same high origin ?
Each of the most conspicuous champions who took up
Tindal's challenge put this retort in his own fashion. All
of them asserted that reason was in practice insufficient ; the
more orthodox added that it was intrinsically unable to dis-
cover the truth. And, substantially, though of course they
added various collateral arguments, this is the main substance
of their reply. Four of these replies, which obtained a certain
notoriety, may be regarded as the authoritative exposition
of the Christian case ; and, though their authors all belonged
to the latitudinarian party, they are at least significant of the
view taken by the ablest of the orthodox thinkers. Two of
the assailants are all but indistinguishable in their views from
Tindal himself. Substantially, that is, they held the same
VOL. I. L
1 46 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
doctrine, though it was made orthodox by a veneering of
the old phraseology, to which they attached what now seems
an exaggerated importance. They were James Foster, an
eminent dissenter, whose memory is preserved chiefly by
Pope's lines
Let modest Foster, if he will, excell
Ten metropolitans in preaching well
and A. A. Sykes, a clergyman of the Church of England, a
prolific controversial writer, and a disciple of Clarke and
Hoadly, whose adherence to the Church gave some scandal
even in that latitudinarian age.
54. Foster, himself a dissenter from the dissenters, pro-
nounces with unusual vigour in favour of freethinking. He holds
protection to be of so little real service to Christianity that he
would have free discussion of its merits ' encouraged to the
utmost.' l He says that deists are not to be blamed for disguis-
ing their assaults until an open declaration of their opinions
involves no danger. 2 Nay, he goes so far as to admit that his
antagonist deserves civil treatment, and, more strangely still,
practises what he preaches. He explicitly accepts in all their
completeness Tindal's fundamental propositions. The religion
of nature is of ' supreme and immutable excellency ; ' it is ' as
old as creation,' as ' extensive as human nature ; ' to restore
it is the chief design of revelation ; and reason is the ultimate
rule by which revelation must itself be tested. 3 All this, he
says, is granted ; but he seeks to prove the modest theorem
that revelation may be useful in enforcing truths already dis-
coverable by reason ; and may lay down some rules for the
stimulation of virtue. His vigorous assertion of the theoretical
competency of the Light of Nature is tempered by strong
language as to its failure in practically guiding men to truth.
All men, he says, have the faculty of reason, and their differ-
ences are due to education alone ; yet those differences are so
vast that the least civilised races are scarcely distinguishable
except in outward form from the brutes. 4 The monstrous
superstitions of papists and pagans, and the low notions of
their gods entertained in old days by the common people in
every country, are sufficient proofs of the inadequacy of un-
1 Foster's ' Usefulness, &c., of the Christian Revelation,' p. ,175.
1 Ib. Preface. 3 Ib. p. 4. 4 P. 13.
IV. TJNDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 147
assisted reason. Facts everywhere rebut the presumption raised
from a priori considerations of the justice of God. It might
seem, he admits, that God is ' obliged ' to give to all what he
gives to any. 1 The plausibility of the assertion presses him hard.
But whatever God ought to have done, it is easy to see what he
has done. He ought, one might have supposed, to have made
all men good logicians ; as a fact, he has made many ' downright
idiots,' 2 and may therefore make idiotic people. If men have
all equal rights against their Creator (it is curious to observe
this intrusion of the revolutionary theory of politics into the
religious sphere), it is perfectly certain that they don't get
them. Under such circumstances, what can we do but frankly
confess our ignorance and assume that God must have had
some good reasons which (strange as it may appear) we do
not fully understand ? 3
55. Having thus proved that the Almighty may make a
revelation to some of his creatures without giving lawful cause
of complaint, Foster tries to prove that it may consist in part
of positive rules. He advances hesitatingly and carefully,
repudiating the inference that such laws can be an essential
part of true religion, or made binding upon mankind at large. 4
But may not God Almighty add a law or two not exactly
arbitrary, and yet not founded on direct moral considerations ?
May he not prescribe a harmless ceremony here and there
without giving his reason ? May he not lay down a few
rules of conduct for which we cannot precisely account, so
long, be it well understood, as he makes it quite clear that
their moral tendency is unexceptionable? Foster, though
expressing himself in carefully guarded language, manages to
see his way to allowing these powers to be constitutional. He
tells us that, though no miracles could prove the divine
origin of irrational and immoral doctrines, yet 'we are far
from being sure that he (the Almighty, that is) can in no case
whatever enjoin the practice of indifferent things, for which
there does not appear from the peculiar nature or tendency of
the things themselves to be any special reason.' 5 If such
reflections convince us that the rights of God are rather more
extensive than we might fancy at first sight, we may easily
1 Foster, p. 67. 3 Ib. p. 76. Ib. p. 282.
2 Jb. p. 66. 4 Ib. p. 261.
L2
I 4 8 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
reconcile ourselves to the requirements of Christianity, which
only consists after all in ' two or three plain and useful positive
duties.' l Baptism, for example (Foster was converted at a
ripe age to the practice of adult baptism), is simply a solemn
profession of a man's resolution to be a good Christian, and
puts him, ' at his first setting out in religion, upon examining
the evidences of it, and the different natures and consequences
of virtue and vice.' 2 What more reasonable ? and would not
the attempt to prove that it has no ill consequences be
' trifling with the reader in an age in which the practice of
cold bathing is so frequently recommended even to the most
tender constitutions, and acknowledged to have such excel-
lent effects ?' 3 There is no difficulty after this in defending
the Lord's Supper ; and Foster takes the opportunity to ex-
plain his view of the doctrine of the Atonement, much in the
spirit of the modern rationalisers. It is purged of these
notions of a sacrifice performed to pacify an inexorable
Being, which have been imported into it by the subtle distinc-
tions and metaphysical entanglements of later Christianity.
The duty of worshipping through a mediator having then
passed through a similar process, Christianity becomes a
reasonable system, which, if not in all parts discoverable by
human reason, is certainly in no part opposed to it.
56. With these negative arguments on behalf of Chris-
tianity must be combined the more positive assertions that the
authority of revelation may enforce truths that would other-
wise be neglected ; that miracles, though only to be accepted
when exhibiting wisdom and beneficence as well as power,
might serve 'to engage attention even to moral doctrines,'
and would be useful if they helped only to ' balance men's
prejudices and excite them to an honest impartial enquiry.' 4
They may too in some cases give a sanction to doctrines not
demonstrable, though agreeable to reason such, for example,
as the eternity of future rewards. The external evidence is
sufficiently clear and open to general examination of all men,
though he admits, whilst explaining away, a certain difficulty
in the case of people who ' cannot read.' 5
57. Foster, it may be observed, shares the peculiar preju-
1 Foster, p. 302. a Ib. p. 313. s Ib. p. 178.
2 Ib. p. 311. * Ib. p. 59.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 149
dices against the Jews, which the orthodox of that age might
fairly regard as the mark of the beast. They are quoted
amongst the races whose conceptions of the Deity were dis-
honourable. Their fancied monopoly of the Divine favour
made them ' narrow and selfish, conceited of their own supe-
rior privileges, and insolent and cruel to all who were
not of their religion.' A similar taint appears in Sykes,
whose arguments, though similar to Foster's, are perhaps even
nearer to pure Deism. He appeals to the deist's pets, the
Chinese, and indeed seems to agree with the opinion quoted
by Tindal from Bishop Kidder. Idolatry, he declares,
flourishes more in Christian than in Mahommedan countries,
and wickedness abounds in Europe much more than in China.
He argues at great length that the heathens know as much of
moral truths as Christians ; and, moreover, that their know-
ledge is not due to any dim rays of light from heaven,
struggling down from primeval times. The future state is so
far from being made known to us by revelation, that its reality
is capable of the 'strictest demonstration,' 1 and was actually
discovered by the ' ancients/ 2 a charmingly vague word com-
prehending Homer, Virgil, the Gauls, the Druids, Xenophon,
Cicero, and Sallust. Revelation, however, has its value. It
neither extends nor corrects the law of nature ; but it supplies
'free agents with new arguments, and new motives to do
what is right.' 3 Thus, for example, it supplements the
demonstrative argument for a future state by an ' argument
from eyesight,' 4 namely, the resurrection of Jesus ; and it has
' added many circumstances ' about our spiritual bodies and
so on, which must be unfailing incentives to right action.
Yet Christians are far worse than the Chinese. However this
may be accounted for, the Christian revelation must be true,
because Daniel prophesied of a Messiah more than five
hundred years before Christ, and Isaiah said that Babylon
would be destroyed by the Medes 188 years before it was
taken by Cyrus.
Christianity of this kind is like a ship ready for launching ;
knock out a single bolt, and the whole structure will glide
into the deep waters of infidelity.
1 Sykes's ' Principles and Connection of Natural and Revealed Religion,' p. 249.
2 Ib. p. 394. 3 Ib. p. 100. Ib. p. 249.
150 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
58. The more orthodox and commonplace form of reply
is represented by another pair of writers, Conybeare and
Leland. John Conybeare was a schoolfellow and friend of
Foster's ; he was at this time head of Exeter College, and
subsequently Dean of Christchurch, and Butler's successor in
the see of Bristol. The latter promotions, due in part at least
to the reputation acquired by his discomfiture of the arch-
enemy, Tindal, attest the high contemporary reputation of his
work. Warburton pronounced it to be ' one of the best reasoned
books in the world,' and many people gave credit to his own
loud asseverations that Warburton was a judge of reasoning.
The form of the compliment was apparently suggested by the
care with which Conybeare parades certain logical distinctions
destined to unmask his antagonist's fallacies. Substantially,
the arguments are those which supplied the ordinary theo-
logical currency of the time, and circulated freely through
some thousands of pulpits. He begins by pointing out with
much logical parade that human beings are not omni-
scient, and charges Tindal, not quite fairly, with making that
modest assumption. Tindal asserted the competence of
reason to construct a complete law of nature. If this princi-
ple ' be understood in a universal sense ' that is, as implying
that we can judge of the whole system of the universe it ' is
wrong ; if in a limited one, his conclusion fails.' l As there
are limits to our knowledge, we should not be above receiving
some information from the Almighty as to the proper way of
behaving ourselves. The vastness and complexity of the
studies necessary to the formation of a complete science
of morality are contrasted with the weakness of our abilities.
' No one man,' we are told, ' even of the strongest parts, and
under the most advantageous circumstances, has ever yet ex-
hausted any art or science.' 2 Moral philosophy is so diffi-
cult that Locke shrank from the task of demonstrating its
truths ; whilst Wollaston's unprecedented success showed
how much remained to be discovered even in the eighteenth
century. 3 Bit by bit, in divers times and places, the different
propositions may be puzzled out, though mere human reason
had perhaps never at any one moment effected a complete
1 Conybeare's 'Defence of Revealed Religion,' &c., p. 39.
2 Ib. p. 3 Ib. p. 230,
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 151
synthesis. Revelation opens a royal road to conclusions,
which otherwise would have awaited the slow discoveries of
centuries. It provides us with a telescope l the illustration
is Conybeare's own to make plain that which was before
dimly visible, and to help us to entirely fresh discoveries. We
may know the first principles of geometry without being able to
master all the conclusions of a Newton or a Halley ; 2 and we
may be in want of a teacher, though, when we have one, we
are not incompetent to judge of the value of his teaching.
Revelation, in short, did at once for morality that which
Newton had done for astronomy. The key to the puzzle was
directly bestowed by heaven, instead of being the prize of
centuries of human labour.
59. By dwelling upon these topics Conybeare seeks to
depress our estimate of human powers. The mere effort to
circumscribe the province of reason is enough to distinguish
him from such writers as Sykes and Foster ; and yet, when he
descends to particulars we find that the actual retrenchments
are of trivial importance. He admits that ' the more general
points of morality, whatever they may be, are still knowable
by every man, even by those of the meanest parts;' 3 that
reason can discover the existence of an omnipresent, omni-
scient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God, and discover our
duty towards Him and our neighbours. 4 Tindal had claimed
little more, and Conybeare differs from him chiefly in dimly
presenting to us a vast perspective of unattainable knowledge.
We are at the mere preface of moral science, and beyond us
is a whole volume of complex propositions to be discovered
only by painful reasoning or direct revelation. This, at least,
is the impression produced by his language ; but he is open
to obvious retorts. What are these special propositions re-
vealed in the Gospels, and not attainable by philosophers ?
Sykes 5 afterwards challenged men of Conybeare's views to
produce any ' point of morality . . . not discoverable in the
tables of men's hearts, or ... by reason;' and Conybeare,
1 Conybeare, p. 220. Henry Dodwell says, in reference to this telescope
argument, that though telescopes may satisfy the 'curious,' this does not seem to
be a suitable property of the light which was to shine before all people ('Chris-
tianity not Founded on Argument,' p. 43).
2 Ib. p. 246. 4 Ib. p. ill.
3 Ib. p. 234. 6 Sykes's ' Principle K,' &c., p. 2|I.
152 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
answering the challenge by anticipation, is in obvious diffi-
culty. He thinks that natural religion alone would not
enable us to decide how God should be worshipped, ' what
are the several instances of justice, and what the measures and
extent of charity/ 1 and doubts whether it would condemn
suicide, though it can prove murder is wrong. But he is glad
to escape from these details into general considerations
of the stupidity of mankind. In fact, infidels might doubt
how much revelation had added to these facts ; whether it
had defined precisely ' how far we ought to sacrifice our own
interests to those of other men,' or added much to the theory
of suicide. 2
60. Conybeare, therefore, relies more decidedly on the
obviously stronger ground of the practical influence of
Christianity. Its sanctions are clearer ; the dim conjectures
of philosophers as to a future life for Conybeare, with a dis-
regard of facts, characteristic of the time, assumes that this
belief took its rise in philosophical speculations become more
certain and definite ; moral rules are based on irrefragable
authority ; and it becomes easier to provide ' a competent
number of instructors,' 3 who can promulgate moral rules more
simply and authoritatively. He labours also to prove that re-
ligion receives, so to speak, a different colouring. Cautiously
and apologetically separating himself from Clarke, he argues,
though he admits the point to be a ' tender one/ that the fit-
ness of things is subsequent rather than antecedent to the will
of God. 4 The question seems to concern natural as well as
revealed religion, and is therefore, at first sight, scarcely
relevant in an argument against Tindal. His purpose is, ap-
parently, to show that the essence of duty lies in obedience to
the will of God, and that we must in all cases act from a
conscious regard to that supreme authority, and not from a
consideration of that mysterious 'fitness of things/ which
seemed to lower the Almighty to a secondary position in the
universe. ' Otherwise,' he says, 'we shall perform acts of
moral virtue upon principles which will not make them in-
stances of obedience. We shall perform them merely because
we like to do so, 5 and if we liked to do the contrary we might
1 Conybeare, p. 83. * Ib. p. 355. , s Ib. p. 200.
2 Ib. p. 57. Ib. p. 64.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 153
as easily be led to do it.' Hence follows an inference to which
Conybeare attaches the highest importance. Since obedience
is of the essence of duty, it is desirable to have commands
destined expressly to exercise our obedience ; and upon this
ground he meets Tindal's objection to the positive precepts
of Christianity. He gradually satisfies himself that God may
not only give us laws without assigning his reasons ' as,
for example, when forbidding Adam and Eve to eat the fruit
of a tree without telling them that its poisonous nature was
the real cause of prohibition but 2 may also give commands
founded on practical convenience alone (such as prohibiting
the Jews from eating swine's flesh ' if the eating of it sub-
jected the Jews to greater inconveniences than were incident
to other people') ; and, yet further, that he may give com-
mands not founded on reason in cases which are intrinsi-
cally indifferent, but where it is desirable to have some rule.
The ultimate justification is the very sufficient one, that God
may do as he likes with his own. If earthly rulers may
prescribe forms of worship, ' surely God hath an equal right
to do the same ; and if it be upon several accounts fit and
proper that such matters should be determined, I cannot see
why God should not as reasonably determine them as men ;
especially as the Divine authority is much more indisputable,
and such as must .... have an infinitely greater weight
with them.' 3 The same answer confutes the argument
brought from the partiality as well as from the arbitrary
nature of revelation. God will only judge men in proportion
to their opportunities. 'As, therefore, men are not made
accountable to God merely for not doing it (the revealed law),
so neither can God be accountable for not granting it. His
proceedings in this respect are entirely in his own power, and,
therefore, as he may bestow or not bestow a revelation as
he pleases, so he is the most proper judge when and to whom
to grant it.' 4
6 1. The grotesque turn of thought observable in many of
these arguments is unpleasantly significant of the superficial
nature of the controversy. God is a mere formula, who
rounds off an argument, but scarcely impresses the imagina-
1 Conybeare, p. 155. * Ib. p. 204.
2 Ib. p. 158. * Ib. p. 419.
154 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
tion ; and thus the rights of the Almighty Ruler of the
universe are defined as a constitutional lawyer might lay
down the permissible limits of action of a British sovereign.
The method is carried to greater lengths by John Leland
most worthy, painstaking, and commonplace of divines. His
life was devoted for many years to the extirpation of the
most pestilent theological vermin of the time ; and, as he was
a dissenter, his labours were cheered by no hopes of a
bishopric. The literary historian owes him a considerable
debt of gratitude for his ' View of the Deistical Writers,'
though the argument, which Leland doubtless valued more
than the literary information, has sunk into painful disregard.
Never for a moment does he blunder into lively or original
remark ; and, if he becomes paradoxical, it is not from super-
abundant vivacity, but because his intellectual vision is too
confined by blinkers which prevent him from discerning the
plainest pitfalls. Tindal was the first victim of his contro-
versial energy ; and Leland plods ponderously through a line
of argument substantially identical with Conybeare's. Perhaps
he lowers reason a degree further in the scale ; but he is
ready to extol it when necessary for argumentative purposes.
When assailing natural religion, he declares that on no sub-
ject are mankind more prone to degrading error than in their
conceptions of the Deity. When defending revealed religion,
he declares them perfectly competent to examine the evidence,
decide upon the authenticity of the records, and the credi-
bility of the witnesses. Foster, with his views of the powers
of the human reason, had been more consistent in arguing
that the ' common people ' could easily satisfy themselves by
studying the evidence on both sides, whether Christianity was
true or false, and in pointing out that even those who could not
read, could easily obtain the necessary materials for judgment.
Foster, however, maintains that they are still better judges of
the internal than of the external evidence; whereas Leland says
that questions of fact are simpler than philosophical disputes
as to the nature of things. Man is, in his view, a kind of Bent-
ley-Caliban a fetish worshipper on one side, and an accom-
plished critic on the other. Admitting a most indisputable
proposition ! that human nature remains 'the same in all its
essential faculties- in all that is essentially necessary to con-
IV. TIN DAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 155
stitute human nature ' l he maintains that since the Fall
the greater part of mankind have been plunged in the
lowest depths of ignorance and stupidity. They can, indeed,
verify statements which they could not discover ; but he suc-
ceeds in putting together a more imposing list than Conybeare
of inevitable gaps in the law of nature. The exposure of
children, community of women, and suicide are amongst the
features which we could not have condemned without a super-
natural revelation ; and our unassisted faculties, it seems, are
insufficient to condemn Mandeville's theory that private
vices are public benefits. Endeavouring, again, to justify the
doctrine of the Atonement, he remarks that the question
depends upon things with which we are little acquainted ' the
nature and ends of the Divine government, how far and in what
instances it is fit for God to exercise his justice or his mercy,
and what is proper for infinite wisdom to do in the government
of the moral world.' 2 An excellent consideration of the worthy
Leland ! The universe is vast, and it is highly proper to en-
tangle the infidel in its mazes ; but sound divines know a
secret or two, and can give a shrewd guess as to ' what it is
proper for infinite wisdom to do.' The clue which guides
them is simple. The Ruler of the universe may be expected
to act as a highly intelligent earthly monarch. The analogy
which Butler sought to establish between Divine operation
as manifested in revelation and in nature, was superseded by
an analogy between revelation and the British constitution.
Conybeare, though occasionally reasoning in this manner,
expresses a consciousness of danger ; but Leland plunges
into the argument without a moment's hesitation. His great
anxiety is, if the expression be permissible, to preserve the
human element in God,- and he is scandalised by the tendency
of the deist theory to identify God with nature. Thus he
complains that Tindal makes rewards and punishments the
' inseparable attendants of virtuous and vicious actions,' so
that, as he pathetically adds, ' I don't see that he leaves God
anything to do in the matter at all.' 3 The Revealer is in danger
of becoming superfluous as well as the revelation. Tindal
would leave men 'only and wholly to the natural effects of
1 Leland's Answer to Tindal, i. 34. * Ib. i. 234.
2 Ib. i. 147.
1 56 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
their own actions, and thus, under the pretence of ascribing
more to God as a being of infinite power than to any earthly
governors, he allows him far less.' God may not like earthly
kings confer rewards and inflict punishments ; and yet, if
the necessity of such penalties for the restraint of mankind is
felt by human lawgivers, ' why may not God do it as well
as they ? '
62. Evidently, the worthy Leland was perplexed by that
ambiguity as to the meaning of ' natural/ which Butler
cleared up with his usual acuteness. His conception of the
universe, though never distinctly realised, was that of a
vast machinery worked by invariable laws, which are vaguely
described as the 'inherent nature of things,' with an Omni-
potent Ruler promulgating supplementary laws to fill up
the weak places of the system ; and, though this ruler might
be declared in words to be far above human comprehension,
human precedents are more or less applicable to his actions.
After proving, for example, to his own satisfaction, that the
forgiveness of sinners on repentance even if we could test
the sincerity of the repentance would offer an encourage-
ment to crime, he asks, ' Can any reason be assigned why
such a constitution, which would be foolish and pernicious
in a human government, would be wise and proper in the
Divine ? ' l The difficulty of supposing that God will punish
the repentant sinner is met by the assertion that ' all good
governments oblige persons in many cases to prosecute those
who have injured them, and that, as is often the case, not-
withstanding their repentance.' 2 Sometimes the analogy
seems to be pushed still further. ' It is nothing to the pur-
pose,' says Leland, in answering one of Tindal's arguments,
' whether sin can do God any real hurt. If not, no thanks to
the sinner, for the natural tendency of sin is to make God
unhappy, if he were capable of being so ; it is a striking at
his authority and laws, and if it cannot hurt his being, it '
(that is, the incapacity to hurt him) ' is owing to the infinite
perfections of his being.' z It is a kind of constructive levying
of war against our Maker, though no actual injury is intended
to his person. Leland appears to think that, as sin is harm-
less against God ' only on account of the transcendent
1 Leland, i. 138. * Ib. i. 159. * Ib. i. 213.
IV. TIN DAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 157
excellency of his nature,' it would be hard that for that
very reason the Almighty should be placed in a 'worse legal
position. In reply to the further argument that God cannot
take pleasure in punishment as such, Leland admits that he
cannot delight in it as tending to make men miserable, but
argues that he may delight in it as it vindicates his rights and
tends to the preservation of order and authority ; ' in a word,
as it is acting worthy of himself, which can't but yield com-
placency and delight to the best of Beings.' l To talk of an
increase to God's ' essential felicity ' 2 would be blasphemous ;
but the use of the word complacency somehow evades the
difficulty. By such means Leland maintains enough anthro-
pomorphism in his religion to make things comfortable. The
Ruler of the universe retires into a cloud of mystery when his
actions are questionable, and steps forward to claim our
admiration when they are thoroughly constitutional. Con-
troversy conducted on these principles becomes a rather
unedifying game at fast and loose. Each side can slip out of
every difficulty, and is unable really to pin down his an-
tagonist. When Tindal urges that the ceremonial law of the
Jews tended to encourage superstition, Leland replies that it
was a gracious condescension to human weakness, intended
to exclude grosser superstition. The argument consists es-
sentially in calling the same thing by different names. How
determine whether a given cause of conduct is a gracious
condescension or an unworthy compliance in a Being whose
motives are confessedly altogether beyond our scrutiny ?
63. Foster, Leland, Conybeare, and the like, give us the
prevailing commonplaces of the time. They represent the
regular jogtrot of controversy. To us the whole argument
has become singularly lifeless. The combatants seem to
be engaged in a fencing-match, rather than in a life and death
struggle with pointed weapons. To each thrust there is a
recognised parry, and we are almost amazed at the gravity with
which the recognised parade of action is carried through. Is it
a struggle for all that is dearest to the heart of man, or a mere
sham-fight in which the best performers are to be rewarded
with bishoprics and deaneries, rather for dexterity than for
earnestness ? Part of this impression is due to the change in
1 Leland, i. 217. " Ib. i. 210.
I 5 8 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
our point of view, which makes the whole controversy unreal ;
part to the singular resemblance between Christians and
deists, which causes us to wonder that so much indignation
should be wasted on so trifling a matter ; and part, it must be
added, to the genuine unadulterated dullness of most of the
writers. It is with comfort we turn to a disputant to whom
none of these remarks are applicable. The question raised
by such books as Leland's is how such writing can ever have
been popular. The question raised by those of William Law,
is how so vigorous a master of English and of reasoning
should have sunk into such complete oblivion. The explana-
tion would apparently be that he was too little in harmony
with his age to be understood during his lifetime, and was yet
too much affected by contemporary influences to do full
justice to his powers. A Platonist in an Aristotelian atmo-
sphere can no more flourish than an Alpine plant transplanted
to the lowlands. He suffers doubly ; his stature is stunted,
and he is not appreciated by his neighbours. Law's attack
upon Tindal seems to have excited less attention at the time,
but it is incomparably more vigorous in tone than those
through which we have been wearily plodding. Here, at last,
we are face to face with a man who believes what he says,
who is fighting for what he loves, and striking at the heart,
instead of going through the recognised dumb-show of argu-
ment ; who despises vamped-up repetitions of second-hand
eloquence, and writes with the freedom of a man thoroughly
at home in his own doctrines, and with the force, brilliance,
and terseness of a clear-headed reasoner. Instead of half-
yielding Tindal's assumptions, and then half-withdrawing his
concessions, he attacks the central position of his adversary.
Samson-like, he would pull down the pillar on which the
whole structure rests, though, like Samson, he runs some
risk of being crushed in the ruins.
64. Law really feels, what, though verbally acknowledged,
was never adequately realised by his contemporaries, that
God is greater than man. The fundamental assumption of
Tindal's book, that human reason is sufficient to discover what
God requires us to know, savours, in Law's opinion, of devil-
ish pride. The ' fitness of things,' says Tindal, must be the
sole rule of Gcd's actions. Yes ! replies Law ; but the true
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 159
inference is fatal to your argument Of God's nature, and
consequently of the mode in which God acts, we can know
nothing. Hence ' it is certain that the rule by which he acts
must in many instances be entirely inconceivable by us,soas not
to be known at all, and in no instances fully known or entirely
comprehended.' l Tindal ' proves all to be plain, because God
is to govern us according to something that is not plain,
according to his own incomprehensible nature.' 2 What right
have we petty creatures to lay down rules for God Almighty,
to determine how far he shall go, and on what terms he shall
deal with us ? Our own form, our position in this world, our
sufferings, and our happiness, are totally inexplicable by
reference to the ' fitness of things ;' and do we presume to
complain of mysteries in revelation, when the whole universe
is wrapped in inscrutable mystery ? We may indeed perceive,
more or less plainly, the reasonableness of some at least of our
duties. 3 Law does not care to indulge in Leland's petty quib-
blings at the completeness of the natural law ; and to him reli-
gion means, not the knowledge of a certain list of rules, but the
knowledge of the relations of man to God, and of the means
by which we may purify our spiritual nature. On such high
matters our reason is helpless, except to receive in profoundest
humility the revelations which God vouchsafes. We have as
much right, he says, ' to appeal to hunger and thirst and
sensual pleasure, to tell us how our souls shall live in the
beatific presence of God, as to appeal to our reason and logic
to demonstrate how sin is to be atoned, or the soul altered,
prepared, and purified for future happiness.' 4 ' A man who
rejects the atonement as needless because he cannot prove it
to be necessary,' is as ' extravagant as he that should deny that
God created him by his only Son, because he did not remem-
ber it' 5 Our memory is as good a faculty in the one case as
our reason in the other. Our intellects are as incapable of
really apprehending such mysteries as our senses of perceiving
an angel ; they can only be made known to us so far as to
become occasions of our ' faith, humility, adoration, and pious
resignation to the divine wisdom and goodness.' G
1 Law's Works, vol. ii. 'The Case of Reason,' &c., p. 7. 4 Ib. p. 28.
- Ib. p. 20. * Ib. p. 29.
Ib. p. 7. 8 Ib. p. 36.
160 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
65. But Law's objections cut still deeper. He strikes at
the very root of the doctrine which Tindal had inherited
from Clarke. As befits a man thus prostrating himself in
awful reverence before the ineffable mysteries of the Divine
nature, he utterly repudiates that strange colourless meta-
physical idol which Tindal had erected in the place of, or
perhaps above, the Almighty. He has admitted the ' fitness
of things ' to be the rule of God's actions as implying that his
own nature must be the rule of his actions ; but whereas
Tindal and others mean by this doctrine ' I know not what
eternal, immutable reasons and relations of things, indepen-
dent of any being, and which are a common rule and law of
God and man, I entirely declare against it, as an erroneous
and groundless opinion.' l God is the ultimate cause of
everything ; to find a cause for his wisdom and goodness is
as preposterous as to assign a cause for his existence. To
derive his wisdom and goodness ' from the directions he re-
ceives from the relations of things/ 2 is as absurd as to found
his knowledge on sensation and reflection. To say that there
must be some reason why God's will should be determined in
one way rather than another is to say that there must be
something infinite independently of him. ' Dare anyone say/
asks Tindal, ' that God's laws are not founded on the eternal
reason of things ? ' 3 'I dare say it/ replies Law, ' with the
same assurance that as his existence is not founded on the
eternal existence of things ; and that it is the same extrava-
gance to say that God's laws are founded on the eternal
reasons of things as to say that his power is founded on the
eternal capacities of things.' 4 All moral duties begin with
the existence of moral creatures, and depend on the sole will
of God. The ' absolute independent fitnesses of actions/ and
all the rest of it, are 'vain abstractions and philosophical
jargon, serving no ends of morality, but only helping people
to wrangle and dispute away that sincere obedience to God,
\\hich is their only happiness.' 5 In one sense, God, as the
foundation of all things, is an arbitrary Being, 'but his own
will is wisdom, and wisdom is his will. His goodness is
arbitrary, and his arbitrariness is goodness.' Perhaps there
1 Law's Works, p. 42. * Tindal, p. 385. s Ib. p. 57.
2 Ib. p. 45. 4 Law's Works, p. 47. Ib. p. 60.
IV. TINDAL AND HIS OPPONENTS. 161
is in this a touch of the future mystic, but this is the funda-
mental difference between Law and the deists. Are we to
conceive of the universe as governed by a body of fixed laws,
capable of accurate investigation by quasi-mathematical
methods, or as dependent everywhere and always on a living
God, inscrutable and ineffably mysterious, yet revealing him-
self dimly, to the human understanding, and the source of all
light, life and happiness ? The human reason, which was
capable, according to Tindal, of weighing and measuring all
things, is with Law merely the power which fits us to be the
recipients of revelation. Though our only possible guide, its
guidance is only sufficient to inculcate obedience to a higher
teacher. Nothing is our own, but 'a bare capacity to be
instructed ; ' l we are as easily trained to vice as to virtue ;
as liable to be Hottentots amongst the Hottentots, as Chris-
tian among the Christians. Though philosophy may reach a
kind of ' after knowledge/ 2 confirmatory of the truths learned
from authority, we are all but ' a kind of foolish helpless ani-
mals, till education and experience have revealed to us the
wisdom and knowledge of our fellow-creatures ; ' 3 and we
think ourselves too wise to be capable of enlightenment by
God Almighty ! Tindal had endeavoured unphilosophically
enough to reconcile his abstract theories about the light of
nature with the palpable fact that it throws in the concrete so
very flickering and uncertain a glimmer upon the world, by
talking about the influence of education, and the imposture
of priests. Law tears this flimsy fallacy to rags. This whole a
priori method of proving what human nature ought to be, is as
childish as it would be to throw aside history in order to give
a truer account of the life of Alexander. 4 And the expedient
for saddling all the errors of men upon priests is as wise as to
attribute all the disease of the world to men's having been go-
verned by physicians. 5 If all men had a perfect power, as Tindal
argues that they ought to have, for detecting imposture, how do
impostures flourish ? If a man steadily bought brass for gold,
would you say that his mistake was not owing to his defective
knowledge, but to the lies of those who dealt with him ?
Flushed by his victory, Law proceeds to deal harder measure
1 Law, p. no. 3 Ib. p. 113. 5 Ib. p. 123.
2 Ib. p. H2. 4 Tb. p. 119.
VOL. I. M
i62 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
to reason than can be fairly charged upon that unlucky faculty.
By a rather doubtful logic, he credits it with ' all the muta-
bility of our tempers, the disorders of our passions, the cor-
ruptions of our hearts, all the reveries of the imagination, all
the contradictions and absurdities that are to be found in
human life.' l
66. Without following him into this question, it is ob-
servable that in much of his argument Law might have been
accompanied by Hume. Depreciation of reason leads more
naturally to universal scepticism than to implicit faith. Law
grudgingly admits the existence of some feeble fragment of
verifying faculty ; he permits us to say that some things are
worthy or not worthy to be ascribed to God ; 2 but he has
scarcely left reason enough even to serve as ballast. Tindal
had remarked that a blind submission would put all religions
on the same footing ; for, ' without judging of a religion by its
internal marks, there's nothing but miracles to plead,' 3 and
in regard to miracles he quotes significantly the Greek
proverb : Oav^ara fMopois. Law does not shrink from accept-
ing this conclusion. He declares that a revelation is to be
received as divine, not on account of its ' internal excellence,
or because we judge it to be worthy of God, but because God
has declared it to be his in as plain and undeniable manner as
he has declared creation and providence to be his.' 4 Tindal's
argument, he says, leads to atheism ; 5 for if reason may reject
the divine origin of a revelation which does not square with its
teaching, it may reject on precisely similar grounds the divine
origin of the creation. This statement anticipates Butler's
argument. 6 Law applies it to justify the avowal that he appeals
to the miracles and prophecies as a sufficient proof of Christi-
anity. ' Though/ he says, ' miracles cannot prove false to be
true, or good to be bad, yet they may prove that we ought to
receive such doctrines both as true and good, which we could
not know to be true and good without such miracles/ 7 To
such arguments it had been frequently replied that miracles
1 Law, p. 130. 2 Ib. p. 77. 8 ' Christianity,' &c., p. 169.
4 Law, p. 80. 5 Ib. p. 87.
8 ' He who denies the Scripture to have been from God on account of these
difficulties may for the very same reason deny the world to have been formed by
him' (Butler's 'Analogy,' Introduction).
7 Law, p. 91.
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM. 163
might be diabolic as well as angelic. Law endeavours to
show that, although such a case might be put hypothetically,
yet there might also be miracles, which we might ascribe to
divine power as certainly as we may ascribe creation generally
to a divine origin. Some trivial instances to the contrary
might be alleged, as in the case of the Egyptian miracles ; but
the case of miraculous agency exerted in proof of evil doc-
trines had never occurred in practice, and is just as absurd a
supposition as to imagine natural creatures, created of a
wicked nature, in order to be ' of service to the devil.' l The
divine revelations were, in his opinion, marked as clearly on
the face of nature as the divine origin of the world. Law
changed his attitude at a later period for significant reasons.
At present we need only remark that his argument, vigorous
as it was, seemed to have attracted little contemporary notice.
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM,
67. The controversy excited by Tindal rapidly died away.
Though feeble echoes of the argument are to be found at a
later period, and though it may be said, in a wider sense,
that Tindal was a forerunner of modern developments of
rationalism, the discussion in the same terms of the issues
raised scarcely survived its author. Two writers, indeed, of
inferior note carried on the deist succession. Their position
was substantially identical with Tindal's, and a brief notice
will sufficiently indicate their character. Thomas Chubb has
long been little more than a name, though the name was
frequently used to communicate a certain plebeian flavour to
catalogues of contemptible deists. He was the least educated,
indeed, of the whole race. The son of a maltster near Salis-
bury, he was early apprenticed to a tallow-chandler, and, except
for a brief period, sold, though we are told that he did not
make, candles to the end of his life. The exception to his
tallow-chandling was a short residence with Sir Joseph Jekyll,
in whose family he appears to have held an ambiguous
position, partly as servant and partly as literary plaything.
This honour was due to the publication of his first treatise,
1 Law, p. 98.
M 2
!6 4 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
which excited some attention, and made him, like poor
Stephen Duck, the poet, a nine days' wonder. Pope
mentions him in a letter to Gay as a ' wonderful phenomenon
of Wiltshire/ and says that he has read his volume with
admiration. Chubb, however, seems to have been a sensible
man, and refusing some offers of patronage, retired to his
candles, and made a comfortable competence. He deserves
the praise of Malthusians ; for he tells us that he never
married, thinking it wrong to introduce a family into the
world without a prospect of maintaining them. The proverb
about Providence filling the mouths which it sent seemed to
him to be opposed to the teaching of experience. 1 He sensibly
stuck to his trade, and died at Salisbury in 1747, in his
sixty-eighth year.
68. Chubb's literary qualifications were of the smallest.
He knew neither Latin nor Greek, and occasionally avows
his ignorance with amusing simplicity. 2 He appears, how-
ever, to have been a man of considerable natural ability ; and
in many of his tracts exhibits a logical faculty which, guided
by better training, might have made him a formidable an-
tagonist. 3 Fed upon mere crumbs of second-hand philosophy,
and with little more learning than could be gained by a careful
study of the English Bible, he was unable to make any dis-
tinct impression upon the world. Though loaded by his few
critics with the stock charges of want of candour and of rever-
ence, his writings show a very calm and honest intellect.
There is little bitterness in his attacks upon the established
faith ; and his arguments are fairly, though seldom vigorously,
stated. He belonged to a little debating society at Salisbury,
which discussed the theology of the day, and acquired that
kind of logical facility which is gained by practice in such an
arena. His first tract, on the ' Supremacy of the Father,' was
suggested by Whiston's preface to his ' Primitive Christianity
Revived,' and published by that most amiable of heretics/
The world was astonished by a contribution to so abstruse a
controversy from so humble a source ; and Chubb became
1 See biographical preface to Chubb's posthumous Works.
2 E.g. 'True Gospel of Jesus Christ Vindicated,' p. 23.
8 See, for example, the discourse on Miracles, where there are many shrewd
remarks mixed with much crude argumentation,
4 Preface, as above.
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM. 165
henceforth an assiduous writer. More than fifty tracts, filling
eight small octavo volumes, are the product of his industry.
The Arianism expounded in the first of his performances
gradually deepened into Deism of the Tindal variety. His
favourite doctrine, frequently repeated and enforced, is that
true Christianity consists of three truths. The first is that
conformity to the eternal rules which result from the ' natural
and essential differences of things,' and nothing else, makes
men acceptable to God ; the second, that repentance and a
change of life, and those alone, will secure God's mercy ; and
the third, that God will ultimately judge the world and give
to every man according to his works. 1 That was, he thinks, the
substance of Christ's teaching, and forms the whole of his
final creed.
69. In defending these truths and attacking the accretions
of dogmatic theology, by which they are overlaid, Chubb is
led through the whole circle of deist argument. He attacks
the doctrine of a special providence ; he denies the demon-
strative force of miracles ; he denies the literal inspiration
of the Scripture ; and makes many of the ordinary criticisms
upon the history both of the Old and New Testament ; he
appears to doubt, though he does not quite openly deny, the
truth of Christ's resurrection. In another direction he is an
ardent advocate of free-will a doctrine which exposed him
to the attacks of Jonathan Edwards ; he repeats Toland's
objection to mystery, and Tindal's objections to a positive
and traditional religion. He disbelieves the eternity of punish-
ment, and maintains, in opposition to Rutherford, the impos-
sibility of reducing all human motives to selfishness. He is
opposed to all sacerdotal claims, and to the union of Church
and State. There are few, indeed, of the familiar deist argu-
ments which may not be found in Chubb's tracts. The most
complete summary of his opinions may found in the author's
' Farewell to his Readers,' published after his death. It was
not, however, to be expected that much new light should be
thrown upon such well-worn topics by an ignorant chandler
at Salisbury ; nor can it be said that Chubb added anything
to the stock of thought. One little bit of satire may be
1 E.g. 'The Author's Farewell,' posthumous Works, vol. ii. 82; and in
many other places.
1 66 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
quoted before we take leave of him, which represents, per-
haps, his liveliest mood. The veteran controversialist, Dr.
Stebbing, had accused him of giving a false view of Christian
morality by suppressing our Lord's advice to the young man
to sell all he had and give it to the poor. Chubb replies that
the text can hardly be meant literally, or the doctor's conduct
would be very preposterous ; who has not only added to those
' worldly advantages which arise to him from his two livings
in Norfolk, and his being preacher at Gray's Inn, what arises
to him from the Archdeaconry of Wilts, but he is also adding
what arises from the chancellorship of the diocese of Sarum.' l
The blow, let us hope, afforded Chubb a momentary conso-
lation for the contempt of learned divines ; 2 but, for the most
part, he enjoyed the advantage, which may be some set-off
against obscurity, of carrying on controversy with less than
the usual infusion of personal animosity.
70. Another writer of this school the last whom I shall
mention was Thomas Morgan, a physician, who published in
1737 the first volume of a book called the ' Moral Philosopher.'
Two later volumes, published in 1739 and 1740, are answers
to the attacks of the indefatigable Leland, and Chapman, an
opponent of Middleton's. A fourth volume, published in
1741, called ' Physico-Theology,' attempted to set forth
the moral creed of the so-called philosopher. Morgan was
a disciple of Clarke's ; he, like Chubb, had taken part in the
Trinitarian controversy ; and he speaks of Wollaston with
extravagant admiration. The ' Religion of Nature Deli-
neated ' is, in his opinion, likely to outlive the whole Christian
literature of the last seventeen centuries. 3 With such ante-
cedents, it is not surprising that Morgan became a ' Christian
deist ; ' 4 and defended, with little alteration, the thesis already
supported by Tindal. The argument was becoming thread-
bare, and Morgan's book was received with an indifference
due rather to the want of novelty than to the want of literary
qualities equal to those of his predecessors. Once more we
1 'Ground and Foundation of Religion,' p. 139.
2 Sherlock is said to have attacked Chubb's interpretation of certain pas-
sages in the Old Testament. See Works, v. 329. The reply, however, was
anonymous, and the authorship is doubtful. Skelton, in the 'Ophiomaches,' and
Taylor, in ' Ben Mordecai,' also attacked him. But his works were little noticed.
8 ' Physico-Theology,' 224. < Moral Philosopher,' i. 199.
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM. 167
have a demonstration of the absolute perfection of the religion
of nature, and of the impossibility of adding to, as of ab-
stracting from, it. Once more it is argued that miracles can
only be an evidence to those who see them, and that neither
the power of working miracles, nor of making correct pre-
dictions, can be proof of the truth of a doctrine (' the devil
can work miracles ' *). He rather sets aside than directly
assails the truth of the internal evidences. Moral truth
cannot depend on any series of external facts. The evidence
of religion must be written upon man's heart, not in any
written words or priestly traditions.
71. Enough and more than enough had been said upon
these points. But Morgan's writings have one peculiarity which
is symptomatic of the coming change. His book is more his-
torical than his predecessors' writings, though some of the
points raised by him are touched in Toland's later writings.
He supports his doctrine by a distinct historical theory, a theory
which is exceedingly crude, but which yet indicates a certain
preoccupation with the problems investigated by a later school.
He feels that it is necessary to account for the growth of
that ' religion of the hierarchy ' which, in his opinion, has
overgrown the ' religion of nature.' 2 The theory which he
elaborates savours, of course, of that purely negative attitude,
that tendency to attribute all false religion to the intrigues of
a designing priesthood, which is characteristic of the criticism
of the day. Briefly stated, his doctrine appears to be that
the natural religion which prevailed amongst all men in the
golden age, before ' luxury, avarice, and ambition had taken
place,' 3 was corrupted by a sort of fetichism, which saw in
every natural event the direct interposition of divine power.
Hence arose the superstition and enthusiasm which were
turned to account by the early priests, and especially by
Moses and Aaron. He derives from Prideaux's account of
Mahommedan imposture, tests which equally convict Moses
of worldly designs. 4 The Jews had caught in Egypt the con-
tagion of sacerdotalism, and their subsequent history, as he
argues at great length, is but a record of the evils flowing
from the evil principles, which involved a low conception of
1 ' Moral Philosopher,' i. 98. 3 Ib. iii. 94.
Ib. i. 94. * Ib. iii. in.
168 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
God, consecrated brutal ferocity under the name of religion,
and enabled the priests to regulate superstition to their own
profit. This ' most grossly ignorant, and most stupid people >l
are in fact with Morgan, as with other deists, the typical
embodiment of priest-ridden fanaticism. But his most dis-
tinctive theory is the position which he assigns to St. Paul
' the great freethinker of that age,' as he calls him, ' and the
bold and brave defender of reason against authority.' 2 Christ,
according to him, taught the pure religion of nature, and
after the death of the Master, Paul defended the same doc-
trine against the fanaticism of the Judaizers led by Peter.
He labours hard to relieve his favourite apostle from the
imputation of teaching the doctrine of the Atonement, and
represents him as maintaining that the Jewish law so far as it
differed from the law of nature not only was not in future
to be, but never had been, divinely imposed upon anyone.
Unluckily persecution forced the more liberal Christians to
coalesce with their Judaizing opponents, 3 and thus sacerdotal-
ism broke out once more in the form of the Catholic hierarchy,
whilst the true Christians, the adherents of the right of
private judgment, were reviled as Gnostics and followers of
Simon Magus. 4
72. However crude the argument may be, it yet indicates
a desire to regard the early history of Christianity from the
historical point of view ; and it illustrates the tendency
of the whole controversy to pass from abstract reasoning to
more definite issues of fact. This, as I shall directly remark,
is characteristic of the time. Morgan's second and third
volumes are almost entirely filled with familiar discussions
as to Jewish history, and the morality of the chief Jewish
heroes. In the ' Physico-Theology ' he returns to the old
argument from the law of nature, but bewilders himself
with a futile attempt to prove the existence of God from
the phenomena of light, and is wellnigh lost in the morasses
of the free-will controversy. There it is quite needless to
follow him. Of his chief antagonist, John Chapman, it is
enough to say that he repeats the ordinary arguments with
rather less than the ordinary vivacity.
1 'Moral Philosopher,' ii. 118. 3 Ib. i. 379, &c.
2 Ib- i. 71. Ib. i. 387.
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM. 169
73. We have passed the culminating point of the deist
controversy. Its interest has palpably declined. Morgan found
only a third-rate opponent in Chapman, and the industrious
Leland had the rare pleasure of discovering almost virgin
ground in his assault upon Chubb's posthumous tracts. Hence-
forth we hear little of constructive Deism of the attempt,
that is, to substitute for Christianity a pure body of abstract
truths, reposing on metaphysical demonstration. If we
enquire into the cause of this decay, we may dismiss the
reply that it implied the clear logical triumph of the
Christian apologists. The Christians, in fact, met the deists
more than half way. The question really argued was not so
much the truth or falsehood of the Christian revelation, as
the utility of maintaining the Christian embodiment of deist
doctrines. By the predominant school Christianity was
defended, not as materially altering our conceptions of the
universe, but as affording the only sufficient guarantee for a
practical observance of the law of nature. The superficial
character of the discussion is symptomatic of the shallowness
of the convictions of many of the disputants. Though appa-
rently sincere, they are arguing over corollaries rather than
primary truths. None of the apologists, with one or two
remarkable exceptions, attempt really to go to the bottom of
the question, and to frame their beliefs into a general and
harmonious theory. Content with puzzling their antagonists
by retorting difficulties upon them, they do not really care to
test the strength of their own case. The true cause of the
decay of Deism is to be sought in its internal weakness. The
creed was never really alive ; it was not rooted in the deepest
convictions, nor associated with the most powerful emotions
of its adherents. The metaphysical deity was too cold and
abstract a conception to excite much zeal in his worshippers.
Clarke's philosophy was already antiquated when he tried to
press it into the service of Christianity ; and as the pioneers
of speculation advanced in a different direction, the religious
creed, divorced from active thought, died a natural death
from internal decay, and hence followed a marked peculiarity
of the whole controversy. The external evidences gradually
assumed more prominence than the internal, and in the next
generation the argument became almost exclusively historical.
I7o CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
74. The change followed from the very nature of the case.
The argument of the Christian apologists had a strangely
sceptical colouring. In their attack upon the religion of nature,
their blows have a necessary reaction upon the foundations of
their own faith. We may say, briefly, that Deism, whether of
the Christian or extra-Christian variety, was assailable both
in its method and in the dogmas attained by the method.
The method involved the use of metaphysical arguments, daily
falling into greater discredit, and which, even if unassailable,
were scarcely intelligible to ordinary minds. If the difficulty
of combining an historical with a metaphysical basis could be
surmounted, it was impossible to found a really vigorous
creed on a scholasticism so remote from popular modes of
thought. The dogmatic teaching of Deism was equally
feeble. The main article of the creed was expressed by
Pope and Bolingbroke in the formula ' whatever is, is right.'
This is the logical outcome of the doctrine that everything is
natural, and that God is nature. But the doctrine when inter-
preted into concrete terms is either nugatory, or in hopeless
conflict with facts. If it has any meaning, it amounts to a
flimsy optimism. A purely optimistic creed always wants
any real stamina ; for the great stimulant of religious emotions
is a profound sense of the evils of human life. A placid
assertion that everything is well, either empties words of all
meaning, or is felt to be false by every real sufferer that is,
by everyone in the specially religious mood. It is a crutch
which breaks whenever we wish to lean upon it. The most
vigorous thinkers, of very opposite schools, assailed Deism
from this side. Hume, denying the competency of the mind
to frame theological theories, became systematically sceptical;
Law, as we have seen, escaped from scepticism by accepting
for a time the proof from the internal evidences, and ultimately
found a safer refuge in mysticism ; Butler attacked rather the
dogma than the method, and argued that the God of nature
was not really the colourless and vaguely benevolent being of
the deist heresies.
75. Each of these solutions, reached by the keenest intel-
lects of the time, is distinctly sceptical in its bearing upon
natural theology. Whatever the value of the positive conclu-
sions reached by Butler or Law, their views harmonise with
V. THE DECAY OF DEISM. 171
the sceptical assault upon the theology of Clarke and Tindal;
Not by that road, they declared, was a knowledge of divine
things to be obtained, whatever other paths might be opened.
The arguments used by inferior writers imply a feebler per-
ception of the same fact. They feel the ground of pure
reason hollow beneath their feet, and shift towards the easier
proof from historical documents. They attack reason spar-
ingly and tenderly, but yet they lower its claims sufficiently to
show the need of a support from external evidence. Though
not following Hume to the point of denying to the human
intellect a capacity for passing the limits of experience, they
yet urge that its conclusions require the corroboration of ex-
perience. Failing to take so wide a view as Butler, they
are scarcely conscious of the broad objection to Deism,
founded on the impossibility of making it square with the
facts of the universe. But they show a dim appreciation of
the truth by their constant use of what is in substance a
corollary from that argument. To the deist complaint of
the injustice and partiality of the Christian God, it is the
established reply that the God revealed through nature has
been equally partial and unjust. When fully developed,
the argument would run somehow thus : The true God,
said both Christians and deists, must be goodness and jus-
tice embodied. The God of the Bible, said the deists, is
not perfectly good or just, and is therefore not the true God.
The Christians did not reply by vindicating his moral cha-
racter, but by arguing that we could not judge of it, and
they retorted that the God revealed in nature was no more
perfect than the God of the Bible. This was substantially
to deny the competence of reason, and to appeal to the
evidence of facts. In the narrow mode of conceiving of
history characteristic of the time, the appeal to facts meant
an appeal to the evidences of the truth of the biblical history.
Deism, bound by such difficulties, was meanwhile decaying
from within. From the beginning, too, it had included a
purely sceptical element. Though Toland had fancied that
the central citadel would be safe when the dogmatical out-
works were destroyed, his assault really tended towards a
repudiation, not only of the official ' mysteries/ but of the
great mystery evolved in all theology. The other wing of
172 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
the deists, led by Collins, had taken a simply destructive tone ;
and thus the metaphysical religion of nature, growing weaker
from within and from without, gradually sank into a secondary
position, whilst the hostile thinkers met upon the definite and
tangible issue of historical truth. The creed which troubled
and threatened to supplant Christianity was disappearing ;
but it remained to be seen whether the fruits of the victory
could be won by the Christians or the sceptics.
VI. CONCLUSION.
76. A very remarkable commentary upon the whole con-
troversy from this point of view is given in an anonymous
pamphlet which appeared in 1742, called ' Christianity Not
Founded on Argument.' Its author was afterwards known to
be Henry Dodwell, son of the learned nonjuror, and brother
to William Dodwell, who defended the orthodox faith against
Middleton. He is said to have been ' a polite, humane, and
benevolent man.' Certainly he was a man of no small in-
genuity and literary power. The pamphlet is in some sense
the ablest of all that were produced by the deists, and puts
into a quaint shape the most incisive criticism upon the whole
contemporary theology.
77. A creed may rest, it is said, upon intuition, upon
authority, or upon rational demonstration. A scientific belief,
it may be replied, rests upon all three. The belief, for example,
in the truths of astronomy depends upon intuition, for its first
truths are self-evident whatever may be the psychological
explanation of our spontaneous acceptance of them. It de-
pends upon demonstration in so far as its remotest corollaries
are connected with the first principles by an unbroken chain
of argument ; each link of which invites, and will > bear the
strictest examination. To the bulk of mankind, again, the
truths rest upon authority, and upon the only authority
which, in such matters, really deserves respect ; namely, the
agreement of qualified and independent reasoners. The aim
of Clarke and his school had been to construct a theology
possessing similar claims upon our faith. It had the fatal
defect that each link of the argument, instead of commanding
assent, provoked infinite controversies ; and for the simple
VI. CONCLUSION. 173
reason that every stage of the argument was conducted in
regions beyond the grasp of the human intellect, and where
reason, therefore, instead of producing unity of sentiment, stul-
tifies itself amidst inevitable antinomies. So far, therefore,
from being entitled to demand assent, its advocates were
bound to admit the legitimacy of the widest divergence of
opinion. So long as logicians are radically opposed, they
should admit that doubt, and not conviction, is the cardinal
virtue ; or, at the very lowest, they must admit that they can-
not challenge assent from the ignorant until the learned are
agreed. That is the very first condition of all rational enquiry.
Unluckily, the whole orthodox school, whilst admitting that
faith should follow reason, continued to claim in practice that
faith should precede reason. They dogmatised, whilst the
very effort at demonstration proved that they still doubted.
A belief in Christianity, however wide the interpretation which
might be put upon that word, was still proclaimed as essential
whilst they were labouring with doubtful success to lay the
foundation of a creed. They could not admit that all creeds
might be innocently held, or that doubt was pardonable. Even
deists of the Tindal school maintained the necessity of some
vague but dogmatic belief. Here was the inevitable contra-
diction which came more and more decisively to light as the
controversy continued, and which tended more and more to
destroy the authority of religion. Free thought was proved
by actual experiment to lead to the widest difference of
opinion. Toleration and doubt were the natural consequences,
but the official defenders of Christianity still insisted upon the
duty of absolute certainty. This is the point at which Dodwell
struck with remarkable vigour ; and there can be little doubt
that he was expressing the latent conclusion of many minds.
78. He proposes to establish the three propositions, that
reason cannot be the principle of faith ; that the Bible does
not represent it as such a principle ; and that the true principle
is an inner and divine light. He urges, in the first place, the
absurdity of imposing upon all mankind, the ignorant and the
infants ; ' a faith built upon syllogisms.' l In a different case
Butler's excellent ' Analogy ' might incline him to believe ;
but when regarded as the foundation of a universal system of
1 ' Christianity Not Founded on Argument,' p. 24.
174 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
faith, such elaborate arguments only convince him ' that such
a position can never be that necessary truth, which stands in
need of such far-fetched apologies and laboured accounts to
reconcile and explain it.' l Clarke's laboured productions have
suggested doubts oftener than they have produced conviction. 2
Addison's arguments from history, 3 or the exponents of Daniel's
prophecies 4 may convince the learned, but cannot justify a
demand of assent from the vulgar. To permit reasoning,
indeed, is to permit a variety of conclusions. Rational con-
clusions (to avoid absolute scepticism he should have said
on theological matters) must always be precarious. ' For what
reason has established, it is evident the same reason must
have the power to repeal.' 5 A religion founded on such
precarious evidence can never have the power to command
our passions and to push men to martyrdom. 6 For such
purposes we want more than the ' precarious conjecture of a
fallible judge upon the traditional testimony of a fallible wit-
ness.' 7 To doubt is the necessary condition of a fair exami-
nation of evidence ; though theologians begin by proscribing
all doubt and demanding certainty from children. What
more absurd than to say to all men : 'Judge whether you have
time or not ; judge whether you are judges or not ; judge all
for yourselves, and yet judge all alike ? ' 8 To command men
to believe rationally is a contradiction in terms, unless the
power of believing is communicated by him who commands.
' The seeing of sounds or the hearing of colours are illustra-
tions far short of the nonsense of conscience in opinion upon
any other principle.' 9
79. DodwelFs ostensible proofs from Scripture, such as the
statement that Christ did not argue, but ' taught as one having
authority ; ' that his apostles laughed at philosophy and de-
manded implicit faith ; that a desire for proofs was rebuked,
and that Christ refused to work miracles before unbelievers,
and others of a similar kind, are sufficiently conceivable.
They cover, of course, some apparent insinuations against the
credibility of the history. The most forcible argument, how-
1 'Christianity Not Founded on Argument,' p. 21.
2 Ib. p. 81, and at p. 86 he makes a remark, already anticipated by Collins,
that Boyle's lectures were a great cause of modern infidelity. Rather, they were
a symptom.
1 Dodwell, p. 1 8. 5 Ib. p. 26. ' Ib. p. 31. a Ib. p. 64.
4 Ib. p. 20. 6 Ib. p. 30. 8 Ib. p. 35.
VI. CONCLUSION. 175
ever, is an appeal to actual experience. He recommends his
supposed correspondent to go to any assembly of the faithful,
and declare ingenuously what- is the secret of their belief.
' Is it possible that you will assert/ he asks, ' that this har-
monious flock are thus altogether giving a rational assent to
all these curious articles and profound theorems, when your
experience in the meantime assures you that the generality
of these unanimous confessors have never in their whole lives
bestowed a single thought in . a speculative way upon the
truth or falsehood of that long train of propositions they so
liberally avow ? '
80. In fact, all religion, historically speaking, has depended,
and must depend for the masses of mankind, upon authority.
A creed built on elaborate syllogisms is a creed with a
' perhaps ' in it, and no such creed can command men's
emotions. From the difficulty thus, presented there were
two modes of escape for believers in supernaturalism. One
is the appeal to arbitrary authority, or, in other words, the
abnegation of reason. Dodwell notices this ironically. The
attempt of men who advocate free thought to prescribe the
limits of thought, and to ask us to accept innumerable state-
ments about the inconceivable, is the height of absurdity.
' The men of Rome, the most notorious of idolaters, shall
rise up in the judgment (of all considering persons) against
this generation and condemn it ; for they invented but the
one absurdity of infallibility, and behold, a greater absurdity
than infallibility is here.' The other escape is by the doctrine
of an internal light, which Dodwell ostensibly accepts.
Unanimity, he concludes, can be reached on no other method
than that of 'a constant and particular revelation imparted
separately and supernaturally to every individual.' l This and
his argument that, as miracles are useless except to the eyewit-
ness, and therefore, if once necessary must be always neces-
sary, we must have a constant miraculous guide, may remind
us of the conclusion of Hume's celebrated Essay upon Miracles.
The great sceptic there remarks that Christianity ' not only
was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day can-
not be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere
reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity. And
1 Dodwell, p. no.
176 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
whoever is moved by faith to assent to it is conscious of a
continued miracle in his own person which subverts all the
principles of his understanding, and gives him a determina-
tion to believe what is most contrary to reason and ex-
perience.' Dodwell's irony, however, seems to have puzzled
some worthy Christians of mystical tendencies. 1
8 1. Here, then, is the sceptical solution which resulted in
one direction from all the argumentation of the preceding half-
century. The good orthodox apologists, Doddridge and the
indefatigable Leland, replied to Dodwell. They tried to
weaken the force of his arguments by declaring that intel-
lectual error results from evil affections, 2 by urging that the
vulgar can understand evidence, 3 and by relaxing the terms
of salvation. 4 Doddridge holds that the evidences are clear
enough to be explained to a child of fourteen or fifteen, 5 and
Benson holds that they are intelligible to a ploughman. 6
Doddridge adds that he will not believe that any good deist
in a Protestant country ever died an infidel, inasmuch as he
has stronger evidence of the truth of Christianity than of
the virtue of its opponents. 7 These writers, in fact, accept
the position to which Dodwell sought to drive them, and
admit its consequences with perfect simplicity. Dodwell was
putting into another form the demand often suggested by the
deists, that a religion which insists upon universal obedience
should rest upon evidence as clear as the sun in heaven. The
attempts to show the reasonableness of Christianity (and
Benson, it may be noticed, revived at the end of the discus-
sion the title which Locke had employed at its opening)
helped to strengthen rather than to satisfy the demand. It
became plainer by every addition to the controversy that the
reasoning on which Christianity was to be supported was
altogether too elaborate to be intelligible to the ordinary
individual. I need only remark, in passing, that Dodwell's
argument commonly illustrates the way in which this con-
viction tended to strengthen Methodism in one direction, as it
has since strengthened the Catholic reaction. Its tendency
1 See Byrom's 'Journal,' ii. 362. a Ib. 55.
2 Leland's ' Remarks,' letter i. 23. 4 Ib. 69.
* Doddridge, Works, i. 479.
6 Benson, ' Reasonableness of the Christiar; Religion,' p. 145.
7 Doddridge, p. 539.
VI. CONCLUSION. 177
in the direction of pure doubt was manifested in England
chiefly in encouraging a kind of indolent scepticism, which
becomes a characteristic of the next half-century.
82. Yet one more writer of high reputation must be
reckoned among the deist writers. The controversial storm,
indeed, had been succeeded by the singular calm which,
in the middle of the eighteenth century, pervaded the world of
thought as well as the world of politics. For a moment,
though only for a moment, people were scandalised as the
'beggarly Scotchman,' Mallet, discharged the 'blunderbuss
against religion and morality ' which had been loaded by
Bolingbroke. 1 The shot was not fired till the favourable
moment had long passed, though it must have been long
prepared. Bolingbroke began his philosophical studies, as
he tells us, at the age of forty ; 2 and his first composition
professes to be the substance of letters written to a M. de
Pouilly, about 1720. He pursued his enquiries during his
subsequent years of embittered retirement ; and was sup-
posed to have inspired Pope's ' Essay on Man.' There are,
indeed, many coincidences between the poem and Boling-
broke's fragmentary writings. But as the only question
raised about Pope's verses by anybody, except Warburton,
was whether the poetry was good enough to float the bad
philosophy, it was hardly to be supposed that the philosophy
without the poetry would be tolerable. In fact, this tre-
mendous counterblast for theologians completely missed its
aim. It excited little notice, except from Warburton, whose
orthodox imagination was here warmed by personal an-
tipathy, and from the inevitable Leland. The failure was
doubtless due in part to the general flagging of interest ;
but also in great measure to the windy and incoherent nature
of the so-called philosophy. Even the external polish of
style repels us, like the courtly manner of some palpably
insincere diplomatist. And then Bolingbroke is monstrously
diffuse ; he is rhetorical where he ought to be logical ; he
repeats himself incessantly, and contradicts himself nearly
as often ; no solid ground of thought can be found in this
shifting quagmire of speculation, where the one genuine
ingredient seems to be an indiscriminate hatred of all philo-
1 Boswell, ann. 1754. 2 Works, iii. 183. Bolingbroke was born in 1678.
VOL. I. N
1 78 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
sophers and divines. Warburton rates him soundly for
his love of Billingsgate ; l and Warburton himself is the only
writer of the time who could outrail him. But Bolingbroke
is more or less trammelled by his high-stepping parliamentary
pomposity, where Warburton discards his gown and throws
dirt with a will. Yet Bolingbroke succeeds in calling every-
body who differs from him fool, knave, or madman. All who
thought that anything could be known of the spirit as distinct
from the body are ' pneumatical madmen,' 2 Heathen philo-
sophers and platonising Christians were alike mad or doting. 3
The study of metaphysics is generally described as delirium,
and all who believe in ontology are ' learned lunatics.' 4 Des-
cartes was mad whenever he indulged in a priori reasoning;
and so are those who follow his example. 5 Leibnitz was
' one of the vainest and most chimerical men that ever got
a name in philosophy.' 6 Clarke, whom he specially hates,
is an empty bully. 7 Wollaston ought to be under Monroe,
the mad-doctor. 8 Ancient philosophers and divines fare no
better. Whenever Plato, the great corrupter of Christianity,
leaves the ' false sublime, he sinks down, and lower no writer
can sink, into a tedious socratical irony, into certain flimsy
hypothetical reasonings that prove nothing, and into allusions
that are mere vulgarisms, and that neither explain nor enforce
anything that ought to be explained or enforced ; ' 9 whilst
his commentators are dull or mad. 10 When Paul's teaching
is intelligible it is ' often absurd, or profane, or trifling.' n
His doctrine of predestination is impious and abominable ;
unless some strained interpretation can be allowed under
cover of ' the style of a writer, the least precise and clear that
ever writ.' 12 It is impossible to read Moses's account of the
creation ' without feeling contempt for him as a philosopher
and horror as a divine.' 13 The only exceptions to these
sweeping censures are Bacon and Locke, whose philosophy
he takes to be favourable to his own views, and Berkeley,
who is apparently treated with tenderness on account of his
personal relations to Swift, Pope, and himself.
1 Warburton, xii. 108. 6 Ib. iii. 329. 10 Ib. iv. 355.
2 Bolingbroke, iv. 474. 7 Ib. v. 293. n Ib. iv. 331.
3 Ib. iv. 480. 8 Ib. iii. 518. 12 Ib. iv. 510.
4 Ib. v. 374. ' Ib. iv. 141. I3 Ib. iii. 233.
5 Ib.'iv. 139.
VI. CONCLUSION.
179
83. Language of this kind in a modern writer could mean
nothing but sheer intellectual insensibility ; and we must
admit that it excludes the hypothesis that Bolingbroke had
any true metaphysical acuteness. Indeed, he contradicts
himself almost as often as he contradicts Leibnitz. But
to understand how a man in Bolingbroke's position a man,
that is, whose social and political position had brought him
into" contact with the acutest intellects of his time could
be guilty of this kind of philosophical boorishness, we must
take two reflections into account. One is that Bolingbroke
seems to have brought into philosophy the habits which he
had acquired in politics. He denounces Clarke as he de-
nounced Walpole in an age when it was thought decent to
pelt an antagonist with abuse scarcely less offensive than
the material missiles of the pillory. The metaphysicians
merely took the place of the Ministry, and no imputations were
too gross to be hurled at them. And, in the next place,
this hatred of the a priori school is characteristic of the time,
and is the most significant peculiarity of Bolingbroke's
writings. Bolingbroke, however flimsy his reasoning and
gross his language, was no fool. He had the instinct of a
party leader, and could catch the prevailing tone of sentiment
even when he was quite unable to appreciate its deeper
sources. And in this virulent assault upon Platonism and
theology, upon Cudworth, upon Descartes, Malebranche, and
Leibnitz, upon Clarke and Wollaston, and upon all who were
tainted by the ' metaphysical delirium,' he is, in fact, only
expressing the vehement reaction against the expiring philo-
sophy which was expressed in a thousand keen epigrams by
his pupil Voltaire. His arguments are feeble and incon-
sistent ; but he aims them at a school whose pretensions to
dominion had excited a widespread reaction. And as illus-
trating the vehemence of this rather vague sceptical tendency,
Bolingbroke gives an interesting indication of the general
current of thought, though he cannot be regarded as deter-
mining its direction.
84. It would be hopeless to give any coherent account of
that ' first philosophy ' of which he professed to be a teacher ;
but his relation to contemporary speculation may be briefly
indicated. Bolingbroke, in the first place, was a theist,
N 2
l8o CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
and he even insists upon the clearness and all-sufficiency
of the law of nature in language which recalls Clarke and
Tindal. But he was a theist on a plan of his own. He
denies the possibility of ontology as vehemently as he asserts
the necessity of theology. He declares that ' human know-
ledge is relative and not absolute ; ' ' but he is opposed to the
Atheism (as he holds it to be) of Collins 2 as much as to the
theology of Clarke. His Theism, then, rests upon a purely
empirical basis. His letters to Pouilly are a strange attempt
to prove the existence of God from the consent of all tradi-
tion to the fact that the world had a beginning ; and he
flounders painfully in the attempt to prove that all particular
traditions, and especially the Mosaic, are false, whilst assert-
ing that their testimony to this fact is trustworthy. The
first men, so this sceptic affects to believe, may have actually
detected the Divine Artificer at work in forming some other
animals in different countries. 3 He afterwards explicitly
abandons this ingenious theory. 4 He thinks that the first
men were polytheists, or, perhaps, as he has learnt from Cud-
worth, theists and polytheists at once. 5 There are glimpses
here and there of a more genuine historical conception ; but
he is, of course, blind to anything like the modern view of
evolution. From the relativity of knowledge he infers the
uncertainty of all science ; 6 and, like the other freethinkers
of the time, is a disbeliever in progress, holding that all
our systems go through cycles ' from generation to corruption,
and from corruption to generation.' 7 The transference of a
belief in progress from believers to the infidels is, as already
remarked, a characteristic symptom.
85. The God of empirical philosophy must be Paley's
Almighty Watchmaker, 8 and Bolingbroke anticipates the
illustration. 9 Though, with characteristic inconsistency, he
gives a proof identical with that of Clarke, 10 it is upon the
1 Bolingbroke, iii. 382. 2 Ib. v. 331.
* Ib. iii. 243. E. Law argues in the same way that the first men could prove
their origin by certain physical peculiarities (' Theory of Religion,' p. 2).
4 Ib. iii. 259. s Ib. iv. 19, 191, 231. 6 Ib. iii. 391.
' Ib. iv. 236. See this doctrine attacked by Law(' Theory of Religion,' p. 216).
8 See this and the following curiously exemplified in Mr. Mill's ' Essay on
Theism.'
9 Bolingbroke, iii, 188, > Ib. iii. 354.
VI. CONCLUSION. 181
argument from design that he lays the chief stress, and it
is to ' Ray, Derham, and Nieuentyt,' l and other forerunners
of Paley, that he refers his disciple for the most conclusive
proofs of the divine power and wisdom. His theism, such
as it is, leads him to two main doctrines, frequently en-
forced, and standing out with some consistency amidst the
vague topics of his declamations. They deserve a brief
notice, for they give whatever teaching is to be found in his
pages.
86. His favourite assertion is the existence of a tacit con-
federacy between atheists and divines. It is connected with
a peculiar doctrine as to the evidences of a divine ruler, which,
though it shifts into varying shapes, has perhaps a certain
meaning at bottom. His theory is that we can demon-
strate the ' natural,' but not the ' moral,' attributes of God.
We can recognise, that is, the power and wisdom, but not the
goodness or justice, of the Deity. We should receive ' ideas of
wisdom and power ' from God's works, even if ' human actions
gave us none ;' but we derive our ' first and strongest impres-
sions of benevolence, justice, and other moral virtues,' 2
exclusively from reflections upon ourselves and our neighbours.
The doctrine thus stated is perhaps a natural conclusion
from an empirical theology. Granting that intelligence and
strength is implied in the contrivance of living organisms, it
has been said by much keener logicians than Bolingbroke, and
especially by Hume, that the evidences for divine morality
are much feebler. Granting that God has put us together,
we may hold that he has cared little for our happiness, and
nothing for apportioning happiness to virtue. Bolingbroke,
however, did not hold this view with any consistency. At
times he seems to be arguing, after the fashion of Browne and
King, that our ignorance of the divine essence necessarily
limits our knowledge of his attributes. We cannot attain a
knowledge of ' his manner of being, or his manner of pro-
ducing those effects which give us ideas of wisdom and
power, and as little, or less if possible, can we rise from our
moral obligations to his supposed moral attributes.' 3 He
attacks again the inevitable anthropomorphism of divines who
' make God after the image of man.' God, he says else-
1 Bolingbroke, v. 339. * Ib. v. 88. Ib. v. 81.
182 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
where, ' is, in their notion of him, nothing but an infinite
man.' l But he will not lose the advantage of asserting the
necessary goodness of God. He proceeds at once to affirm
that all that God does is great and good in itself, ' though it
does not appear such in every instance conformably to our
ideas of justice and goodness.' 2 The difference is only that
the physical attributes are in their nature more glaring and
less equivocal.' 3 When he is' anxious to assert the goodness
of God against divines, he regards the moral attributes as
' absorbed in the wisdom,' or as being ' modifications of this
physical attribute.' 4 He wishes, in fact, to establish the good-
ness of God sufficiently to justify his favourite optimism, 5 and
yet to be able to denounce the divines for presuming to
identify human and divine attributes.
87. This radical inconsistency pervades Bolingbroke's
arguments, and gives Warburton a very fair triumph. Boling-
broke's views are evidently determined more by his desire to
say something unpleasant to his immediate opponent, than
by any respect for logic. His supposed confederacy between
divines and atheists might be interpreted as meaning that he
reviles atheists to save his character, and divines to gratify
his spite. Warburton's reply is simple and plausible. The
whole of this ' chimerical conspiracy,' he says, ' comes to
this : that divines and atheists hold a principle in common,
but in common too with all the rest of mankind namely, that
there are irregularities in the distribution of moral good and
evil.' 6 To Warburton an argument was an argument ; he
regarded it as a weapon which depended upon the hand that
wielded it, and not as the announcement of a truth which
might recoil upon the discoverer. He held, therefore, that
divines would be exonerated if they levelled their reasoning
at deists, whatever might be its legitimate application. The
fact is, that Bolingbroke had really a meaning, though he
blundered egregiously in explaining it. Bolingbroke might have
carried to its logical conclusion his own denial of the possi-
bility of proving the moral attributes of God. He might then
have said, with some justice, to the divines : The facts of the
1 Bolingbroke, v. 310. y Ib. v. 312. 3 Ib. v. 312.
4 Ib. v. 335. * Ib. v. 392.
Warburton, ' Works,' xii. 113.
VI. CONCLUSION. 183
universe do not exhibit the goodness of God ; you admit, and
even assert, the truth yourselves when, like Wollaston, you
declare the world to be a scene of misery ; or, like Butler,
declare that God punishes the innocent for the guilty ; and,
therefore, you are mere hypocrites when you turn round
and declare that the God who has made this wretched world
and punished its best inhabitants, is at once omnipotent and
infinitely benevolent. In your haste to attack the deists, you
have cut away the foundations of your own creed. Or, he
might have asserted with the deists, that the universe proved
the infinite goodness of God. In that case he might have
consistently charged the divines with blasphemy for the dark
picture which they had devised of the all-perfect Creator. He
might have fairly pointed out the unworthiness of the moral
character attributed to the Supreme Being in both Testaments.
' The God of the Old Testament,' he says in fact, ' rewards
and punishes visibly and signally here ; he terrifies often
by his anger, he reforms sometimes. The God of the New
makes little difference here between those whom he approves
and those whom he disapproves ; so little, that he is charged
with injustice for it ; but he lies in wait to punish the latter
hereafter with unrelenting vengeance and eternal torments
when it is too late to terrify, because it is too late to reform.' l
Bolingbroke tried to take both lines at once ; and, therefore,
half asserts and half denies the goodness of God, and declares
the perfection of the universe, whilst denying the legitimate
inference from his assertion.
88. The inconsistency is plain enough, and its cause is
obvious. Bolingbroke is a" mere partisan disguising himself
in the dress of a philosopher ; and yet his very inconsistency
is characteristic of an age of growing scepticism. Where
were men to turn ? Follow the deists, and you are landed
in an optimism contradicted by every fact before your eyes ;
follow the divines, and whilst they will in words ascribe the
utmost perfection to their Deity, they will attack the works
of his hands, pronounce human nature to be corrupt, and
the world a scene of misery, and make their Deity reflect
the worst human passions of cruelty and vindictiveness.
Where were men bewildered by pretentious philosophy and
1 Bolingbroke, v. 533.
1 84 CONSTRUCTIVE DEISM.
revolted by the dry husks of an effete theology to turn for
comfort ? The answer was, that they must learn first to
examine facts ; and we shall presently see where that attempt
led them. We must first, however, follow the direct criticism
by which the authority of the established creed had been
weakened.
NOTE TO CHAPTER III.
The principal authorities for this chapter and the editions cited are as
follows :
BENSON, George (1699-1763), ' Reasonableness of Christianity,' 1743.
BERKELEY, George (1684-1753), 'The Minute Philosopher/ 1732.
BROWNE, Peter ( ? -1737), 'Answer to Toland,' 1697. Third edition :
1703. 'Procedure of Understanding,' 1728. Second edition:
1729. 'Analogy/ 1733.
CHAPMAN, John (1704-1784), 'Remarks on Middleton's Letter/ 1731.
' Eusebius/ 1739.
CHUBB, Thomas (1679-1747),* Supremacy of the Father/ 1715. 'Tracts/
1730. 'The True Gospel/ 1738. 'Posthumous Tracts/ 1747.
CLARKE, Sam. (1675-1729), 'Boyle Lectures/ 1704-5. Works. London :
1738.
CONYBEARE, John (1692-1755), 'Defence of Revealed Religion/ 1732.
Second edition : 1732.
DODDRIDGE, Philip (1702-1751), 'Answer to Dodwell/ 1742-3.
DODWELL, Henry ( ?), ' Christianity Not Founded on Argument/ 1742.
FORBES, Duncan (1685-1747), 'Thoughts on Religion/ 1750. London :
1816.
FOSTER, James (1693-1753), ' Usefulness, Truth, and Excellency of the
Christian Religion/ 1731. Third edition : 1734.
JACKSON, J. (1686-1763), 'Remarks on Tindal/ 1731.
KING, William (1650-1759), ' De Origine Mali/ 1704. ' Sermon on Pre-
destination/ 1709. London : 1821.
LAW, William (?), 'Reply to Tindal/ Works. London : 1762.
LELAND, John (1691-1766), 'Answer to Tindal/ 1733. Second edition :
1740. 'Answer to Morgan/ 1737. 'Answer to Dodwell/ 1744.
' View of the Deist Writers/ 1754.
LOCKE, John (1632-1704), ' Reasonableness of Christianity/ 1695. Works.
Twelfth edition. London : 1824. ' Reply to Stillingfleet.'
NOTE. 185
MORGAN, Thomas ( ? -1743), ' Moral Philosopher,' 1737. Second part,
1739; third part, 1740. ' Physico-Theology,' 1741.
NORRIS, John (1657-1711), ' Account of Reason and Faith in Relation to
the Mysteries of Christianity,' 1697.
RANDOLPH, Thomas (1701-1783), 'The Christian's Faith, a Rational
Assent,' 1744.
SKELTON, Philip (1707-1787), ' Ophiomaches, or Deism Revealed,' 1749.
STEBBING, Henry (?), 'Use and Necessity of Revelation,' 1731. Lon-
don : 1766.
SYKES, A. A. (1684-1756), 'Essay on Truth of Christian Religion/ 1725.
' Principles and Connection of Natural and Revealed Religion,'
1740.
SYNGE, Edward (1657-1741), 'A Gentleman's Religion.' Eighth edition :
1778.
TAYLOR, Nathaniel (P-I702), 'Preservative against Deism,' 1698.
TINDAL, Matthew (1657-1733), ' Christianity as Old as the Creation,' 1730.
TOLAND, John (properly Janus Junius), (1669-1722), ' Christianity Not
Mysterious,' 1696. ' Life of Milton,' 1699. ' Amyntor,' 1699.
'Vindicius Liberius,' 1700. 'Letters to Serena,' 1704. ' Adei-
sidasmon,' 1709. ' Nazarenus,' 1718. ' Tetradymus,' 1720. ' Pan-
theisticon,' 1720.
WOLLASTON, William (1659-1724), ' Religion of Nature Delineated,' 1722.
Sixth edition: 1738.
1 86
CHAPTER IV.
CRITICAL DEISM.
/. INTRODUCTORY.
I. AT the end of the seventeenth century, a serious criticism
of the external evidences was scarcely in existence. What there
was of grotesque and ignoble in the sacred records was hidden ;
whilst faith still burnt brightly in the reflected glow of sanctity.
The absurdities, which at a later period edged the sarcasms
of Voltaire, till now had either escaped notice or been easily
converted into symbols of a spiritual meaning. It was not
till that magical splendour began to fade that the worshippers
rose from their knees, and, gazing coolly round them, made
strange discoveries. The old worship first lost its spiritual
meaning, and then men began to perceive that the shrines and
the sacred images had their share of weakness and corruption.
A discovery speedily followed, which Shaftesbury expressed
in the formula, that ridicule was the test of truth. A hundred
people could laugh at legends of talking asses and possessed
swine, for one who could appreciate reasons why the doctrine
of the Atonement should not satisfy the conscience of mankind,
or the Christian type of morality be regarded as imperfect.
2. And thus, when the old foundations had been sapped
by philosophic thinkers, and not till then, the argument de-
scended to topics more level to the general comprehension, and
took a less worthy tone, as it appealed to a lower audience.
The deists bade for support as they gained courage, by ex-
posing to popular contempt desecrated fragments of holy
things which had once been hidden behind the veil of the
temple. The use of such modes of controversy necessarily
jars upon reverent minds. It is defensible only on the ground
that ridicule is the most effective charm for laying the ghosts
7. INTRODUCTORY. 187
of dead opinions. When a phantom dogma persists in haunt-
ing the living world, a laugh will cause it to vanish more
rapidly than the keenest logical slashing. Sarcasm is the
appropriate weapon against the pedantry of scholars, philoso-
phers, or theologians ; and thus it expresses the natural re-
bound of the minds that are just escaping from under the
horrors of persecution. The pedant tries to maintain his
superiority, no longer resting on physical force, by an attitude
of excessive solemnity. The obvious retort is to laugh at
him. ' 'Tis the persecuting spirit,' says Shaftesbury, ' that has
raised the bantering one ;' and the banter is effective in pro-
portion to the hollowness of the pretensions opposed to it.
The ridicule employed consists essentially in bringing into
sharp contrast the faiths which men really hold with those
which they only professed to hold ; and the shock, however
painful, may have been salutary. The reader of the deist
controversies may indeed be inclined to suspect, at first sight,
that the ridicule was often rather a substitute for reasoning
than a supplement. Though the arguments on the internal
evidence have become insipid, the most inadequate discussion
of principles has some touch of perennial interest ; for many
of the current ideas have been rather transformed than ex-
tinguished ; and some sparks of enduring truth are struck out
in the collision. But an argument about facts, in which
both sides are ignorant of the most important evidence, and
unskilled in the true critical method, is painfully futile. The
many books once instinct with fervid indignation and moving
the hearts of all men can be read with languid curiosity.
The issues are wrongly stated and insufficiently argued. No
blow is struck on either side during the whole controversy to
which the feeblest modern antagonist does not know the
ordinary perhaps satisfactory reply. We can watch the
assault and the defence without a single flush of excitement,
or the sense that any important issue is at stake. And,
therefore, an account of the controversy must, at first sight,
appear to be a record of crude and superficial wrangling.
And yet, whilst we smile at the errors, let us gratefully ac-
knowledge the courage of the men, who, with little learning
and insufficient ability, began to break down the ancient
superstition. Nof let us be slow to acknowledge that the
1 88 CRITICAL DEISM.
defenders of the established order were animated for the most
part, not by a cowardly fear of consequences, but by a genuine
love for truth and for religion, as they conceived it. If the
conceptions of these writers are cramped and their learning
obsolete, they contrast advantageously with many of their
descendants in the vigour and candour of their reasoning.
5. The countrymen and contemporaries of Bentley were
not destitute of the critical faculty ; nor were they, it is prob-
able, less acute, or even less learned, than their descendants.
Their weakness was due to the ignorance of the true method
of historical criticism, and yet more to the presence of certain
preconceived impressions, and the absence of some of the
great transforming ideas of more recent times. Their writings
have, of course, the faults inseparable from vehement advocacy,
and therefore from most controversy which is really in earnest.
A truly judicial attitude was at that time impossible, even to
the most impartial minds. Theologians were in a false posi-
tion, though they did not even suspect the fact. They had
imported the prejudices appropriate to an old stage of
opinion into the new. They were attempting the impossible
feat of retaining the superstructure, whilst entirely denying
the foundation of their belief. Doctrines, accepted on the
arbitrary authority of tradition, had to be represented as
logical conclusions of the reasoning faculty. The change had
taken place so gradually that the labourers in this singular
piece of engineering were quite unaware of the true nature of
the process.
4. The prestige had, therefore, long survived the vital force
of the creeds. The admission in practical affairs of the
fundamental doctrine of toleration preceded by a long period
the concession of equal rights to all creeds ; and the Church
retained privileges long after it had ceased to be supported
by persecution. Similarly, the admission that intellectual
errors were innocent, preceded by a great interval the practical
acknowledgment that such errors were not proper objects of
antipathy. A deist was hated when he could no longer be
burnt ; and, on the same principle, whilst orthodox theology
ostensibly based its pretensions on reason, the correlative
duty of laying aside all prepossession, whilst examining them,
was in practice denied. The old ideas were still surrounded
I. INTRODUCTORY. 189
with a halo of sanctity. The burden of proof was supposed
to rest on those who denied, not on those who asserted, that
certain facts were of supernatural origin, and thus formed a
complete exception to the general current of human history.
The removal of a difficulty was, therefore, assumed to be
equivalent to a convincing positive argument. If the most
strained hypothesis would reconcile two apparently conflicting
dogmas, the hypothesis was thought to be conclusively estab-
lished. To prove that Christianity was not self-contradictory
was thought to be the same thing as proving it to be true.
A mode of enquiry which starts from the assumption that a
certain conclusion is to be accepted if not demonstrably
false, implies a mere dumbshow of agreement. The funda-
mental canon of criticism must be, that we should remain in
doubt where the evidence is insufficient. The fundamental
axiom of the apologists was to maintain dogmatic certainty
until a negative was demonstrated. The orthodox reasoners
transferred to an inappropriate sphere the presumption of the
English law, that a man is innocent till his guilt is proved.
They forgot that, in the court of criticism, we are bound to
take the most probable opinion without regard to conse-
quences. A judge may not imprison a man, though he thinks
it probable that he is a forger ; but a critic, with the same
evidence before him, would reject the suspicious document.
5. When the infidel failed to convict the evangelists of
lying or blundering, the apologists assumed that every word
must needs be true. Their antagonists, meanwhile, tacitly
admitted, or at any rate failed explicitly to deny, the justice
of these assumptions. The prestige which still enveloped the
old narrative awed even its impugners into mere desultory
and unsystematic attacks. It followed that not only was
there no accepted test for judging the accuracy of historical
statements, but the very possibility of framing such a test was
not distinctly contemplated. The contention being as to the
reality of alleged supernatural manifestations, no attempt had
been made to settle the canons by which the credibility of
such narratives could be measured. The apologists held, and
their opponents scarcely denied, that it was reasonable to
believe statements, if made in the Bible, which would be at
once rejected if they were found in Herodotus or Livy. The
1 90 CRITICAL DEISM.
deists cavilled at them in detail, without raising the general
question. And yet it is plain that a settlement of the question
is a necessary preliminary to any serious investigation. The
credibility of alleged miracles affects not a statement here
and there, but every step in the argument and the whole
method of enquiry. The supernatural element cannot be
cut out of the narrative without disintegrating the structure
and reducing it from an infallible and flawless record, before
which human reason can only bow with wonder, to a variety
of more or less authentic documents full of error, from which
the truth, so far as ascertainable, must be distilled in the
critical laboratory. In the latter case, we must start with a
Complex apparatus, which, in the former, must be discarded
from the beginning. Men were either raised from the dead
l,8oo years ago or they were not. No middle term is possible,
eagerly as commentators have tried to devise one or to evade
the inevitable dilemma. Rational criticism is possible only
on the constant assumption that the phenomena have always
been governed by laws now in operation. Admit a systematic
interference, or even an occasional interference, and we are at
once hopelessly at sea without a compass. The first test of
the credibility of an ancient document which, in the absence
of collateral testimony, can be tried only by its inherent pro-
bability, vanishes, and we are left to prostrate ourselves in
hopeless submission before an authority amenable to no
human tribunal. Criticism, indeed, might be negatively
confirmatory of the records, so far as it might be forced to
admit its own incapacity for solving the problem and to
recognise the presence of some element beyond its sphere
of judgment. But it can find no mean between complete
sovereignty and unequivocal abdication.
6. If, at the present day, a vacillation upon this point is
frequently observable, the absence of even a dim perception
of its necessity hopelessly vitiated the earlier school of
criticism. The necessity of settling the * primary axioms
applicable to the problems in hand gradually emerged under
the attempts at solution. For here, as elsewhere, the actual
progress of enquiry reversed the logical order ; and remote
corollaries were discussed whilst axioms were still unsettled.
The confusion thus produced was, however, only one result of
/. INTRODUCTORY. 191
a still more deeply-seated error. Whilst belief in the mira-
culous nature of the Bible history still survived, belief in the
continued agency of supernatural powers was daily growing
fainter. There was nothing which shocked the imagination
in the time-honoured legend of miraculous assistance vouch-
safed to the Hebrew Joshua ; but it was no more believed
that the same power would help the strategy of Marlborough
than it is now believed that it would help the strategy of
Moltke.
7. History was thus broken into two parts, divided by an
impassable gulf. Palestine had been the scene of the con-
tinuous action of supernatural forces, culminating in the
stupendous miracle of the Incarnation. The first act of
the world's drama was separated from the succeeding by
the intervention of divine personages, whose influence was
marked by catastrophes of corresponding magnitude. The
modified rationalism of Protestantism had almost erected
into a dogma the opinion of the cessation of miraculous powers
in the Church. The period of the change was matter of con-
troversy, but the miraculous was forced to recede into a dim
vista of distant ages. Meanwhile, not only the orthodox, but
the deists, retained the old conception of the world's history,
whilst rejecting the ideas essentially bound up with it.
Modern science everywhere banishes catastrophes both i.om
the history of man and of his dwelling-place. But the doctrine
of the continuity of history had then dawned upon none but
the greatest minds. The deists, therefore, retained catas-
trophes, even whilst rejecting a belief in the only power that
could produce them. They were, indeed, beginning to upset
the preconceived notions of the exceptional character of
the biblical history, by pointing out that the world included
numerous races and religious sects besides the Jews and the
Christians. The gradual realisation of this truth supplied
here, as elsewhere, the most important leverage for breaking
up the old opinions. It abolished the belief in an exceptional
history as in an exclusive heaven for believers. But, as yet,
though the prestige of the orthodox creed was assailed, and
deists hinted that Moses was not much better than Mahomet,
no rational theory was suggested to replace the old one.
The deists, one might almost say, admitted the miracles, but
193 CRITICAL DEISM.
attributed them to men instead of God. They held that
political constitutions had been invented at one bound by
legislators, and religions by priests ; whilst their opponents
held that both had been dictated by the Almighty. Ly-
curgus had made the laws of Sparta, and Moses the laws of
the Jews, though it was still disputable whether Moses was
an impostor or an inspired prophet. In the same way, we
find that it was assumed as a matter of course that language
must either have been 'invented,' or given by direct inter-
position of Providence. The absence of any true historical
sense involves two apparently contradictory assumptions ; on
the one hand, that primeval history recorded a series of events
entirely different from any known to modern experience ; on
the other hand, that the early legislators were animated by
views precisely like those of an eighteenth-century politician,
and had deliberately contemplated all the results attributed
to his action. Before the utter unreality of such views could
be appreciated, the imagination required to be trained to a
perception of the essential likenesses and contrasts of an
earlier and later phase of society. The ancients were con-
ceived as men of the modern type under the action of a
totally different set of laws, instead of being regarded as men
in a different mental stage under the action of precisely the
same laws. The general assumption of divines was that the
old order of society was exceptional ; and if the deists disputed
this doctrine when explicitly stated, the conception which
they proposed to substitute was almost equally unnatural.
The hypothesis which both sides overlooked was the only
one now conceivable.
8. It is needless to touch at length on the want of scien-
tific data. The perception of the comparative shortness of
the historical period has been only less important than the
perception of the smallness of the area of true believers in the
world. To say that the world began 6,000 years ago is to
make some spasmodic interference from without absolutely
necessary. Time was required to give elbow-room for the
development of modern society by natural causes ; and, till a
very late period, it was supposed that, even if the scriptural
dates were erroneous, the attempt to maintain any other
chronology was hopeless, The shortness of the time which
I. INTRODUCTORY. 193
has elapsed since the Flood convinces Hartley that both
language and writing must have been given by direct mi-
raculous agency. 1 The Christian apologists ridiculed, with
some reason, the attempts of the deists to rely upon the
fabulous dates given in Egyptian or Chinese annals ; and
geology was, as yet, on the side of the orthodox. ' To any-
one,' says Berkeley, ' who considers that, on digging into the
earth, such quanties of shells, and, in some places, bones and
horns of animals, are found sound and entire, after having lain
there, in all probability, some thousands of years, it should seem
probable that gems, medals, and implements in metal or stone
might have lasted entire, buried under ground forty or fifty
thousand years, if the world had been so old. How comes
it. then,' he triumphantly asks, 'that no remains are
found ? ' 2 The relics of primeval man had not yet revealed
the Bronze and Stone ages, and till near the end of the century
the same argument was used with equal confidence. The
Deluge was a difficulty to Voltaire, instead of Voltaire's
antagonists. It is little that the change of facts has forced
theologians to abandon the historic accuracy of Jewish
legends, but it was of vast importance that room should be
made for the theory of evolution.
9. The result of all this is that, in witnessing the assault
and the attack, we are beset by a strange sense of unreality.
Theologians are striving to support the existence of a set of
phantoms placed in an uncongenial atmosphere, where their
ultimate doom is certain, and fancying that they have won a
decisive victory, when they have shown that the fatal blow has
not yet been struck. The deists, feeling vaguely the unreality
of the dogmas opposed to them, are yet unable to discover
the open secret. Admitting incautiously the accuracy of
their opponents' assumptions, they aim their blows at trifling
external weaknesses, and fail to strike at the heart. The
development of this part of the deist controversy illustrates
the mode by which the questions at issue gradually got them-
selves stated in terms less unworthy of a rational conception of
the history of the human race.
1 Hartley, prop. Ixxxiii.
2 Berkeley, ' Minute Philosopher,' dial. vi. 23.
VOL. I. O
194 CRITICAL DEISM.
II. LESLIE'S SHORT METHOD.
10. The first book of any importance, and one of the most
characteristic of the whole controversy, was provoked by an
early and crude manifestation of rationalism. Charles Blount,
a man of some ability and a vigorous supporter of the revo-
lution, was a disciple of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who is
regarded by Leland, with some plausibility, as the progenitor
of the whole race of deists. Like Tindal, in the next century,
Herbert and Blount had maintained the sufficiency of natural
religion, though in their hands the doctrine had taken a some-
what different form. They accepted the challenge, so often put
to Protestant writers, of giving a list of ' fundamentals,' and
their lists did not include any of the specific doctrines of
Christianity. Poor Blount sent a bullet through his brains
in 1693, because the law would not permit him to marry his
deceased wife's sister. In the year of his death appeared a
book called the ' Oracles of Reason ;' in 1695 it was repub-
lished by Charles Gildon Pope's 'Gildon of the venal quill'
with some other tracts, and a silly preface in defence of
suicide. The magniloquent title covers a meagre collection
of tracts, stated to be written by Blount and his friends, which
contain the germs of the ordinary deist argument. A kind
of rudimentary scepticism is manifested in regard to some of
the Old Testament miracles, and the story of the Fall is
ridiculed under cover of the opinion recently advanced in
Burnet's ' Archaeologia Philosophica ' that it permitted or
required an allegorical interpretation. A Life of Apollonius
Tyanaeus, previously published by Blount, had been supposed
and probably with reason to indicate a disposition to set
up a rival to the workers of Christian miracles, and perhaps
to the Founder of the religion. Though the scepticism em-
bodied in these writings is of the most veiled and modest
character, it was enough to provoke the wrath of the robust
theologians of those days. The monster who has since re-
vealed all his terrors was not then permitted to show so much
as the end of a claw without summary vengeance being
inflicted upon him.
11. The supposed insult to Christianity brought Charles
//. LESLIE'S SHORT METHOD, 195
\Leslie into the field. Leslie was pronounced by Johnson to
have been the only nonjuror who could -reason. He was, in
fact, no despicable master of the art of expressing pithy argu-
ments in vigorous English. His honourable independence of
character attached him to the fortunes of a small and declining
party ; whilst his pugnacity plunged him into controversies
with almost every section of the majority. Besides numerous
political skirmishes, he found time to carry on operations
against Quakers, Deists, Socinians, Jews, and Papists. The
far more surprising circumstance is stated, that he had the
almost unique honour of converting several of his antagonists.
Amongst those who surrendered to his prowess was Gildon,
who put forth his recantation some years afterwards in a
flabby repetition of the regular commonplaces, called the
' Deist's Manual.' The pleasure of dragging a captive infidel
in triumph must have been diminished by the consciousness
that he was so poor a creature ; but we might turn over a
long list of controversial writers without finding one who had
even a Gildon to boast of.
12. The book which worked this conversion was intended
by its author to extirpate the whole accursed generation at a
blow, and was therefore honoured with the significant title,
' A Short and Easy Method with the Deists.' Leslie fancied
that a single blast would be enough to disperse the little
cloud no bigger than a man's hand. No faint suspicion had
crossed his mind that it was destined to expand and darken
with the coming years, till the light of the whole heaven
should be intercepted. There is something pathetic about
the fancy that, by arresting the little rivulet of unbelief, the
whole mighty current of revolutionary thought could have
been dried up. And yet Leslie, without knowing it, was
making a vast concession. He was implicitly admitting the
justice of the demand frequently put forward by the deists in
one form or another, to the effect that a religion ought to be
not merely demonstrable, but so plain that formal demon-
stration should be all but superfluous. If the belief in a
certain set of dogmas was compulsory upon all men, the
evidence of the dogmas should stare them in the face. The
truth of Christianity should not require a long investigation,
but be written in letters which he that ran might read.
o 2
196 CRITICAL DEISM,
When it was discovered that no such proof was producible,
theologians were not slow to discover that the demand for it
was unreasonable. At present it seemed that a plain and
easy answer was at hand, and Leslie accepted the challenge
in the spirit of an invincible champion. He proposed to lay
down a test so simple, unequivocal, and easy of application,
that doubt should be henceforth impossible to the candid
enquirer. Every honest man should have in his hand an
Ithuriel's spear, the mere touch of which should instanta-
neously detect imposture and reveal the truth. 1
13. The test proposed by Leslie was expressed in four
rules, destined to try the truth of alleged matters of fact.
They are expressed as follows : ' First, That the matter of
fact be such, as that men's outward senses, their eyes and
ears, may be judges of it. Second, That it be done publicly,
in face of the world. Third, That not only public monu-
ments be kept up in honour of it, but some outward actions
to be performed. Fourth, That such monuments and such
actions or observances be instituted and do commence from
the time the matter of fact was done.' 2 The first two rules,
he says, make deception impossible at the time ; the last two
make it impossible at any subsequent period. The application
of these tests establishes the truth of the Mosaic records and
of the Gospels ; and establishes equally the falsehood of the
Mahommedan religion.
14. Leslie, it may be observed in passing, is a rationalist
in principle. As a High Churchman he is able to discover
his four marks in the institution of episcopacy, and has,
indeed, arranged them in such a manner as to be specially
suitable to sacramental and sacerdotal theories. He is, how-
ever, logical enough to find his ultimate ground of belief, not
in authority, but in evidence. ' I receive the Scriptures,' he
says, ' upon the testimony, not authority, of the Church ; and
I examine that testimony as I do other facts, till I have
satisfied my private judgment there is no other way.' 3 Though
he admits the Church to be in some sense the ' only and
supreme judge of faith,' 4 he adds that there is an appeal to
God from the Church, and the Church is bound to produce
1 Leslie, 'Theol. Works,' vol. i. 12. 2 Ib. i. 12.
1 'Tract on Private Authority and Judgment,' ib. i. 390. 4 Ib. i. 404.
//. LESLIE'S SHORT METHOD. [97
credentials satisfactory in the eye of reason. We believe the
Scriptures, as he says elsewhere, 1 for the same reason that we
believe that there is such a man as Alexander or Caesar, or
that there is such a town as Rome or Constantinople namely,
because there is overpowering evidence in their favour of
the belief. The truth of Christianity, in short, is a clear demon-
strable matter of fact, which we cannot doubt without falling
into the ' incurable scepticism ' which is really involved in the
pretensions of the Church of Rome. He urges, moreover, with
undeniable force, that the appeal to facts is the only one
open to him in a controversy with the deists. In answer to
certain dissenting ministers, who had urged the importance of
dwelling more upon the internal evidence derivable from the
beauty of the Scriptures, he explains that, though fully con-
vinced of the truth of their opinions, he had to ' do with
deists who were scoffers, and trampled these jewels under
their feet ; and therefore that some other topic must be found
out for them to persuade them by the plain principles of
reason, to which only they appealed, and of which indeed
only they were capable.' 2
15. How, then, did Leslie come to believe that the test
provided was so simple and so effective ? The fact to be
proved, he says, must have been done publicly, and a com-
memorative ceremony must have been instituted at the time.
The deists, he argues, could produce no instance of a false-
hood supported by such evidence. 3 And, indeed, when we
find that one of his antagonists quoted the ' pied piper of
Hamel,' 4 as a case in point, we see that the argumentum ad
hominem was so far tolerably effective. Credulity was not
confined to the Jewish records, and William Tell's chapel
would then have been regarded as supporting an historical
truth, instead of a groundless myth. The deists could not
produce fictions, because they had not yet detected them. Still,
it might be asked whether Leslie's proofs were applicable to
the case of Christianity. How could we know that the Passover
was instituted at the time of the events disputed ; or what
evidence is there for the date of the first celebration of the
1 ' Case stated between Churches of Rome and England,' Leslie, iii. 45.
* 'Vindication of the Short Method,' ib. i. 277.
Ib. i. 259. 4 Ib. i. 265.
198 CRITICAL DEISM.
Lord's Supper, except that which may be alleged to prove
Christ's death ? Le Clerc suggested this difficulty in the
' Bibliotheque Choisie' in 1706. Festivals, he said, were
often instituted by the heathen in memory of events which
had never happened, and referred by subsequent generations
to the period assigned for the event Leslie's reply curiously
shows his utter unconsciousness that he was begging the
question. You wholly give up the cause, he says, when you
admit that the beginnings of these institutions were not com-
mitted to history. ' For then there is no book to be confronted
with our holy Bible, which was wrote at the time when the
facts therein related were done, and the institutions in memory
of them were then made by the very actors in the facts that
is, by Moses and Christ.' l He assumes, that is, as an ulti-
mate fact, the authenticity and contemporaneity of the records;
and his reply to the critic really comes to this : the difference
between me and other people is that my records are true and
theirs are not. The odd grammar of his four marks is character-
istic of this. The second, for example, ought to be ' That it be
alleged to have been done,' &c. Leslie did not clearly see that
he was distinctly making allegation the same thing as proof. The
assumption runs through his whole argument, and is the founda-
tion for a further dilemma. If contemporaneous accounts of
miraculous events were published, the accounts must either have
been true or forged, for there is no room for the gradual
development of intellectual error. ' Could Moses,' he asks,
have persuaded 600,000 men that he had been through the
sea in the manner related in Exodus if it had not been true ?
If he could, it would have been a greater miracle than the
other.' 2 In which, indeed, there is much force, though it
never occurs to Leslie that, on this theory, to prove a miracle
you have only to invent witnesses. He dwells, indeed, on
the difficulty of subsequently producing forged records. The
book which contains the story is the statute-book of the
people, and therefore not liable to forgery. ' If I should forge
such a statute-book for England, and publish it next term,
could I make all the judges, lawyers, and people believe that
this was their true and only statute-book, by which their
causes had been determined these many hundred years
1 Leslie, i. 272. 2 'Truth of Christianity Demonstrated,' ib. i. 295.
//. LESLIE'S SHORT METHOD. 199
past?' 1 The deists were inclined to accept this awkward
alternative, and set down everything to the power of the
priests. Leslie replies that, if the priests were indeed capable
of passing off such cheats upon the laity, and of making them
believe that they had always been in the habit of doing what
they had never done, the priests must be the ' cunningest and
wisest of mankind.' 2 Nay, they would be outdoing ' all that
has ever been related of the infernal powers,' and, indeed, as
he warms to the argument, he declares that, ' as that exceeds
all the power of hell and devils, so it is more than ever God
Almighty has done since the foundation of the world,' for
God has never contradicted the evidence of our senses. This
rhetorical flourish illustrates the absurdity of the hypothesis
with which he sought to saddle the deists, and it must be ad-
mitted that, till a more rational alternative was suggested,
they were in an awkward dilemma. Sometimes, indeed,
unbelievers reared up a kind of precarious refuge by suggest-
ing the possibility of a pious fraud. Leslie roundly replies
that this theory, which is intended to preserve some respect
for the good designs of the original authors, would prove them
to be ' not only cheats and impostors, but blasphemers and
an abomination before God,' 3 and adds that, according to
' the law in the Scriptures,' they would be condemned to be
stoned to death.
1 6. The argument is rounded off by a comparison of the
claims of Christianity and other religions ; and his theory upon
this subject completes the picture of his historical conception.
There are, he says, only four religions in the world : ' Chris-
tianity, Judaism, Heathenism, and Mahommedanism.' 4 Ju-
daism is confuted by its own evidences. Heathenism, which
means apparently Paganism, is a mass of silly fables, from
which the four marks are palpably absent. The same remark
applies equally to Mahommedanism. The bare religion of
1 Leslie, i. 296. ' That an English writer of the time of Henry III. should
have been able to put off on his countrymen as a compendium of English law a
treatise of which the entire form and a third of the contents were directly borrowed
from the Corpus Juris, and that he should have ventured on this experiment in a
country where the systematic study of the Roman law was formally proscribed, will
always be among the most hopeless enigmas in the history of jurisprudence. '
Maine's 'Ancient Law,' p. 82.
* Ib. i. 44. 3 Ib. i. 291. * Ib. i. 354.
200 CRITICAL DEISM.
nature, to which the deist appeals in despair, is demonstrated to
be practically useless, by the case of the ' Hottentots at the
Cape of Good Hope, hardly distinguishable from beasts.' l
And thus we are finally brought to the conclusion that ' there
is but one religion in the world nor ever was ; ' Judaism being
Christianity in type, Heathenism a corruption, and Mahom-
medanism a heresy of Christianity ; so that all is Christianity
still. And thus we are driven to choose between the alterna-
tives that Christianity is true, or that the only religion in the
world is founded on a mass of utterly incredible imposture.
The argument might be combined with that of Prideaux's
' Letter to the Deists,' appended to a Life of Mahomet. The
question, as Prideaux conceives it, is ' whether the Christian
religion be a truth really given us by divine revelation from
God our Creator ; or else a mere human invention, contrived
by the first propagators of it to impose a cheat upon mankind.' 2
The decision is made by discovering seven marks of impos-
ture in Mahommedanism, and arguing that they cannot be
found in Christianity. Mahomet was of course regarded as a
vulgar cheat, moved solely by lust and ambition, so long as
Christian theology was strong enough to condemn all other
forms of thought religious and philosophical.
17. Leslie gives in its early form the argument which was
to serve Christian apologists for the next generations. The
assumptions which they generally covered with greater
dexterity are stated by him with the most explicit frank-
ness. People knew and could have proved that there were
other religions in the world besides the Christian ; they
knew that there was no conclusive evidence to show the
contemporaneity and authenticity of the records ; but they
tacitly accepted the bold assertions of Leslie with little diffi-
culty, because formal logic is useless till the terms employed
have really impressed the imagination. Long after the days
of Newton, the stars have often in practice been regarded as
mere lights for our paltry planet ; and the millions of the East,
long after China had been visited, were considered as a mere
appendage to the inhabitants of Palestine. The Christian
records were valued at the orthodox rate when the necessity
of some preliminary examination was admitted in theory ; and
1 Leslie, i. 365. 2 ' Letter to the Deists,' ib. p. 5.
///. COLLINS ON FREETlf INKING, iol
It was with extreme slowness that any conception of a syste-
matic investigation of the nature of the documents whose
truth was at issue dawned upon the minds of the disputants.
1 8. The question indeed was first raised in a controversy
which sprang up from an incidental remark of Toland's, in his
' Life of Milton,' 1698. In speaking of the Eikon Basilike,
he observed that the success of that forgery illustrated the
success of pieces published in primitive and uncritical times
' under the name of Christ, his Apostles, and other great
persons ; ' and adds a hint that ' the spuriousness of several
more such books was yet undiscovered.' * His enemies were
already convinced that his words deserved the worst interpre-
tation in all cases ; in this, they not unnaturally assumed that
he was referring to the books of the sacred canon ; and a con-
troversial pamphlet or two was aimed at him. Toland, in a
pamphlet entitled ' Amyntor/ disavowed the imputed mean-
ing, and declared that he had in his mind only some such
books as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Pastor of Hernias. 2
The most remarkable result of the controversy was its share
in suggesting Lardner's elaborate work upon the ' Credibility
of the Gospel History,' which, in its turn, supplied Paley
with his best materials for the ' Evidences of Christianity.'
///. COLLINS ON FREETHINKING.
19. The adoption of this mode of attack would probably
have required more boldness than the deists were as yet pre-
pared to show. The writings of Collins, who succeeded Toland
as the most prominent representative of Deism, curiously illus-
trate the timidity of the assault. The infidelity, indeed,
though covert, was sufficiently unmistakable to explain the
storm of indignation aroused ; but the method adopted was
calculated to provide at least an ostensible retreat from im-
putations of direct hostility to Christianity. Commentators
had unconsciously provided an ambush, from which deists
could aim their weapons in comparative security. The critical
study of the Scriptures had made progress, though with a
1 'Life of Milton,' pp. 91, 92. 2 'Amyntor,' p. 44.
202 CRITICAL DEISM.
narrow limitation of its sphere ; and reason had been called in
as an auxiliary before it was allowed to assert its independence.
The office assigned to it was to restore the fair proportions of
the sacred edifice, to remove superficial blemishes and the
accretions of darker ages, and so reveal the perfect symmetry
and mutual interdependence of the whole. Restoration, as in
another kind of architecture, was perilously near to destruc-
tion ; and these industrious and pious labourers, using an
instrument whose powers they little understood, were really
sapping the foundations of their faith, or at least laying bare
to profane inspection the weak places by which an entrance
might be forced. To explain a difficulty is to signalise its
existence ; and even the bare fact that criticism was regarded
as applicable to the Bible was at once fatal to the popular
conception of its absolute, flawless, and supernatural per-
fection. To explain that you are only removing the external
rust is vain ; for who shall say where the rust ends and the
true substance begins ? The popular instinct is nearer the
truth than the fluent explanations of plausible critics. Give
up the puritancial reverence for the letter, and everything
else is a question of time. The admixture of a human ele-
ment once granted, it becomes practically impossible to assign
bounds to critical enquiry.
20. Amongst other methods by which it was attempted to
evade difficulties, with the single result of making them more
conspicuous, one ingenious device, sanctioned not only by
recent commentators, but by the practice of reverend antiquity,
was specially convenient for the purposes of the deists. The
spiritual insight of reverent minds, when shocked by certain
passages in the Bible, had taken refuge in the naive device of
allegorical interpretation. Indeed, in those early days when
criticism was as yet inconceivable, the fathers had often
spoken of the literal meaning of the Scriptures with a contempt
which would have shocked the less robust faith of their suc-
cessors. A believer writing to believers could take liberties
with the text in unsuspicious innocence, from which rational-
ising divines shrank in the presence of Bayle and Le Clerc.
The border-line between the domains of reason and fancy was
so ill-defined, that it is difficult to understand how much
weight the writers themselves attached to what frequently
///. COLLINS ON FREETHINKING. 203
appears to us to be a childish display of such ingenuity as is
more fitly applied to the manufacture of conundrums. Their
fancy had run riot in obedience to mere caprice or a serious
wish to spiritualise the narrative by however crude a device.
Quaint analogies were detected between the Old and New
Testament, which served as flying buttresses to support the
temple, whilst bolder adventurers had gone still deeper, and
tried to improve the solid foundation of facts by an admixture
of the most arbitrary fancies. Nothing could better suit the
purpose of the deists. A denial of the literal truth of the
Scriptures might be covered by an ostensible substitution of
the fanciful interpretation. The allegory served the purpose
of the props by which a mine is supported beneath a fortress.
When the excavation was properly made, and the assailants
had withdrawn, they would collapse and bring down the whole
in ruin. The device had already been illustrated in the dis-
cussion about the Garden of Eden. Burnet had used allegory,
as it would seem in perfectly good faith, to get rid of diffi-
culties ; and Blount had quoted him, in the hope of showing
them to be insoluble.
21. The advance of the controversy during its earlier
stages was determined by these considerations. The first
attack made by Collins turned simply upon the general doubts
raised by the progress of criticism. In the next attack he
took advantage of the flimsiness of the external supports of
prophetic interpretation. And afterwards the same line of
assault was pushed further by Woolston, who attempted to
convert into allegory the most essential facts of historical
Christianity. The deists, as will presently appear, had in
many ways the worst of the argument ; but the spirit of doubt,
once evoked, spread by a kind of spontaneous process, and
gradually bit more deeply into the substance of the old
system. The first vague whisperings of suspicion that
criticism might prove fatal to the theory of flawless accuracy
which had passed current in the days of unquestioning
faith, became gradually articulated into definite assertions
that this or that part of the history was actually erroneous.
At each step in their progress, the deists received a reply
which, in the then state of critical enquiry, was formally
sufficient. And yet each step provoked a further enquiry,
204 CRITICAL DEISM.
until the sceptical spirit culminated in Hume's systematic denial
of the truth of all miraculous narratives. The reason was,
doubtless, that the orthodox arguments, though they satisfied
all the requirements of syllogisms, involved assumptions which
were weakened by the mere fact that they were questioned.
Though the deists could not establish actual contradictions in
the books of Scripture, the mere habit of applying to the
Scriptures the ordinary tests of critical enquiry, tended to
destroy the sacred awe by which they had been guarded.
The defence, too, was as damaging as the assault ; for though
every breach was repaired, the singular straits to which the
defenders were driven raised a strong presumption that the
position was not impregnable. Though each attack might
hitherto have failed, success in any one attack would be fatal.
22. The champions who fought out the first battle on this
ground were most unequally matched. Anthony Collins, a
country gentleman, of much more than average reading and
ability, a favoured disciple of Locke,' and, by the confession
of hostile writers, a man of amiable character and high
integrity in private life, had already directed some pamphlets
against the orthodox views. The most remarkable are
attempts to develop the arguments already suggested by
Toland. In one (i/io) he criticises King's sermon upon
Predestination ; and argues, by help of principles adopted
from Bayle, that the legitimate tendency of King's theory
of ' analogical ' or ' metaphorical ' knowledge was in favour of
scepticism. In another ('An Essay concerning the Use of
Reason,' &c. (second edition, 1709), he attacks the distinction
between things contrary to, and above, reason, by Toland's line
of argument. His controversy with Clarke as to the nature of the
soul seems to have excited more attention. At length his ' Dis-
course of Freethinking,' published in 1713, brought down upon
him the sledge-hammer of Bentley's criticism. The energy
of the blow was worthy of that sinewy blacksmith of litera-
ture. Collins was considered to have been pulverised by the
shock. Dr. Hare greeted Bentley's labours with an ' extrava-
gantly laudatory pamphlet ; ' 2 and the Cambridge Senate
1 See the affectionate letters written to Collins by Locke. Locke's Works,
vol. ix. See, too, Mr. Fox Bourne's ' Life of Locke.'
* See Monk's 'Bentley,' i. 348; ii. 43 and 232.
///. COLLINS ON FREETHINKING. 205
passed a unanimous vote of thanks. Hare, at a later period,
found out that Bentley's merits were alloyed with serious de-
fects ; but they had then quarrelled over their rival editions of
Terence, or, as Newton put it, the two divines were fighting
over a play-book. Bentley left his work unfinished because
the court refused to back him in the demand for certain
academical fees, and consequently discovered that ' those
whom he wrote for were as bad as those he wrote against'
The phrase implies a queer confusion between the interests of
the Church of Christ and those of the Court of George I. The
zeal for true religion did not in those days burn with the
purest of flames.
23. Meanwhile, however, Bentley's book had, undoubtedly,
all the outward appearance and some of the reality of a con-
clusive refutation of his antagonist. It breathes that uncom-
promising spirit of hostility which rather shocks our milder
generation, but which, to do him justice, implies a genuine
conviction of the goodness of his cause. Bentley not only
treats Collins as a fool and a knave, but obviously believes
him to be both. The contempt of a powerful reasoner for a
shuffling caviller, of a thoroughly trained and deeply learned
critic for a mere dabbler in literature, and the hatred of a
theologian for a man who holds a different opinion, are
blended in every paragraph, and animate the terse manly
Bentleian style. That masculine sense which has been mani-
fested in many different forms of English writing by Chil-
lingworth, Swift, Cobbett, and other sturdy gladiators of the
breed, informs the letters of ' Phileleutherus Lipsiensis '
Bentley's pseudonym. He, of course, holds that his anta-
gonist objects to religion because he has a personal interest
in denying the existence of hell ; l and he gives a broad
hint that the government might be forced to suppress the
liberty which had been abused for such wicked purposes. 2
But the arguments arise from no suspicion that any logical
gaps in them require supplementary aid.
24. Collins's discourse was directed to establish two pro-
positions ; one which it was possible openly to avow, the other
needing a certain veil of decent evasion. He argued in defence of
the fundamental tenet of rationalism, namely that all sound
1 Bentley, ' Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,' sec. 13. 2 Ib. sec. 14.
206 CRITICAL DEISM.
belief must be based on free enquiry. Bentley naturally
replies by claiming this as his own, and, indeed, goes rather
beyond fair limits, by asserting further that no one, not even the
Roman Catholics, denied it. 1 But, in addition to this, Collins
was evidently anxious to prove that the adoption of
rationalist principles would involve the abandonment of a
belief in supernaturalism. This opinion, however, is not dis-
tinctly enunciated nor clearly separated from that upon which
it is based. It may be doubted how far Collins had pushed
his own logic, and the result is to impress upon his book a
character of shuffling and subterfuge. He thus gives many
advantages to the vigorous reasoner who opposed him. When,
for example, he gives instances of the power of freethought to
disperse superstition, and claims various great men as free-
thinkers, Bentley convicts him of unworthy shuffling. The
freethinking and the freethinkers, he says in effect, are on
my side, and not on yours ; and undoubtedly there was
much plausibility in the claim. ' The devil,' says Collins truly,
' is entirely banished the United Provinces, where freethinking
is in the greatest perfection ; whereas all round about that
commonwealth, he appears in various shapes, sometimes in
his own, and sometimes in the shape of an old black gentle-
man, sometimes in that of a dead man, sometimes in that
of a cat.' 2 To this Bentley replies, with infinite scorn,
that the honour of routing the devil belonged, not to the sect
of freethinkers, but to the Royal Society, the Boyles and the
Newtons. Nothing could be more true and more apparently
conclusive. Bentley did not admit, nor did Collins explicitly
maintain, that, though Newton was even slavish in his
adherence to the letter, Newton might be, in reality, an uncon-
scious ally of the despised freethinkers. A similar perplexity
runs through Collins's attempts to quote the authority of various
ancient and modern celebrities. His book is concluded by a
singular list, stretching from Socrates to the Archbishop (Til-
lotson), 'whom all English freethinkers own as their head.' 3 He
quotes various passages in order to show the bias of these
leaders of thought ; and it was here that his luckless transla-
tions exposed him to Bentley 's most cutting taunts. Poor
Collins's scholarship is slashed and torn till pity, if pity were
1 Bentley, sec. 5. - Collins, p. 28. 3 Ib. p. 171.
///. COLLINS ON FREETHINKING. 207
a possible emotion towards a deist, might have touched some
of his opponents. It is a case in which it is impossible to
avoid the hackneyed allusion to the fourth-form schoolboy.
The only excuse, indeed, for some of Collins's blunders is that
he is not so much quoting Cicero as an authority for his
opinions, as using Cicero's language to provide a convenient
mask for his thoughts. This is only disingenuous so far as
all irony may be regarded as disingenuous. The argument
itself suffers from the old ambiguity. If Collins included as
freethinkers all who differed from the prevalent creed of the
time, Bentley would not deny that freethinkers had done
good service. He would admit the claim, and add that Chris-
tianity could produce its millions of martyrs to a single
Socrates. If, on the other hand, Collins meant, as Bentley
assumed him to insinuate, that all these freethinkers were
atheists, then he was palpably wrong. It does not seem to
occur to either disputant to allege or deny with sufficient
clearness that modern freethinkers could claim to be acting
on the same methods as ancient Christians and philosophers,
although with different results. And thus Collins lays him-
self fairly open by attempting not only to vindicate the right
of freethought, but to insinuate that it must uniformly tend
towards Deism, or, as Bentley would have said, Atheism.
Freethinking, like Rationalism, had indeed acquired a special
connotation by a very natural process ; and the ambiguity of
Collins's language enabled Bentley to win a decided victory.
That freethought in its strictest sense would, in fact, lead
away from orthodoxy, yet remained to be proved, and till
the problem was solved by experiment, Bentley was unas-
sailable.
25. The chief weight of the controversy really rested upon
one point. Collins, as Shaftesbury had recently done, quoted
the remarkable passage from Jeremy Taylor's ' Liberty of
Prophesying,' in which the great divine, abandoning himself, as
he so often does, to his marvellous flow of rhetoric, sums up
all the difficulties which attend the interpretation of the
Scriptures. Taylor's argument was indeed identical with that
of the deists. He says, in most forcible words, that the in-
terpretation of Scripture is attended with so many difficulties
that we should not punish anyone for arriving at a wrong
208 CRITICAL DEISM.
conclusion. Collins proceeds to give instances of the widely
different opinions which have been in fact reached by divines ;
and Bentley's summary dismissal of the argument as ' thread-
bare obsolete stuff ' 1 was more daring than satisfactory. Bos-
suet could have helped Collins to a few more illustrations of
his doctrine. The most impressive statement, however, was
to the effect that Dr. Mills, Bentley's early friend and patron,
had discovered 30,000 new readings in the New Testament.
Dr. Mills' announcement had already scandalised the versatile
divine, Dr. Whitby, and was frequently turned to account by
the deists. Bentley's reply was, within certain limits, complete
and crushing. He proves, that is, beyond all cavil, that the
existence of that or a greater number of readings need not
render the text doubtful. So far as Collins meant to assert
that the text was entirely uncertain in consequence of these
variations, he was convicted of utter critical incompetence.
Yet Bentley's argument, it must be added, implies the aban-
donment of the old Protestant theory. The Bible is so far
from being an absolutely flawless document, that the determi-
nation of the text involves the use of a complete critical
apparatus altogether beyond ordinary expositors. Collins
had said that very extensive knowledge was required in order
to understand the Bible satisfactorily. Bentley snatches at
the statement in order to taunt Collins as disqualified by his
own admission from biblical criticism. 2 The triumph of
Bentley's logic is complete ; but it leads directly to the ad-
missions that the dogma of verbal inspiration is untenable, and
that the common theory, put forward by many Christian
advocates, of the fitness of every common artisan to be a
judge of the evidences of religion, is absurd, and Bentley
admits the competence of that court of historical criticism,
before which his dogmas were sure to receive a serious trial.
Collins's crude notions of the functions of criticism were easily
exposed, yet he indeed sees the point pretty clearly, as appears
from a note in a subsequent edition. He shows that the
Bible is so far reduced to the level of other books, if not, as
he adds, below that level, from the fact that sects had an
interest in the introduction of spurious readings. 3 Collins,
however, is clearly wrong on the immediate issue, though at
1 Bentley, sec. 26. 2 Ib. sec. 8. * See Dutch edition, pp. 72, 73.
///. COLLINS ON FREETHINKING. 209
bottom Bentley was equally unconscious of the true nature of
that tremendous power which he was setting to work. Bent-
ley's triumph, so far as it is genuine, is thus significant of the
same fact. Theologians could still honestly claim to be the
truest rationalists arid the most legitimate freethinkers, be-
cause the destructive agency of science and criticism could be
as yet but dimly suspected. Those who ventured, like Collins,
to foretell the coming deluge could be safely ridiculed, when
as yet there was but a cloud as big as a man's hand. And,
for the time, their defeat was crushing. It is only right to
add that, in some cases, Bentley is content with triumphing
over his opponent's blunders in scholarship, and leaves the
argument substantially untouched. 1
26. By a curious infelicity, poor Collins exposed himself
to the attack of the keenest satirist, as well as the acutest
critic, in the English language. 2 Swift attacked him with that
strangely ingenious irony of which he possessed the secret ;
for to Swift, who was then at the height of his intimacy with
Bolingbroke, an infidel who expressed his infidelity was hate-
ful, and specially hateful if, like Collins, ~Ke\ was a Whig and
a professed hater of priests fron^ SachevereJ/dpwards. Collins,
moreover, had given provocattcai-bylestfngly proposing in the
Discourse to draft off such ' zealous divines ' 3 as Atterbury,
Swift, and others, to propagate the gospel in foreign parts ;
the Church of England would then, he suggested, triumph
through the world and faction cease at home. The retaliation
came in the shape of a tract called ' Mr. Collins' Discourse of
Freethinking, put into plain English, by way of abstract for
the use of the Poor.' It may be read as a convenient substi-
tute for Collins's tract, which was always slipshod in style
and argument, and is now tedious, in spite of its shortness.
Swift's abstract is, of course, caricatured ; but his arguments
only require toning down to make them an accurate copy of
the original ; whilst the irony of facts, more powerful even
than Swift's, has converted not a few of the arguments which
1 For some imputations on Collins's behaviour in regard to this controversy,
see note at end of this chapter.
2 Collins's book must have been published in 1712, though dated 1713.
Swift mentions his answer in the Journal to Stella, in Jan. i6th, I7i|.
* Collins, p. 43.
VOL. I. P
2io CRITICAL DEISM.
to him appeared as burlesque absurdities into sober truisms.
A short specimen reveals the nature of the device. ' The
priests tell me,' says Swift, in his character of abstract maker,
' I am to believe in the Bible, but freethinking tells me other-
wise in many particulars. The Bible says the Jews were a
nation favoured by God ; but I who am a freethinker say
that cannot be, because the Jews lived in a corner of the earth,
and freethinking makes it plain that those who live in corners
cannot be favourites of God. The New Testament all along
asserts the truth of Christianity, but freethinking denies it,
because Christianity was communicated but to few, and
whatever is communicated but to a few cannot be true ; for
that is like whispering, and the proverb says, that there is no
whispering without lying.' * This and much more is admirable
fooling, and Collins must have been annoyed at seeing his
excellent arguments thus endowed with a cap and bells, and
yet having a provoking appearance of preserving their identity.
The attack was specially unkind from the author of the
' Tale of a Tub.' Collins in his Discourse had indulged in
some rather feeble satire about a certain imaginary standard
of 'eyesight faith.' A juggler might order his followers to
believe that a ball could go through a table, that a thread
could be burnt and made whole again, and so forth. 2 Such
fun reminds us of Swift's tremendous buffoonery as to the
dogmas enforced by Lord Peter, but is poor and colourless
in comparison. The real difference is, that Swift's contempt for
the follies of mankind at large is incomparably more thorough-
going and effective than Collins's contempt for the vagaries of
priests.
27. The main argument which Swift interweaves in his sar-
casms is, in fact, the argument from misanthropy. All men
are fools ; therefore freethinking is an absurdity. Freethinkers
are knaves as well as fools, and therefore their conclusions
are contemptible. ' The bulk of mankind,' to use his own
language, ' is as well qualified for flying as for thinking.' 3 If
they persist in trying to perform the operation which they
mistake for thinking, we shall degenerate into a wretched
rabble of Quakers, Anabaptists, Papists, and Muggletonians.
1 Swift's Works (edition 1859), vol. ii. 195. 2 'Discourse,' &c., p. 17.
1 Swift, ii. 197.
///. COLLINS ON FREETHINKINb. 211
In all which/ indeed, there is no small substratum of very
sound sense, which might be worth pondering by those who
held that liberty of thought implied the capacity of every
ignorant and stupid man to solve the great problem without
assistance. If anarchy were the only alternative to arbitrary
authority, the choice might be difficult. Reason still appeared
in its purely destructive aspect ; and the prospect of de-
veloping a rational authority from the free play of argu-
ment was not very brilliant to those who shared Swift's
opinion of the deists. ' It is objected,' he says, 1 speaking
as the expounder of Collins, ' that freethinkers themselves
are the most infamous, wicked, and senseless of all mankind.
I answer, first, we say the same of priests and other believers.
But the truth is, men of all sects are equally good and bad ;
for no religion whatsoever contributes in the least to mend
men's lives. 1 answer, secondly, that freethinkers use their
understanding ; but those who have religion do not ; there-
fore the first have more understanding than the others ; wit-
ness Toland, Tindal, Gildon, Glendon, Coward, and myself.
For, use legs and have legs. I answer, thirdly, that free-
thinkers are the most virtuous persons in the world, for all
freethinkers most certainly differ from the priests and from
999 of 1000 of those among whom they live, and are
therefore virtuous, of course, because everybody hates them.'
What, in short, was to be expected from these wretched
scribblers, these denizens of Grub Street and revilers of dig-
nitaries, making feeble attacks in slipshod English, with half-
understood scraps of learning, upon men like Bentley and
Swift, in the attempt to persuade a rabble as ignorant as
themselves ? Let them be hooted down as enemies of Church
and State, and rejoice if they escaped flogging.
Poor Collins, frightened by the storm he had raised,
retired for a time to Holland, and was ridiculed for his
cowardice by the men who had been crying out for perse-
cution. 2 He was not however crushed, though for a time his
defeat seemed to be conclusive.
1 Swift, p. 198.
2 ' If ever man deserved to be denied the common benefits of air and water, it
is the author of a discourse of freethinking.' 'Guardian,' No. 3 (a paper attri-
buted either to the admirable Berkeley or the good-natured Steele.)
P 2
2i2 CRITICAL DEISM.
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY.
28. In 1724 he returned to the attack in a book de-
clared by Warburton to be one of the most plausible ever
written against Christianity. The hostile intention is covered
by a transparent disguise. The mask of which he availed
himself was provided by one of the most eccentric writers
of the period. William Whiston was a man of real learn-
ing, and sufficiently distinguished as a mathematician to
be the successor of Newton in the Lucasian professorship.
Unluckily, he was destined, like his great predecessor, to
illustrate the truth that a man may be an eminent mathema-
tician and a childish theologian. The utmost ingenuity in tracing
out remote and complex consequences of established truths
may be consistent with a singular incapacity for dealing with
evidence. Our national reverence for Newton's scientific
achievements has deterred us from laughing at his dabblings
in the interpretation of prophecy ; and, indeed, sighs rather
than smiles should greet the melancholy spectacle of a noble
intellect running to waste in puzzling over meaningless
riddles. Poor Whiston has not the same claim upon our
tenderness. And yet we feel for him something of the pitying
kindness which he generally excited in his contemporaries.
With a childlike simplicity worthy of the Vicar of Wakefield,
he was ready to sacrifice all his prospects rather than disavow
or disguise a tittle of his creed. Had that creed been one of
greater significance, disciples would have revered him as a
worthy martyr, and adversaries regarded him as dangerous
in proportion to his virtue. Unluckily it was a creed unten-
able by any man of sound intellect. It was filled with
queer crotchets picked up in various byways of learning, and
valued by the collector in proportion to their oddity. Friends
and opponents for he had no enemies regarded his ab-
surdities with a pitying smile, and were glad to see him pick
up a harmless living by giving astronomical lectures and
publishing pamphlets on a vast variety of subjects. He was a
friend of Clarke, who sympathised with some of his sentiments,
though not equally candid in avowing them ; and the chief sup-
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 213
porter of a certain society for restoring primitive Christianity,
which, in his lips, meant a form of Arianism, to which several
of the deists of the time belonged. All innovators were
naturally well disposed to this dealer in theological curiosities,
and he unintentionally rendered them some service in spread-
ing their opinions.
29. In the present case, he had published an ' Essay to-
wards restoring the true Text of the Old Testament, and
for vindicating the Citations made thence in the New Testa-
ment.' He had observed that the prophecies ordinarily in-
troduced by such formulas as ' that it might be fulfilled,' did
not bear the sense placed upon them by the Evangelists and
the writers of the Epistles. He was too honest to take refuge
in the ordinary device about a supposed double sense ; and
he therefore struck out a theory not more utterly without
foundation than most of those in which he habitually indulged
to the effect that the Jews had at an early period cor-
rupted the text of the Old Testament in order to evade the
inferences drawn from the plain words of the original. In
order to restore the text, Whiston proposed to rely upon
various old authorities, such as the Samaritan Pentateuch,
the Chaldee Paraphrases, and his favourite work the Apostolic
Constitutions, upon such quotations by the old fathers as he
supposes, for various reasons, to refer to the uncorrupted text,
and finally, to no small degree, upon his own unassisted pene-
tration. A single specimen of his method will be sufficient. 1
The words quoted by Matthew from Isaiah as to a virgin
conceiving and bearing a son, and by him applied to Christ,
have obviously a different application in the original. In
particular, the time within which the prophecy is to be
fulfilled is restricted by the words : ' Butter and honey shall
he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the
good ; for before the child shall know to refuse the evil
and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be
forsaken of both her kings.' Whiston, therefore, rearranges
the chapters in which the words occur, so as to apply these
words to the prophet's son, and the words immediately pre-
ceding to the Messiah. Collins argues that, even with these
alterations, the prophecy cannot be made to fit the facts ; but
1 See Whiston, p. 229, &c.
2i 4 CRITICAL DEISM.
Whiston is evidently prepared to shrink from no conjecture,
however fanciful, which will meet the case.
30. This argument, put forward in all simplicity by
Whiston, was turned to account by Collins. His book, called
A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian
Religion ' (1724), takes the form of an attack upon Whiston,
and his reasoning is obviously serious so long as it is super-
fluous. He shows, that is, what was abundantly plain to
every human creature, except Whiston, that Whiston's mode
of clipping and docking the prophecies to fit them to the
events was altogether preposterous. But he fully agrees with
Whiston that, without such clipping and docking, the events
cannot be made to tally with the prophecies taken in their
literal sense. The natural inference, however, is evaded
with what degree of seriousness is tolerably plain by the
device perfected by the allegorists.
31. The book is divided into two parts. The first opens
with an elaborate piece of reasoning, intended to prove that
the argument from the fulfilment of prophecy is not merely
an argument, but the one critical and essential argument for
the truth of Christianity. The claim put forward by the
Apostles and by Christ himself was simply and solely the
claim to the Jewish Messiahship. The acceptance of that claim
constituted, 1 as Locke had maintained in the ' Reasonable-
ness of Christianity,' the fundamental article of the true faith.
Even the miracles, ordinarily adduced as the proof of the
divine authority of the Gospel, could by themselves prove
nothing. We are ordered to disregard them by our Lord
himself, unless they fall in with the teaching of the earlier
revelation ; and they are significant only in so far as the
power of working miracles was one of the marks assigned by
the prophets to the character of Messiah. Thus it is in the
Old Testament alone that we are to look for the credentials
of Christianity ; and indeed, ' to speak properly, the Old Testa-
ment is yet the sole true canon of Scripture,' 2 as it alone con-
tains a systematic claim to inspiration. If the proofs from
prophecy be valid, Christianity is ' invincibly established on
its true foundation.' 3 If they are invalid, ' then has Christi-
anity no just foundation.' 4
1 See the ' Literal Scheme,' p. 323. * Ib. p. 26.
* 'Grounds and Reasons,' p. 13. 4 Ib. p. 31.
//'. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 215
32. Having thus urged, with what degree of plausibility
matters little, that to sever the connection between Chris-
tianity and the prophecies is to sever the artery from which
our faith is supplied, he proceeds to ask how far the con-
nection can be made out. Collins begins by showing that,
whatever else may be made of them, the fulfilment of the
prophecies cannot be literal. The prophecies most com-
monly alleged such as the prophecy of the Virgin bearing
a child are, as he argues, easily shown to refer, 'in their
obvious and primary sense, to other matters than those
which they are produced to prove.' l It remains, then, that
the proof must be ' typical or allegorical.' To explain the
nature of this proof, Collins refers to the learned Surenhusius,
a Dutch writer of the period, who had spent much pains in
the investigation of the Talmud. Surenhusius states that the
Jewish doctors ' used ten ways of citing and explaining the Old
Testament,' 2 and Collins gravely sets down these methods,
with some references to the instances in which they had been
used by the New Testament writers. The first is reading the
words with other points substituted for those generally
used. The second is 'changing the letters, whether those
letters be of the same organ (as the Jewish grammarians
speak) or no.' The third is changing both letters and points.
The fourth is adding some letters and taking away others.
The fifth is transposing words and letters. The sixth is
dividing one word into two. The seventh is adding other
words to those that are there, ' as is manifestly done by the
apostles throughout the New Testament.' 3 The eighth is
changing the order of words. The ninth is changing the
order of words and adding other words. The tenth is
' changing the order of words, adding words, and retrench-
ing words, which is a method often used by Paul.' Collins
adds an account of certain particular applications of these
methods by which the learned Surenhusius succeeds in
transforming the prophecies into statements by which the
prophets themselves might have been startled. A familiar
difficulty turns upon the words ' he shall be called a Nazarene/
which, though quoted by St. Matthew, occur nowhere in the
Old Testament. Still Isaiah's prediction that the Messiah
1 ' Grounds and Reasons, 'p. 48. 2 Ib. p. 59. 3 ib. p. 60.
216 CRITICAL DEISM.
should dwell in Galilee was much the same as if he had said
that he should dwell at Nazareth, which was a city of Galilee ;
and though he never was called a Nazarene, he might have
been called one, in virtue of his dwelling at Nazareth. More-
over, Isaiah says that ' there shall come forth a rod out of
Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Now a branch
is in Hebrew, Netsar, which may carry an enigmatical allusion
to Nazareth. And, finally, in another place, the Messiah is
called Tsemah, which means a branch, and is therefore equi-
valent to Netsar or a Nazarene. 1 Collins concludes by main-
taining that such appeals to the fulfilment of prophecy were
not in the nature of a mere argumentum ad hominem, but
must have been regarded as valid by all the Christians to
whom they were addressed.
33. Collins's general drift is obvious. The only mode, he
argues, of rendering the prophecies applicable is to adopt
laws of interpretation which would make any set of words
compatible with any meaning. Putting his statements to-
gether, Collins has asserted, first, that Christianity is false if
the prophecies have not been fulfilled ; secondly, that they
have not been fulfilled literally ; and, thirdly, that to show
them to have been fulfilled typically the only possible al-
ternative we have to fall into the absurdities of the learned
Surenhusius. In fact, his meaning may be brought out -by
everywhere substituting ' nonsense ' for ' allegory.'
34. A long and tiresome argument follows, directed against
Whiston, and plunges into a variety of remarks about the
Samaritan Pentateuch and the meaning of various prophecies.
Collins endeavours to show, what indeed is sufficiently
plain, that poor Whiston's mode of arbitrarily modifying
the old text is entirely fanciful and absurd ; though he is
careful to add that the Old Testament has indeed been
' greatly corrupted,' 2 in a different way. He objects, not to
1 ' Grounds and Reasons,' p. 74. This ancient explanation is still given by
some orthodox divines, as, for example, by Dr. Farrar, ' Life of Christ, ' vol. i.
ch. v. Dr. Farrar also believes with Bishop Smalbroke, to whom I shall presently
refer, thit the Magi may have been guided in their search by astrology (ib. ch. iii.),
and his ingenious explanation of the destruction of the swine (ch. xxiii.) may be
put beside that of the same prelate. It is only just to add that Dr. Farrar is
writing for the edification of the faithful rather than the confutation of unbelievers.
* ' Grounds and Reasons,' p. 135.
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 217
the statement that the existing text is untrustworthy, but to
the notion that the pristine text can be restored. He argues,
again, that all Whiston's desperate efforts at remodelling the
prophecies fail in making them literally applicable ; and he
therefore returns to the conclusion that the fulfilment must
have been allegorical. He points out, for example, that the
prophecy of Christ himself as to his coming again was never
fulfilled except in a mystical sense ; and he concludes it to be
' most destructive of Christianity to suppose that typical or
allegorical arguing is in any respect weak and enthusiastical.' l
It is apparent, he says, that the Gospel is in every respect
founded on type and allegory ; ' that if the reasoning of the
Apostles be tested by the rules used in the schools ' the books
of the Old and New Testament will be in an irreconcilable
state, and the difficulties against Christianity will be incapable
of being solved.' 2 In short, to make out the evidences, we
must all become pupils of the learned Surenhusius.
35. Collins's book excited the most vehement controversy
that had hitherto taken place. In the preface of his next
performance, 'The Literal Scheme of Prophecy considered/
he had the pleasure of giving the titles of thirty-five treatises
arising out of the discussion. Whiston defended himself in a
singularly absurd treatise. Clarke, and his lieutenant Sykes,
joined in the controversy ; and more orthodox champions, such
as Sherlock, bestirred themselves to repel the rash aggressor.
Most prominent amongst these was Edward Chandler, then
Bishop of Lichfield. The ' Literal Scheme ' was principally
a reply to Chandler, and it produced a ponderous rejoinder
from the learned Bishop (1728). The two episcopal treatises 3
may perhaps have contributed to Chandler's subsequent ele-
vation to the rich see of Durham in 1730. It was reported,
indeed, at the time that his promotion had been facilitated
by the payment of a sum of 9,ooo/. 4 To modern readers the
treatise will appear to supply a less adequate, though a more
respectable, explanation of his honours than the simony. Few
1 'Grounds and Reasons,' p. 269. 2 Ib. p. 270.
s A ' Defence of Christianity,' and a 'Vindication ' of the defence.
4 He made a pretty good bargain, if we may believe the statement in King's
'Anecdotes' (p. 183), that Chandler of Durham, Willis of Winchester, Potter of
Canterbury, Gibson and Sherlock of London, all died 'shamefully rich,' some
worth over loo,ooo/. Butler was, he says, a noble exception to the rule.
218 CRITICAL DEISM.
of the writings in the deist controversy illustrate more pointedly
the utter unfitness of the disputants for the task which they
undertook so complacently. To a mind free from the pre-
possessions of his opponents, it will probably appear also that
Collins had at almost every point the best of the dispute.
His victory was naturally less manifest to his contem-
poraries. Such reasonings are effective or otherwise according
to the assumed data of the problem. By throwing the whole
burden of proof upon the assailant, we can bring him down
to the level of his antagonist ; if the burden be transposed,
he has clearly the best of the dispute.
36. Sufficient indications of Chandler's critical weakness
appear in his first chapters. He wishes to prove that, at the
time of the Christian revelation, there was a general expec-
tation of the coming of the Messiah, and is, of course,
unconscious that, given the facts, the argument might be
inverted, and that some belief in a coming Messiah is im-
plied by a claim to the Messiahship. He therefore tries to
make the most of the Sibylline books. He tells us, with
the same air of historical accuracy as though he were
speaking of an accident at the Fire of London, that ' the
genuine books of the Sibyls, purchased by Tarquin, were
burnt with the capitol in Sylla's days.' l These books, in-
deed, he pronounces to have been merely ritual ; and he does
not deny that the books now known as Sibylline were
later Christian forgeries. 2 He is of opinion that there were
a number of prophecies current amongst the Greeks in Asia
Minor about the time of our Lord's coming, and passing from
them to the Romans, which announced the approaching advent
of a great king. The substance of these prophecies he dis-
covers in the tenth eclogue of Virgil, and he finds so marked
an identity between the pagan poetry and the Jewish pro-
phecies, that he cannot persuade himself that the resemblance
was accidental. 3 Virgil, indeed, applied his remarks to the
expected heir of Augustus ; but his various intimations of a
coming golden age of peace, plenty, and righteousness, may
be reasonably regarded as dim reflections of Jewish prophecy.
In the title of Defim Soboles, conferred by Virgil on his
1 ' Defence,' p. 9. a 'Defence,' p. 12.
* ' Vindication,' p. 495.
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 219
patron, he perceives a reference to the Incarnation, or, at least,
to the titles bestowed by Jewish prophets on the Messiah.
And thus Virgil's flattery to Augustus really consists of the
sublime strains of Hebrew poetry, ' dressed up after the Gen-
tile poetic manner.' Chandler would appear to have become
a little doubtful of the soundness of his argument, and at the
end of the ' Vindication ' he tries to effect a retreat in the man-
ner popular with controversialists. He declares, that is, that
he leaves his readers to judge of the value to be attached to
the resemblance, and that he does not think Christianity ' much
concerned ' ' in the decision. Few writers have the courage
to withdraw an argument which they know to be inconclusive,
so long as it may possibly affect the minds of their readers.
37. The bishop, however, does not shrink, as, indeed,
with his notions of critical enquiry, there is no reason why he
should shrink, from meeting the challenge thrown down by
Collins. Assuming that it is the same thing to prove that a
prophecy may cover a certain event, and that it was intended to
refer to it, that applicable is equivalent to consciously applied,
there can be no difficulty in producing instances of literal
fulfilment. Chandler brings forward twelve passages, which
he asserts to be instances in point. Some of them are still
alleged for the same purpose ; and the habit of reading
them apart from the context, and in the light of later be-
liefs, may enable us to understand how such passages were
not only put forward in all sincerity and seriousness, as well
as rehearsed in the conventional language of theological
schools, but in fact seemed to possess real weight. The wire-
drawing which is necessary even on this hypothesis may
indeed remind us of the learned Surenhusius, and Collins can
sometimes refute the bishop by simply repeating his argu-
ments. The argument upon the second prophecy, alleged
by the bishop, and Collins's retorts may give a sufficient
notion of the whole. The passage is from Malachi : ' Behold,
I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the
hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to
the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.'
This is converted into a literal prophecy of the coming of St.
1 'Vindication,' p, 501.
220 CRITICAL DEISM.
John the Baptist and of Jesus. To make out his case, Chand-
ler has to show that Elias means St. John the Baptist, and
that the ' great and terrible day of the Lord ' is applicable to
the coming of the Messiah. He argues that the Jews always
believed, and believed on the strength of this passage, that
the coming of Messiah and the coming of Elias would be
associated. The Targum on Malachi unluckily says not a
word about the Messiah ; and he explains its silence by
saying that, ' either they thought the passage clear without
explication, or they wilfully erased it thence ' ; a statement
which reminds Collins ' of the popish proof of the excellences
of the Virgin Mary. She is supposed to have all excellences
because the ancients say not a word of her.' 1 The bishop,
however, finds a passage in" the Targum on Deuteronomy,
which helps him to establish the connection in the mind of
the Jews. Collins, although disputing the solidarity of all the
writers of Targums, admits that the later Jews did in fact join
the coming of the Messiah and of Elijah. But how does it
follow that Malachi himself could be thinking of the Messiah,
to whom it is plain that he makes no direct reference ? And
granting that Malachi himself meant to connect the two, how
does it follow that Elias is represented by John the Baptist ?
The Jews, says the bishop, ought to have recognised John as
Elias, because they admit that prophecy closed with Malachi,
and John was the first person in whom it revived. ' These
Jews who did not conclude John the Baptist to be Elias, but
would have so concluded if they had concluded right, are
excellent Jewish testimonies for the bishop.' As an additional
argument, the bishop compares the preaching of John with
the preaching of Elias, who was to notify the coming of ' that
great and dreadful day wherein the Lord Messias' (words, as
Collins remarks, interpolated by the bishop to mislead the
reader) ' shall smite the land of Jewry with a curse.' If there
is any conformity between the two styles of preaching, says
Collins, it proves nothing, for any man can use another man's
sense. As against these presumptions, he declares, first, that
the prophecy announces the return of Elias in person ; and,
secondly, he suggests that, amongst Jewish authorities, that
of John the Baptist must go for something, who expressly
1 ' Literal Scheme,' p. 122 et seq.
J
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 221
denied l that he was Elias ; and probably denied it in reference
to this very prophecy. Finally, John's character, says Collins,
is entirely different from that announced in Malachi. He did
not precede a terrible day in which the Lord should punish
the land of Jewry ; nor did he turn the hearts of the fathers to
the children. The bishop, indeed, urges that the Messiah may
be considered as doing whatever God does, and therefore is
inflicting the subsequent calamities of the Jewish race ; and that
' in Scripture he is said to do a thing, who doth every thing
proper, and likely to cause it, though the effect doth not
answer ; ' and thus a statement that Elias will come and do
something, means that a person resembling Elias will come and
try to do it. Whatever the value of this interpretation, it is at
least plain, as Collins remarks, that a passage which requires
such adaptations cannot be said to a literal prophecy.
38. Chandler's argument, indeed, is palpably inadequate
as against infidels. If a person starts with a preconceived
opinion that Jewish writers were in the habit of making
reference to future events as other writers to past events, he
might further accept the interpretation put upon Malachi by
Chandler. But the primary assumption was, that the deists
held the Jewish writers to be ordinary human beings. Chand-
ler might confirm his own belief, but he does not even raise
any appreciable presumption against the infidel's belief. This
incapacity for appreciating the conditions of the argument is
more oddly illustrated in several of Chandler's remarks. He
urges, for example, that a prophecy must apply to the Messiah,
because it is impossible to discover its fulfilment anywhere
else ; 2 forgetting, as Collins naturally remarks, that he is
arguing against adversaries who are not obliged to admit that
it was ever fulfilled at all. A still more curious case of utter
oblivion of the principle that an effective argument must rest
on some principles common to both parties, occurs in his
attempt to prove that Christ's interpretations of the prophecies
are of special value, because made before the .event. He says
that Christ must have been supernaturally inspired to discover
from the Jewish prophecies that he was to be crucified ; which
would indeed be an important remark if the prediction did
not rest on the same authority as the fulfilment. And, still
1 John i. 19-21. * ' Defence,' p. 95.
222 CRITICAL DEISM.
more curiously, Chandler remarks that ' no man in his wits ' '
could have foretold the resurrection. Yet, he says, Christ
foretold this out of the Jewish Scriptures, though we know
not from what particular text he inferred it. ' But his rising
again so precisely on the third day leaves no room to doubt
of the truth of his interpretation.' The hypothesis is apparently
that some people might believe that Christ arose on the third
day, and yet doubt the authority of the Scriptures. Chandler
was not an acute reasoner, but it illustrates the difficulty of
the orthodox party in understanding their opponents' position,
when an official defender of the faith could put such an argu-
ment to an infidel, and especially to an infidel charged with
believing that the Scriptures were a simple forgery.
39. In making out his case, Chandler has naturally to
resort to the strange devices of the allegorists. He admits the
method as fully legitimate. He, of course, finds excellent
reasons for supposing that David, Solomon, and Joshua the
high-priest were types of the Messiah. 2 He holds that the non-
fulfilment of any part of a prophecy in its literal sense is a
proof that it must necessarily have a further reference. With
the help of the Targums and Maimonides, and by the assump-
tion that the Jews were in the habit of talking about two
things at once, and that their God conversed with them in
riddles, he has no difficulty in eliciting all kinds of hidden
meanings. When a prophet, according to his interpretation,
entirely changes the sense of an important word without
notice in two successive cases, he thinks that ' nothing is more
common in the Scriptures, nor no figure more beautiful in
other writers.' When puzzled by the reference in Matthew
to the non-discoverable prophecy, ' he shall be called a Naza-
rene,' he thinks that the evangelist must be speaking of some
place in Scripture where the true meaning was ' hid in an
equivocal word or expression,' only discoverable after the
event ; and he accepts the solution put forward by Suren-
husius about Netsar, a branch. 3 ' Among the Jews,' he says,
' such a way of writing did prevail. They wrapped up their
meaning in riddles, or limited it by words of like sound but
different signification ; and sometimes implied two or three
events in the change of a single letter of the same organ, or
1 'Defence,' p. 353. 2 See Zech. vi. 9. 3 'Defence,' p. 224
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 223
transposition of one or more letters.' In fact, the Holy Ghost
sometimes inspired the prophets with a bad pun, which
only became intelligible some centuries later. He had ex-
cellent reasons for not speaking more plainly ; amongst others,
that ' had God spoke out at once, that circumcision availed
nothing,' l that ceremonials generally were to be abolished by
the Messiah, and ' the Gentiles taken into covenant without
them,' the Jews would not have endured circumcision. In the
same spirit, he holds that the star which guided the Magi was,
in reality, some eccentric meteor or luminous appearance ; and
that the Magi, acting on erroneous astrological notions, were
accidentally led to a right conclusion. Or perhaps, if they
inferred the birth of some great person from their ( Apoteles-
matical operations relating to nativities,' it might have been
owing to the fact, guaranteed by Grotius, that God is ' some-
times pleased to make use of such practices in high esteem
among men, whether grounded upon any or an unwarrantable
foundation, and to direct them to give witness to the truth.' 2
To defend Christianity by proving that God makes conun-
drums, equivocates, tricks people into valueless observances by
concealing the fact that they don't please him, and sometimes
leads them right by dabbling in astrology, implies a queer
state of mind. Will this explanation of the typical prophecies,
asks Collins, 3 ' have any other effect than to make people
admire, how men can with gravity offer such things as from
the great God of heaven and earth ? '
40. The prevailing assumption upon which Chandler
'everywhere proceeds is best illustrated by his argument in
regard to Daniel. There he had to deal with a prophecy of
the type to which the others could not be made to conform
without the ' wire-drawing ' of which Collins complains. In
treating of them, he applies to predictions of the future the
same methods of argument which would be legitimate in
examining a history of the past ; and assumes that Jewish
writers were in the habit of obliquely hinting at something
1 ' Vindication,' p. 216.
2 Ib. p. 421. So, Dr. Farrar : ' And, if astrology be ever so absurd, yet there
is nothing absurd in the supposition that the Magi should be led to truth, even
through the gateways of delusion, if the spirit of sincerity and truth was in them.
The history of science will furnish repeated instances,' &c., &c. ('Life of Christ,'
vol. i. ch. iii. ) * 'Literal Scheme,' p. 283.
224 CRITICAL DEISM.
that was about to happen many centuries after their death.
In the Book of Daniel there is, at least, a definite statement
that certain events will happen at a given date ; nor is it
difficult to discover what was in the mind of the writer.
Collins, indeed, had already sufficient critical knowledge at
his command to be able to invert the argument. His attack
upon the authenticity of Daniel is, perhaps, the most remark-
able performance of the deists in the direction of criticism.
Collins appears to have been original in his remarks, except
so far as the passage from Porphyry suggested the argument ;
and his reasons, I believe, coincide with those which have
satisfied modern critics. Besides recapitulating the reasons
which threw doubt upon the authenticity of the document, he
had observed that the clear knowledge of events down to
the age of Antiochus Epiphanes, and no farther, proved that
the writer lived at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. The
remark is, of course, conclusive, from the point of view of
historical criticism. Chandler replies partly by denying the
fact, and partly by alleging that other prophecies showed
the same peculiarity of laying stress upon particular events
without going farther. These statements, however, were pal-
pably weak, and certainly would not be accepted by the
deists. He labours, therefore, to prove that the clearness of
the prophecy is no objection to it, because God can reveal
things plainly if he choose ; and, finally, that God may dis-
cover as much or as little as he pleases. ' The revelation of
God,' he says, 'is the measure of the prophet's prediction, and
thus God dispenses variously as he sees the circumstances of
his people require.' l Nothing can be truer, and, therefore, if
you have sufficient reason for believing in the divine origin of
a given prophecy, it is preposterous to lay down how far it
should extend, and with what degree of precision. But to
men who are not persuaded of its divine origin, the argument
is worthless, or merely amounts to rejecting all internal
evidence. Once more it is plain that the discussion is hopeless
unless the previous question be settled ; and those who came
with a foregone conclusion in their minds, in diametrically
opposite directions, would discover no crucial test for com-
paring their rival theories.
1 ' Vindication,' p. 79.
IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 225
41. The greater part of Chandler's ' Vindication ' is em-
ployed in following out this argument as to the authenticity
of Daniel into its various branches. It is, of course, anti-
quated, besides being as feeble, as may be supposed, in argu-
ment. When, for example, Collins urges that the Jews often
forged books, and more especially in the name of Daniel,
Chandler answers the argument by the assertion that, if it
amounts to anything, it must mean ' there have been books
counterfeited under the name of men of renown ; therefore,
there can be no genuine books under the same name.' l It is
needless to follow the discussion further.
42. Men of greater ability than Chandler wrote replies
marked by greater logical power. Sherlock skilfully took
up a different position in the ' Six Discourses on Pro-
phecy,' which were suggested by, though not professedly
aimed against, Collins. In all Sherlock's writings there
crops out at intervals a vein of shrewd sense. Here, for ex-
ample, when noticing the statement of various 'grave and
serious authors ' that the world is steadily deteriorating, I do
not wonder at their judgment, he observes, ' for I find- myself
every day growing into the same opinion.' 2 Few people, in-
deed, can distinguish between the opinions that the world is
growing dark and that our eyes are growing dim. A genuine
logical force is implied in Sherlock's strong perception of the
folly of unduly extending the line of defence. The contro-
versy must be brought, as he saw, to some great leading
issues, and he declined to be drawn into innumerable ques-
tions of petty detail. He is, therefore, anxious to prove that
the testimony of prophecy is confirmed by the general tenour
of the Jewish history, and not by sporadic texts. The whole
story, he urges, can be made intelligible only on the assump-
. tion that every previous act led up to the final catastrophe in
the appearance of the Messiah. There is, indeed, a difference
between Sherlock's conception of what the argument ought to
be, and his account of what it really is. He admits the ob-
scurity of the prophecy about bruising the serpent's head, or
the reference to Shiloh ; and labours rather painfully to make
out their bearing. But, regarding them as references to a
providential scheme for saving the world from the conse-
1 'Vindication,' p. 136. 2 Works, iv. 70.
VOL. I. Q
22 6 CRITICAL DEISM.
quences of the Fall, he argues that the completion of that
scheme in Christ brings out their full meaning. We are, he
says, not to argue that the prophecies expressly designated
Christ, but that 'all the notices which God gave to the
fathers of his intended salvation are perfectly answered by the
coming of Christ.' * God did not choose to foretell all the de-
tails of his plan ; but when the keystone falls into the arch,
the meaning of all the preliminary work becomes obvious.
In the working out this argument Sherlock is, of course,
drawn into some wire-drawing, and discusses the covenants
between God and man in that legal and technical spirit which
is so curiously marked in the writings of the time. In general
conception, however, the argument would be impressive if we
were not haunted by a suspicion as to its perfect candour.
He veils the concession so skilfully that we are afraid that
the process must be more or less conscious. Chandler, he evi-
dently thought, had blundered ; but he is not candid enough
to risk such an avowal. His retreat for it is a retreat is
effected under cover of a taunt to his adversaries.
'When unbelievers,' he says, 'hear such reasonings' (as
that which professes to discover Christ's character exactly
described in the prophecy made to Eve), ' they think them-
selves entitled to laugh ; but their scorn be to themselves.
We readily allow that the expressions do not necessarily
imply this sense ; we allow, further, that there is no appear-
ance that our first parents understood them in this sense, or
that God intended that they should so understand them ; but
since this prophecy has been so plainly fulfilled in Christ, and
by the event appropriated to him alone, I would fain know ' 2
why, in short, God might not have given a hint, instead of a
definite statement ; all^which, as the deist would imply, merely
amounts to saying that there is no reason why God should
have given a conclusive proof, and, therefore, amounts to an
admission that he did not. Sherlock, in fact, argues that the
prophecies were fulfilled, and withdraws, though with a bold
front, from the assertion that they could have been fulfilled
only by the precise series of events which followed.
43. Here, again, Sykes represents the extreme wing of
the orthodox party. Sykes lays the main stress of his argu-
1 Works, iv. 56. 2 Ib. iv. 57.
IV. THE ARGUMENT PROM PROPHECY. 227
ment upon the prophecy in Daniel, though at the same time
he declines to pronounce upon its authenticity. In any case
he thinks it will be partly prophetical, apparently not
seeing that the arguments which fix the date, limit also the
application, of the prophecy. Sykes, however, seems less
anxious to prove that the prophecies are applicable than to
repudiate Collins's insidious argument that the claim of
Christ was essentially and exclusively a claim to fulfil the
prophecies. Sykes asserts, on the contrary, that that fulfil-
ment is not in any proper sense a proof of the divine
authority of the Scriptures. He repudiates, with emphasis
and honest indignation, the orthodox subterfuges of a double
sense and a typical mode of interpretation. The words ' that
it might be fulfilled ' mean, according to him, nothing more
than that the words are applicable. Collins vigorously op-
poses him on both points ; he insists, though with a different
intention, upon the necessity of the orthodox interpreta-
tion. Unless it can be shown that the claim discussed is
of the essence of the Christian case, his assault would be
thrown away. He regarded the doctrine which to Chandler
appeared to be a bulwark of Christianity as a convenient
reductio ad absurdum ; and was by no means willing to allow
a semi-rationalist to throw over the most assailable por-
tions of his creed, in the hopes of quenching the voracious
appetite of the monster Infidelity. The orthodox should not
throw their Jonah overboard.
44. The last echo of this controversy may be traced in
Bishop Newton's 'Dissertations on the Prophecies.' It did
not appear till 1754, and therefore belongs properly to a
later generation. The book itself deserves little notice,
though it enjoyed a wide popularity. ' It is Tom's great
work,' said Dr. Johnson ; 'but how far it is great, or how much
of it is Tom's, are other questions. I fancy great part of it
is borrowed.' ' I believe,' added Johnson, ' he was a gross
flatterer.' l Of the truth of this last sentiment there will be
little doubt in the mind of any reader of Tom's autobiography.
It is an admirable, because a thoroughly unconscious, revela-
tion of the character of a genuine prelate of those days. He
records, with infinite complacency, the intimacies with great
1 Boswell, ch. Iv.
Q2
22 8 CRITICAL DEISM.
men which enabled him to worm himself into the high places
of the Church. The achievements on which he appears
to have chiefly prided himself were certain improvements to
his residences. He took down, for example, certain shops
which were inconveniently near the deanery of St. Paul's, and
built an ' entire new wall,' with gates for the admission of
coaches, and an awning over his steps to keep them dry. He
triumphs greatly over the expulsion of ' a chimney sweeper
and the like ' from certain tenements in Scollop Court, and a
common sewer which he obtained from the city for Carter
Lane. 1 Probably his victory over Collins gave him less heart-
felt satisfaction, though it helped to justify his preferment
to the bench. The book is a long recapitulation of the pro-
phecies, and the fulfilments ordinarily alleged. The woman's
seed which is to bruise the head of the serpent is of course
Christ ; the prophecies of the downfall of Babylon and Tyre,
and of the advent of Cyrus, are given without a moment's fear
of historical critics to come ; Daniel is triumphantly vindicated
from the assaults of Collins, and his predictions declared to be
even more complete than later history ; whilst the abominations
of Rome were satisfactorily detected in the Book of Revela-
tions, and St. Paul's ' man of sin.' His writings edified a later
generation of believers ; but are rather a summary of past
apologetic writings than a contribution to the development
of living thought. I mention them here only to avoid the
necessity of diverging in a later chapter.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES.
45. In the last sentence of his ' Literal Scheme,' Collins
promised to publish before long ' a discourse upon the miracles
recorded in the Old and New Testament.' The design was
executed by Thomas Woolston, a Fellow of Sidney Sussex,
Cambridge, who frequently refers to Collins, and possibly
acted in concert with him. The six discourses on 'the
miracles of our Saviour ' appeared during the years 1727-8-9.
They are a strange attempt to apply to the miracles the same
method which Collins had found convenient in assaulting the
1 Newton's Works, i. 146, 147.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 229
prophecies. The records of miracles were to be shown to be
purely allegorical ; and whether Woolston intended it or not,
the reader would probably consider allegorical as equivalent
to fictitious. The difference between the argument in the
two cases is obvious. Collins had done his best, and the fact
that he did so is" the best index to his meaning, to repre-
sent the link between the prophecies and the New Testament
as essential to Christianity. It was difficult, however, to prove
that his argument, even granting its validity in other respects,
was so fatal as he represented it to be. The Old and New
Testaments might each stand on its own basis, though this
connection were dissolved. Collins tried to prove, not that
the prophecies were absurd, or the gospel narratives absurd,
but that the prophecies did not refer to the narrative. That a
prophecy had been fulfilled in the days of Ahaz and not in the
days of Christ was a statement not necessarily implying even
heterodoxy ; and some of the orthodox were prepared to ac-
cept most of his premisses. Woolston, on the other hand,
in asserting Christ's miracles to be ' allegorical,' was not trying
to dissolve a corroborative link between two parts of Scrip-
ture, but was attacking the Scripture itself, and that in its
most vital parts. He had to prove, not that Christ's death
and resurrection had not been foretold or typically shadowed
forth, but that they actually did not occur. The fathers from
whom he drew his weapons had indeed frequently, or generally,
confined themselves to adding the allegorical meaning with-
out denying the historical truth of the records. Paul does
not mean to deny that the story of Hagar and Ishmael was
true, when he converts it into his strange allegory. But
Woolston maintained that the allegorical was not merely one
meaning, but the whole meaning, of the narrative. His argu-
ment, therefore, coincided intentionally or not with the
extreme sceptical view. He declared that the miraculous
stories were without a particle of historical truth, though he
added, and, as his opponents thought, ironically added, that
they had a spiritual truth. The argument was the more
offensive because there is no sign that Woolston appreciated
the difficulties which may be suggested by criticism, or by
a priori objections to miracles. His contention is simply that
the narratives are on the face of them preposterous. They
2 3 o CRITICAL DEISM.
are so grotesque that to listen gravely to their recital ' exceeds
all power of face.'
46. This strange performance would have been sufficient
of itself to raise doubts of its author's sanity. Woolston, born
in 1669, had gained a fellowship at Sidney, and there applied
himself to the study of Origen. His reverence for that father
infected him with a love of allegorising, which appeared in a
book called ' The old Apology of the Truth for the Christian
Religion against the Jews and Gentiles revived.' This was
published in 1/05, and it was not till fifteen years later, when
he was already above fifty, that he began to give offence
by further applications of his doctrine. He lost his fellowship
by refusing to reside ; and it seems that the study of Origen,
or some other cause, had disordered his intellect. 1 In 1722 he
began to publish his ' Free Gifts to the Clergy,' which bear at
every page the marks of insanity. 2 They are wild rants about
the necessity of allegorising the Scriptures, showing that the
present hireling preachers, who have basely conspired against
him, are worshippers of the Apocalyptical beast, and ministers
of Antichrist. He declares that Origen has been pleased to say
of him, in the book against Celsus, that he is ' best skilled of
any man in the spirit of prophecy ;' 3 and, in short, he talks the
language of an inhabitant of Bedlam. Unable to provoke an
answer to his ravings, he answered himself in the character of
a Country Curate. Soon afterwards, on occasion of the
controversy provoked by Collins, he published a book called
' The Moderator between an Infidel and an Apostate.' If
less obviously insane, it is equally preposterous. In his
character of moderator, Woolston accepts Collins's theory
that an allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament is
necessary, and gives to it the sense that the supposed types
had no historical reality. He ridicules, for example, the
story of Christ's ride into Jerusalem upon an ass, which,
he says, is ridiculous in an historical point of view, and
might obviously have been done by an impostor to fulfil the
prophecy ; but he discovers its fulfilment in a mysterious
1 See ' Free Gifts to the Clergy,' No. i. p. 50, where he prays God to continue
him ' in that state of reason he has been graciously pleased to restore me to. '
2 See e.g. iii. p. 68, for his characteristic belief that a conspiracy had been
formed to ruin his reputation. * ' Free Gifts,' i. 29.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 231
reference to the second advent l the ass representing the
Church, and so on. In this book Woolston said that it was
not his intention, though it would have been in his power, to
expose the absurdity of attributing historical reality to the
miracles of Christ. 2 In 1727, however, and the three following
years, he published his ' Six Discourses,' in which this plan
was systematically carried out. How far his rickety brain
had recovered such equilibrium as it ever possessed is not
clear, nor is it a question of any importance. His contem-
poraries settled the matter after their own fashion, by fining
him ioo/., and putting him in prison for a year. The poor man
died in the King's Bench in 1733, not being able to pay his fine.
His last words were expressive of calm resignation ; and he
supported himself partly by an allowance of 3O/. a year made
by his brother, and partly by the sale of his pamphlets, after
paying the ' not inconsiderable ' expenses incurred by his
publishers. It is to be said to the honour of Clarke and
Whiston that they attempted to save him from penal conse-
quences, and warnings were not wanting 3 that such perse-
cution acted as an advertisement. Whiston says, what is
probable enough, that at the end of his life the poor man did
not know whether he was a Christian or not. But it must
be added, in fairness, that his insults to Christianity were such
as might naturally cause the indignation of an age not so
scrupulous as our own in discriminating between the shades
of mental alienation which relieve a criminal of responsibility.
Some of his discourses, too, and the insulting dedications
to the bishops, seem to imply that the allegorical mask
was more or less consciously assumed to conceal an offensive
aim.
47. Through six straggling discourses, Woolston attempts
1 ' Moderator,' p. 124, &c. The difference between this and the modern
mythical view is that Woolston attributes to conscious deceit what modern critics
regard as an unconscious embodiment in external types of an internal state of
mind.
8 Ib. p. 49.
3 See preface to poor Simon Browne's ' Fit Rebuke to a Ludicrous Infidel.'
Simon Browne was the unfortunate dissenter who suffered under the singular
delusion that his ' thinking substance ' had been annihilated. See his curious
dedication to Queen Caroline in the ' Adventurer,' No. 88, which was suppressed
by his friends. See also Lardner's very honourable correspondence with Bishop
Waddington (Works, i. Ixiii. )
232 CRITICAL DEISM.
to make fun of the miracles. There are, at intervals, queer
gleams of distorted sense, and even of literary power, in the
midst of his buffoonery. Occasionally he hits a real blot ;
more frequently he indulges in the most absurd quibbles,
and throughout he shows almost as little approximation to
a genuine critical capacity as to reverential appreciation of the
beauty of many of the narratives. He is a mere buffoon jing-
ling his cap and bells in a sacred shrine; and his strange ribaldry
is painful even to those for whom the supernatural glory of the
temple has long utterly faded away. Even where some strag-
gling shreds of sense obtrude themselves, the language is ob-
trusively coarse, and occasionally degenerates into mere slang.
Had Jesus, he says, been accused of bewitching a flock of
sheep as he did the swine, ' our laws, and judges, too, of the
last age would have made him to swing for it.' l He suggests
that the wise men had better have ' brought their dozens of
sugar, soap, and candles,' 2 instead of myrrh and frankin-
cense. He thinks it strange ' that no Jews or infidels have
as yet ludicrously treated " the story of the Samaritan
woman " to the almost confutation of our religion ; ' and
declares that, ' if such a broken, elliptical and absurd tale
had been told of any other impostor in religion, the wits of
the clergy would have been at work to expose it plentifully ;
and indeed,' he adds, ' there's no need of much wit to make this
tale nauseous and ridiculous to vulgar understandings.' 3 He
then goes on to compare Christ to a gipsy, or ' strolling for-
tune-teller,' and is 'glad to hear of no money he squeezed
out of them for the exercise of his prophetic art, which our
divines would have made an argument of their divine right
to tithes, fees, and stipends, for their divinations.' 4 His com-
ments on other miracles are a mere running fire of such strange,
unseemly fooling. When he wishes to exceed these bounds,
he puts his arguments into the mouth of an imaginary rabbi,
who, for example, suggests, in the coarsest language, that
Jesus and his mother were probably drunk at the marriage in
Cana, and ventures, indeed, still grosser imputations on the
character of the Virgin. The same imaginary ally is brought
in to assail the truth of the resurrection, and argues that the
whole affair was an elaborate cheat got up by the disciples.
1 Dis. i. 34. Ib. p. 56. 8 Ib. ii. 48. 4 Ib. p. 55.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 233
If Jesus, he says, 'according to his own evangelists, was
arraigned for a deceiver and blasphemer, in pretending to the
sonship and power of God by his miracles, in all probability
this piece of fraud in Lazarus was one article of the indict-
ment against him ; and what makes it very likely is that the
chief priests and Pharisees, from the date of this pretended
miracle the raising of Lazarus took counsel together to put
him to death, not clandestinely or tumultuously to murder
him, but judicially to punish him with death, which, if they
proved their indictment by credible and sufficient witnesses,
he was most worthy of.' l
48. The device by which such utterances as these are to
be reconciled to the faith in Christianity, which Woolston
asserted himself to retain, is explained in a singular profession
of faith in the fifth discourse. He declares that ' at bottom '
he is ' as sound as a rock.' 2 He believes that ' the ministry
of the letter of the Old and New Testament is downright
anti-Christianism,' and that, to oppose the allegorical and
spiritual interpretation, is the sin of blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost. In accordance with this, he sees in the marriage
at Cana, for example, the mystical union of Christ and his
Church ; the want of wine means the deficiency of the Holy
Spirit ; the good wine substituted for the bad means the
substitution of spiritual for literal interpretations. Moses is
the governor of the feast, and all the fowls of the air are to be
invited meaning all spiritual and heavenly-minded Chris-
tians. 3 In defence of these theories, he quotes 4 Augustine
and other fathers, and he pledges himself to endeavour to
get rid both of literal interpreters and of a hireling minis-
try which maintains them. Though he does not expect long
to survive the accomplishment of so great and glorious a
work, he is transported with his anticipation of the happiness
that awaits mankind when the ' ecclesiastical vermin ' have
been extirpated from God's house, and of the paradisaical
state which will ensue.
49. What would have been the proper answer to these
strange tirades ? A contemptuous silence, or a simple ex-
pression of regret that too much learning had disordered their
author's mind ; or, if more was wanted, a setting forth of
1 Dis. v. 51. 2 Ib. p. 68. 3 Ib. iv. 47. 4 Ib. v. 70.
234 CRITICAL DEISM.
those spiritual beauties of the miracles, in presence of which,
the blemishes noted by Woolston could be passed over as
mere infinitesimal blots on the divine purity of the narrative ?
None of these methods seem to have commended themselves
to the ardent controversialists of the day. They solved the
problem which seems to have puzzled Solomon, as to the
right method of dealing with a fool, by adopting the least
appropriate of his alternatives. They accepted Woolston's
challenge, and argued at length the issues which he had
suggested. Apologists are seldom sufficiently awake to the
danger of a purely defensive line of argument. They think
that they can give a sufficient answer in detail to every one
of the objections urged, and they forget that the total im-
pression left upon the mind of the reader is apt to be that,
where so much requires to be explained away, there must be
something which cannot really be explained away. Such
must have been the main conclusion which would have sug-
gested itself to the readers of the most ponderous and learned
reply opposed to the ' Six Discourses.' Woolston had dedi-
cated the third discourse to Richard Smalbroke, bishop of
St. David's, a prelate who may be ranked one degree lower
than his brother dignitary, Bishop Chandler. The bishop, it
seems, had published what Woolston calls a ' vile and slan-
derous sermon ; ' l in which reference was made to the first two
discourses. Woolston declares that his lordship, instead of
reading them, must have taken the report of them on trust
from some ' ecclesiastical noodle,' and challenges him to an
open discussion. ' You must expect,' he says, ' to be teazed
and insulted from the press if you will not enter the lists
against me.'
50. Thus provoked, the bishop apparelled himself in his
ponderous panoply of learning, and engaged in unequal con-
test with his insolent antagonist. It was a strange conflict
a fight betwe.cn clown and pantaloon on one side,, learning
distorted to strange ends by semi-insanity, and on the other,
wielded by senile incompetence. Painfully and wearily
Smalbroke plods through the various cavils raised by the
scoffer, and gives his answer in detail. Sometimes he confines
himself to repeating the recognised arguments, and there he
1 Dis. iii. vi.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 235
is of course tolerably safe ; but he has an unfortunate itch for
originality, and then uniformly blunders into absurdity. His
credulity is curious and almost touching. He does not like to
attack even a heathen miracle. He is not quite clear whether
the miracles of Apollonius ' were wrought by evil spirits, or
were downright cheat and imposture.' l On the agency of
devils, indeed, he is especially strong, and much resents Wool-
ston's attempt to deprive ' Satan and hell of all real existence.' 2
Can Mr. Woolston, he asks, ' be so very ignorant as not to
have discovered both in the ancient philosophy, as well as the
vulgar mythology, those inferior gods ; that, though they were
devils in disguise, assumed to themselves divine worship, and
were styled kaifjiovss, desmans ? ' 3 He quotes Arnobius and
Origen to show that the devils were in a state of special activity
about the time of our Lord's coming, which accounts for the
frequent mention of them in the Gospels, and he calls in the
learned Bartholine to give reasons for this infernal agitation. 4
That excellent judge attributes the diabolical fermentation
either to the Jewish taste for magic, or to the fact that Jehovah
was punishing them for their sins ; to which Smalbroke adds,
as his own suggestion, that the devils were probably let loose
in order to afford a more signal triumph to the Saviour.
Since that day, the Devil has been kept in much better order ;
but though we know not ' under what regulations the evil
spirits may be now restrained,' 5 we have too much reason to
infer from such phenomena as Woolston that they are very
active, though they behave ' in a more clandestine and artful
manner than in more ancient times.' The matter of fact
simplicity with which he accepts the accounts of diabolic
agency was most curiously illustrated by an argument which
involved him in a good deal of ridicule. Arguing in defence
of the miracle at Gadara, he observes that it might be very
proper to terrify the inhabitants of that country for their
obstinate infidelity; 6 'so that even this permission of Jesus to
the evil spirits was amply compensated by casting a whole
legion of devils out of one person that is, by suffering about
three of them to enter into each hog, instead of about six
thousand of them keeping possession of one man.' Never,
1 ' Vindication of Miracles,' i. 18. 8 Ib. p. 344. 5 Ib. p. 349.
2 Ib. p. 343. 4 Ib. p. 348. B Ib. p. 203.
236 CRITICAL DEISM.
we may believe, either before or since, was the rule of three
applied to so strange a problem. Are six thousand devils
in one man better or worse than three devils in each of two
thousand pigs ? This bit of arithmetic seems to have earned
for the bishop the sobriquet of ' split-devil.' l
51. If the notions of historical evidence which could find
access to a mind in this stage require further illustration, we
may examine his answer to another difficulty raised by Wool-
ston. If, said that scoffer, you insist upon the literal sense
elsewhere, why not insist upon it in regard to the promise of
removing mountains by faith ? And how do you know,
retorts Smalbroke, that mountains have not been removed by
faith ? Jerome says that Hilarion did actually remove moun-
tains. Chrysostom, ' a very rational father, and consequently
not over-credulous,' 2 tells us that some (indefinite) holy persons,
far inferior to the Apostles, are reported to have removed
mountains. Nyssen assures us that Gregory Thaumaturgus
moved a vast stone or rock ; and even Marco Polo ' (whose
credibility, in geography at least, is more and more established
by later discoveries) ' tells us that a Christian removed a
mountain in Persia at ' a very critical juncture.' At any rate,
it is ' certain that they (the apostles) performed much greater
miracles, and therefore had power' to move mountains if
necessary. 3 The indiscriminating acceptance of authority
implied in this passage shows that Smalbroke was still, for all
practical purposes, living in a past epoch. His favourite medi-
cal authorities are Ader and Bartholine, two distinguished phy-
sicians of the seventeenth century, who had written upon the
diseases mentioned in the Bible, and who are quoted to prove
the reality of diabolical possession. The bishop's own medical
acquirements were probably about on a level with those of
Moliere's doctors, if we may judge from his quoting Hippo-
crates to prove that paralytics lose the power of motion, ' be-
cause the body is paralytical and without motion and weak.' 4
He is cautious in rejecting Hammond's rationalising theory,
that the healing powers of the Pool of Bethesda were due to
1 Disney's ' Life of Sykes,' p. 248. The bishop was so fond of this argument
that he inserted it in spite of the entreaties of Bishops Chandler and Gibson. See
'Newton's Life,' Works, i. 29.
2 ' Vindication,' &c. p. 443. 3 Ib. p. 446. 4 Ib. i. 542.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 237
the ' blood and ordure of the entrails of sacrificed beasts,' which
were stirred up by a messenger of the high priest for the
benefit of invalids. He thinks that this process could not be
' reasonably supposed to cure all manner of diseases,' though
it might be ' proper enough ' in some. However, he convinces
himself, with the help of the ' famous Bartholine ' and his like,
that some of the diseases cured by Christ were really caused
by demons, and that all were too serious to have been cured
by imagination alone. Indeed, the eminent Fienus wrote an
entire treatise on this subject, showing that ' fancy or imagi-
nation cannot of itself cure any diseases ; ' l and, as we have
seen, it could still less create demons. In one or two cases,
Smalbroke is forced to speak rather harshly of ecclesiastical
authorities. St. Augustine used on one occasion an 'ex-
pression that is highly indecent in itself, and unworthy of his
own piety ;' 2 for the father, not living in days when destructive
criticism had become a terror, had ventured to say of the
miracle of cursing the fig-tree, that this ' fact, unless it be
understood in a figurative sense, is foolish.' Generally, how-
ever, he is able to satisfy himself that the fathers did not
mean by allegorising a narrative to deny that it had also a
literal truth. Indeed, he says with great force, that ' if mi-
raculous facts have no real existence, they cannot be types ; ' 3
nor, for that matter, can they be anything else ; though why a
fiction should not be typical does not quite appear.
52. The arguments are perhaps about worthy of the cavils,
and, in truth, the whole phenomenon excites our disgust more
powerfully than our sense of absurdity. The irreverence of
Voltaire has its noble side ; the coarser brutalities of Tom
Paine express, at least, the revolt of a vigorous common
sense against a hide-bound orthodoxy ; but in Woolston
there seems to be no particular conviction or intelligible
purpose. He takes a morbid delight in giving scandal, and
only leaves us in doubt whether his profanity was a symptom
of lunacy, or one of those methods of pandering to vicious
popular tastes by which the lower denizens of Grub Street
picked up a precarious living. The bishop's performance is
less mysterious : no age has hitherto been wanting in pedants
1 ' Vindication of Miracles,' i. 291. * Ib. i. 441.
* Ib. p. 414.
23 8 CRITICAL DEISM.
in whom some mechanical contrivance for scholastic quibbling
seems to have taken the place of the reasoning brain. In
itself, the episode scarcely justifies detailed notice. It is as
though some idiot had suddenly turned Berserker, and
plunged recklessly and aimlessly into the fight. But the mere
fact that such a controversy could take place was significant.
Voltaire was studying the manners and customs of the English
at the time when these strange discourses were being pub-
lished. Happy the country that seems to have been his
sreneral conclusion -where even a Woolston meets with so
O
little serious persecution that he can pick up a living by the
sale of his profanities. No abstract theories of toleration,
however, would have saved Woolston from sharper punish-
ment if zeal had not grown cooler since the opening of the
century. When a struggle was going on which involved such
desecration of holy things for the amusement of coffee-house
cliques, and amidst the indifference of more exalted politicians,
men like Berkeley and Butler were rightly alarmed at the
symptoms. Much strong and probably exaggerated language
might be quoted from contemporaries as to the rapid decay
of belief. It would be impossible to decide, and it is beyond my
present purpose to enquire, what weight should be attributed
to such judgments. Though a decay was clearly taking
place, it seems to be very doubtful whether any considerable
class sympathised even faintly with the deists. But the
nation was clearly in a state of mind dangerous for the
interests of orthodoxy. The mere discussion of such topics
tended to destroy old associations ; and the mode of discus-
sion was conspicuously injudicious. A conviction of this danger
shows itself in a characteristic phase of apologetic literature.
53. The orthodox party performed, it may be said, a
movement of concentration. Men whose brains had not
shrivelled into mere parchment saw the necessity of bringing
matters to a more definite issue. It was necessary to put a stop
to this endless haggling over innumerable details, and bring
forward some clear, crushing, and unequivocal proofs. An
attempt was therefore made to apply, with wider knowledge
and clearer view of the difficulties involved, a method sub-
stantially identical with that of Leslie. Prove distinctly the
intervention of supernatural power in any case, and the
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 239
presumption against miracles would vanish. Apply the
argument in particular to that fact which is at once the most
important to Christianity, and supported by the most varied
testimony, and the victory Would be won. Though the more
obvious blots would no longer be shielded from view by the
humble reverence of the faithful, they might be overlooked
when such stories were a trifling corollary from the greater
manifestations of Divine power. The fate of Christianity, in
short, might be staked on the proof of the resurrection. The
argument was, for a time, triumphant, and the impression
was deep and durable. Bishop Watson, for example, who
had to encounter Gibbon and Tom Paine, tells us that the
corner-stone of his faith was the overwhelming evidence in
favour of the resurrection. l It is true, indeed, that any man
who was convinced of the truth of that narrative would
inevitably accept the Christian religion. Such doubts as
might remain would be doubts as to the authenticity of
certain passages, not as to the divine authority of the Gospels.
The real objection to the method is the impossibility of fairly
testing the evidence in this isolated case without taking into
account the results of infinitely wider enquiries. The answer
to this central problem once found, you have the clue to guide
you through the whole labyrinth of the world ; but it is
equally true that the answer cannot be found till the whole
labyrinth has been surveyed with all scientific precautions.
The secret cannot be summarily guessed, but must be
gradually unravelled by a slow series of elaborate enquiries.
This view marks, in another sense, a turning point in the con-
troversy. The miracles, it is plain, are beginning to be felt
to be encumbrances rather than supports to the faith. We
are asked to accept them as corollaries from a system of
belief, not to ground our beliefs upon them. The more serious
examination of the evidence, inadequate as were the methods
applied, began to rouse attention to the general canons of
enquiry. No satisfactory conclusion could be reached as to
the truth of the resurrection narrative without asking under
what circumstances miracles could be accepted as credible ;
nor could that question be raised without infinitely wider
discussions as to the constitution of the universe and the nature
1 Watson's 'Anecdotes,'!. 23.
240 CRITICAL DEISM.
of human progress. We are still in the day of small things,
but the most significant question has been put.
54. A book in which this tendency appeared was the
answer to Woolston by the amiable and accomplished Zachary
Pearce, who afterwards held the deaneries of Winchester and
Westminster, and the bishoprics of Bangor and Rochester.
He appears to have shown some reluctance in accepting pre-
ferment, and a genuine desire to abandon it. He was allowed,
at the age of seventy-eight, to resign his deanery, though the
resignation of a bishopric at any age was regarded as too
preposterous to be permitted. His conciliatory temper was evi-
denced not only by the mildness of his language towards the
arrogant Bentley, 1 but by his moderation towards the offensive
buffooneries of Woolston. His answer may be taken as a
good statement of the orthodox argument as it appeared to the
more cultivated thinkers of the time. It is, of course, marked
by the blemishes from which none of them were quite free.
To prove the reality of demoniacal possession, Pearce quotes
Josephus, Plutarch, Lucian, and Philostratus, as believing in
devils ; Josephus having actually witnessed an exorcism in
the presence of Vespasian. 2 Pearce writes like a man discuss-
ing the real existence of the Dodo, and could not adduce
the testimony of his authors more confidently if they had
actually seen and handled living specimens of the genus. The
argument illustrates the common persuasion of the apologists,
that they were confirming a story when they were explaining
its origin. The superstition, that is, was adduced to prove
the reality of its objects an argument that was soon inverted
with great effect by Middleton. In other cases, he con-
descends to the legal quibbles by which divines were then in
the habit of justifying the Almighty. Jesus, he suggests, did
not order, but only permitted, the devils to enter the swine ; 3
and he had a right to wither another man's fig-tree, because
the whole land was under forfeiture for the wickedness of
its inhabitants. 4
His main point, as already noticed, is the credibility of
1 He wrote against Bentley's proposals for the new edition of the Greek Tes-
tament, and against his edition of Milton. See Life of Pearce, prefixed to his
Commentary on the Gospels, written by himself, and edited by Johnson.
2 ' Miracles of Jesus Vindicated,' p. 40.
1 Ib. p. 36. Ib. p. 52.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 241
the resurrection. Assume that central miracle to be well
established, and every other becomes possible, and indeed
highly probable. The Apostles, as he rather superfluously
argues, had the strongest motives for not reporting any false
miracles, the detection of which would have ruined their
character. ' Here then/ he says, ' is not only a reasonable
presumption, but a strong consequence, in favour of all the
miracles which are attributed to Jesus in the Gospels ; every
impartial man must believe the literal account of them to be
true, and the miracles to have been real ones ; unless it can
be clearly made out that there is an absolute impossibility
in any of them.' l The presumption against the marvellous
is inverted, and should any difficulties occur, we have to
remember that many things may appear to us strange
or absurd which were perfectly obvious and familiar to the
Jews.
55. The argument erected upon this platform is simple
enough, and is conceived in the spirit of Leslie's 'Short
Method.' The Apostles cannot have been deceived them-
selves, because they had ample opportunities of investiga-
tion. 2 It is ' morally impossible ' that they should have been
deceivers, because they had nothing to gain by it; 3 and because
' the whole number of the Apostles unanimously asserted this
fact ' . . . ' in the midst of all kinds of sufferings and perse-
cutions, even with their dying breath and when expiring
under the cruellest torments.' 4 It is characteristic, by the
way, that Pearce assumes as an indisputable fact that we have
the ' dying words ' of all the Apostles, when we know nothing
certainly of the death of any one. The only objections
noticed are, first, that Jesus did not rise at the time foretold ;
secondly, that some of his disciples did not know him ;
thirdly, that he did not appear to the chief priests ; and,
fourthly, that the seal on the grave not being broken in pre-
sence of the sealers, there is room to suspect imposture.
The familiar answers are given to the first difficulties. To
the third he replies that the priests could have given no better
evidence than the Apostles, and that infidels would have
found reason for cavilling, though the whole nation had been
1 'Miracles Vindicated,' p. 21. * Ib. p. 3.
* Ib. p. 2. , " Ib. p. 4.
VOL. I. R
242 CRITICAL DEISM.
converted. To the last objection he replies that the Apostles
had entered into no covenant about the seal, and that there
was no mark of fraud ' when God, the only proprietor, was pre-
sent at the opening of it' 1 These last arguments evade the
force of a difficulty, which, however, lies too much outside of
any modern line of argument to be worth consideration. One
hypothesis remains, which Pearce very speedily dispatches.
The Apostles, it seems, had been accused of 'enthusiasm.'
Pearce replies, in substance, that the evidence upon which
they acted was the strongest possible testimony of their
senses, and not any supposed impulse. ' If we allow,' he
says, ' that, even as to facts themselves, enthusiasm may so far
impose upon a man as to make him believe a lie, nay to be
strongly persuaded of the truth of it, yet it can never make him
work real miracles in order to persuade others of the belief of
it.' 2 Which is true enough, though it is hard to see how it
is relevant. If the Apostles were liable to delusion, where
is the evidence of the miracles ? Pearce is here rather vague,
but his general view is simply that of Paley and the whole
generation of evidence collectors. The facts alleged admitted
of so easy a test that it is impossible to suppose a mistake,
whatever the hypothesis as to the mental condition of the wit-
nesses, whilst it is unhesitatingly assumed that we have their
original testimony.
56. The vein of argument thus opened was worked by
several more popular, if not more powerful, writers than
Pearce. The most characteristic contribution to this, or per-
haps to any part of the controversy, was Sherlock's ' Trial of
the Witnesses,' which appeared in 1729. Sherlock, who had
just received the bishopric of Bangor, had been for some years
Master of Catherine Hall, at Cambridge, and was one of the
many able men who illustrated the university at the beginning
of the century. Like Pearce he had been more or less in-
volved in the complicated warfare stirred up by the illimitable
pugnacity of Bentley, and, like other prelates of his time, he
failed to take a very unworldly view of the priestly office.
He was a sturdy, vigorous, prosaic man, with an eye to pre-
ferment, and with a strong touch of the lawyer in his compo-
sition. This last peculiarity was, perhaps, brought out by
1 'Miracles Vindicated,' p. 13. 2 Ib. p. 20.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 243
his position as Master of the Temple, an appointment which
he held for near fifty years. His legal acquirements gave him
such weight in the university that he was nicknamed ' Cardi-
nal Alberoni ' by Bentley ; and in the House of Lords he
held his own against the luminaries of the rival profession.
As a writer he has touches of genuine power, and his style is
invariably clear and masculine. The ' Trial of the Witnesses '
is perhaps his best performance. It ran through fourteen
editions in a short time, and may even now be read with
pleasure by the literary critic. It is still more interesting to
the historian of opinion, as giving in a curiously characteristic
shape, and within a brief compass, the pith of the orthodox
argument. It is the concentrated essence of eighteenth-century
apologetic theology. Its form is significant, and the argument
throughout manly and to the purpose, and free from the petty
quibbling which disfigures so much contemporary controversy.
Here, too, we are at the very centre of the orthodox position.
From this fortress they defied with most success the assaults
of the deists ; and upon their discomfiture in this part of the
field is chiefly founded the general impression that they were
hopelessly defeated.
57. The pamphlet affects to be the report of a mock trial
which takes place at one of the Inns of Court. Some lawyers
agree to appoint a judge and counsel and empannel a jury.
The Apostles are charged with giving false evidence in the
case of the resurrection of Jesus. After an animated discus-
sion by counsel, the judge sums up, and a verdict of not
guilty is returned. As the judge is retiring, a gentleman
offers him a fee. 'A fee to a judge is a bribe,' he replies.
' True, sir,' said the gentleman, ' but you have resigned your
commission, and will not be the first judge who has come
from the bench to the bar without any diminution of honour.
Now Lazarus's case is to come on next, and this fee is to
retain you on his side.' ' The judge had, in fact, shown his
qualifications as an advocate a little too plainly ; and yet,
within the limits accepted by mutual consent, the case is
undoubtedly a very strong one, and nothing can better exhibit
the artificial nature of the whole controversy, as then under-
1 Sherlock's Works, vol. v. 223.
R 2
244 CRITICAL DEISM.
stood, than the mode in which it is treated by this imaginary
court.
58. After a brief discussion between the counsel, the judge
decides, with legal precision, that as the matter before the court
is not the truth of the Christian religion, but the value of Mr.
Woolston's objection to the resurrection, it is for the counsel
for the prosecution to open the case. ' You see,' he says,
'evidence of the resurrection is supposed to be what it is on
both sides, and the thing immediately in judgment is the value
of the objections, and, therefore, they must be set forth. The
court will be bound to take notice of the evidence which is
admitted as a fact on both parts.' l This is an explicit state-
ment of the assumptions involved in the whole apologetic
literature. The problem proposed to the infidel is no less
than this : given the accuracy of the whole Gospel narrative,
except where it can be shown to rest upon hearsay, to show
how the facts may be explained by fraud or ' enthusiasm.'
After a little sparring, the counsel for Woolston suggests that
Jesus originated a fraud, which was carried on by his disciples.
.The counsel for the Apostles replies by insisting upon the
extreme improbability that Jesus was carrying on a plot to
be made a king, as proved by his declining to make use of
the Jewish anticipations of an earthly monarchy or to take
advantage of their enthusiasm to excite a rising. It is im-
possible that he should have carried on his deception when
his death was the necessary consequence ; and when he fore-
told his resurrection, he put the truth of his mission to a
crucial test. The circumstances of the case exclude the sus-
picion of mere enthusiasm and ' heated imagination,' for the
body was certainly missing. ' There must of necessity have
been either a real miracle or a great fraud in this case.' 2 Here
the counsel for Woolston is driven to amend his plea. There
may, he urges, have been ' enthusiasm in the master which
occasioned the prediction and fraud in the servants who put
it in execution.' 2 This leads to a fresh argument. The
deist admits fully the reality of the death and burial. The
agreement, he says, was made between the chief priests and
Apostles to seal the grave, and the disappearance of the body,
in the absence of one of the parties to the agreement, is a
1 Sherlock, v. 155. * Ib. p. 170.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 245
sufficient proof of fraud. This hypothesis is again assailed
by the counsel for the defence. He goes through the various
circumstances in detail, and argues that fraud was impossible,
and that the conduct of the chief priests, who tried to silence
the Apostles, instead of charging them with fraud, is sufficient
proof that they were themselves conscious of the falsehood
of their own story. 1 A further argument follows, including
a remarkable digression as to the value of evidence in the case
of alleged miracles, and tending to show that the evidence
of Jesus's appearances as a living man after his burial is
amply sufficient and all that could be reasonably demanded.
Admitting even that the story is in itself improbable, he
urges that the miraculous powers of the Apostles, and their
willingness to encounter death in defence of their cause, gives
special value to their testimony. A summing up follows,
with the verdict already recorded.
59. Sherlock's argument is triumphant. Grant his as-
sumptions, and his conclusions inevitably follow. Admit,
what the deists scarcely contested, that the Gospels were
really the work of the men whose names they bear ; assume
further what seems to have been tacitly admitted on all
hands that a new religion is accepted because the converts
are won by weight of evidence, as English jurymen are con-
vinced in a criminal trial ; admit, again, that the Apostles
showed their sincerity by adhering to their creed in spite of per-
secution, and in opposition to their plainest interests ; and
admit, finally, that there is no a priori presumption against
the truth of a miraculous story, and what ground remains for
disputing the Gospel narratives ? If Sherlock and eleven other
bishops had been burnt at Smithfield because they persisted
in asserting that Queen Anne was dead, that they had
actually seen her die, and held a post-mortem examination ;
and if there was no evidence to the contrary, and no reason
for doubting their opportunities of observation, would any
reasonable man have rejected their testimony ? That was
substantially the mode in which the truth of Christ's resur-
rection was argued ; and it is no wonder that the Christian
advocates boasted, with some plausibility, of a complete suc-
cess. There were, indeed, two distinct causes for doubt.
1 Sherlock, v. 182.
246 CRITICAL DEISM.
There was the growing incredulity as to the reality of
miracles, and there were certain rudimentary symptoms of
the tendency which developed with time into genuine
historical criticism. The argument against miracles presently
assumed great prominence. Sherlock treats it with more
distinctness than any of his fellow-apologists. This topic
becomes more prominent in the next stage of the controversy.
It is, however, worth noticing, that Sherlock anticipates the
substance of the reasoning, so frequently elaborated by later
writers. The argument of the deist, he says, comes substan-
tially to this : that we are not to admit the testimony of
others except ' in such matters as appear probable, or at least
possible, to our conceptions.' l This rule would lead us,
according to the familiar illustration, to disbelieve the freezing
of rivers if we lived in a hot country. The death of a man,
and the fact that he is subsequently alive, are both matters
which may be fairly established by evidence. The assertion
that this or other such cases are ' contrary to the course of
nature,' means merely that they are contrary to the inferences
which we have drawn from observation. ' When men talk of
the course of nature, they really talk of their own prejudices
and imaginations,' 2 and, in assuming that things cannot be
otherwise than we have known them to be, ' we outrun the
information of our senses, and the conclusion stands on pre-
judice, not on reason.' 2 Thus we know that all men die and
rise no more, and we infer rightly that a resurrection is ' con-
trary to the uniform and settled course of things. But if we
argue from hence that it is contrary and repugnant to the
real laws of nature, and absolutely impossible on that account,
we argue without any foundation to support us either from
our senses or our reason.' 2 When we consider how ignorant
we are of the nature and causes of the simplest vital pheno-
mena, we must see our incapacity for pronouncing upon the
absolute possibility or impossibility of a resurrection. Ad-
mitting, therefore, that cases of this kind ' require more
evidence to give them credit than ordinary cases do,' 3
Sherlock denies that they are beyond the power of evidence
to establish. ,
60. The evangelists were thus triumphantly acquitted ;
1 Sherlock, v. 190. * Ib. p. 192. Ib. p. 191.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 247
and even Sherlock's opponents admitted the plausibility of
his case. But such controversy never converts ; at most, it
perplexes an antagonist, and, very likely, it drives him to a
more extreme position. Produce the plainest evidence of
eye-witnesses to a fact, and there must always be one mode
of evading its force namely, by assuming that the witnesses
are guilty of perjury. In the case of ancient written testimony,
where no collateral evidence can be procured, and the wit-
nesses are all on one side, such an imputation cannot be
directly repelled. A man who could believe the evangelists
to be deliberate liars was simply impervious to Sherlock's
logic. Such a writer appeared several years later, though it
is a symptom of the declining interest of the controversy that
his brutal plain-speaking excited so little interest. Peter Annet
was the last and least generally known of the deist writers.
He attacked Sherlock's 'Trial' in a pamphlet published in 1744,
called 'The Resurrection of Jesus examined by a Moral
Philosopher.' In a few other pamphlets he carried on the
controversy excited by this performance ; and some years
later in 1762 another pamphlet, called the ' Free Inquirer/
brought its unlucky author to the pillory. As Annet was a
schoolmaster, it is not surprising that he was ruined by the
scandal excited ; and edifying stories were told of his being
driven to accept charity at the hands of the benevolent
Archbishop Seeker. He died in I768. 1 Annet is noticeable
as a link between the older deist writers and the virulence of
Tom Paine. His pages have a touch of the revolutionary
antipathy to Christianity. One of his pamphlets, on ' Social
Bliss,' is a plea for liberty of divorce, which, though borrowed
in part from Milton, and, like Milton's, the fruit of personal
experience, expresses the true anti-social theory of the sub-
versive school. In his deist writings Annet is to Sherlock
1 Some years later he appears to have taken part in a curious little controversy.
The dissenter, S. Chandler, had preached a sermon upon the death of George II.,
containing a parallel between that monarch and King David. An anonymous
pamphlet, called ' The History of the Man after God's own heart,' and attri-
buted to Annet, was published ' merely to show ' (as the preface asserts) ' how
the memory of the British monarch is insulted by the comparison.' A brief dis-
cussion sprang up ; but it is interesting only as the original pamphlet which is
really well written seems to have supplied the hint for one of Voltaire's keenest
satires, the drama of ' Saul ' (1763). The attribution of the pamphlet to Annet is
perhaps doubtful.
248 CRITICAL DEISM.
what an abusive Old Bailey barrister is to a dignified advo-
cate. He cross-examines the evangelists with a cynical
audacity. He spares no imputations, sticks at no cavils, and
bullies and browbeats as if he had to deal with convicted
felons. He is as coarse as Woolston. and no crazy regard to
allegory muffles the force of his blows. Woolston, he says,
failed because he granted too much. 1 Annet, therefore,
grants nothing. The witnesses are treated as vulgar cheats
and impostors, acting from the vilest of motives.
61. Annet was attacked by Samuel Chandler, Jackson,
and the inevitable Leland, and by an anonymous defender of
Sherlock's, who was possibly Sherlock himself; 2 but his chief
enemies were a pair of distinguished laymen, whose books,
conceived in the same spirit as Sherlock's, enjoyed a con-
siderable reputation. Gilbert West, an amiable man and a
decent versifier, was settled in a quiet house at Wickham,
where he frequently received the visits of Pitt and Lyttelton.
These statesmen, we are told, had listened to ' the blandish-
ments of infidelity,' and their restoration to the true faith was
in some measure due to West's arguments. Lyttelton became
not merely a disciple, but an imitator. He did for the con-
version of St. Paul what West did for the resurrection of
Christ. West's ' Observations on the Resurrection,' published
in 1747, obtained for the author the degree of Doctor of Laws
from the University of Oxford. It is a naive recapitulation
of the ordinary argument. Having first harmonised the nar-
ratives, by assuming that to two differing accounts there must
always correspond two events, he treats the whole as the
agreeing testimony of eye-witnesses, whose good faith is
proved by their sufferings. It easily follows that 'there
never was a fact more fully proved.' 3 His theory may be
summed up in a passage curiously characteristic of the
school.
The Apostles, it must be observed, had set about their
investigation in the spirit of judicious, though untrained,
enquirers. 'It is observable,' he remarks, 4 'that all these
1 ' Collection of Tracts,' p. 271.
2 See the defence of the 'Trial ' in Sherlock's Works, vol. v.
1 West, in Watson's Tracts, v. 323.
4 Ib. v. 328.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 249
miraculous incidents followed close upon the back of one
another, and consequently were crowded into a small com-
pass of time ' (his system of concordance has indeed crowded
them very closely by doubling the events), ' so that we ought
to be the less surprised at the Apostles not yielding at once
to so much evidence. Such a heap of wonders were enough
to amaze and overwhelm their understandings. They were,
therefore, left for a time to ruminate upon what they had
heard ; to compare the several reports together ; to examine
the Scriptures, and recollect the predictions and discourses of
their master, to which they were referred, both by the angels
and himself. But the examination of the Scriptures was a
work of some time, and in the situation in which they were,
their minds undoubtedly were in too great an agitation to
settle to such an employment with the composure and atten-
tion that were necessary. Besides, it must be remembered,
they were a company of illiterate men, not versed in the
interpretation of prophecies, not accustomed to long arguments
and deductions, and were moreover under the dominion of
an inveterate prejudice, authorised by the Scribes and Phari-
sees, the priests and elders, whose learning and whose doc-
trines they had been instructed early to revere.' Hence, it
was only proper that, whilst this board of enquiry was sitting,
with ample evidence, indeed, before them, but in an excited
frame of mind, ill suited for ' long deductions,' a thoroughly
competent witness should appear no other, indeed, than
our Lord himself, who materially aided their investigations.
Assuming that this was the spirit in which the new revelation
was tested, and that we have the original finding of the court,
what reason remains for doubting their word ? and what need
even of such supplementary arguments as, that the angel seen
at the tomb cannot have been a ' phantom of the imagination,'
because he was seen by two women at once, 1 and that his
speech must have been genuine, because they could not, in
their state of terror and confusion, have composed one * con-
taining so much matter, order and reason,' * as that in which
he directed the disciples to go to Galilee ? Evidently, it is
assumed that we have before us an accurate report, taken
down at the moment, of the precise words used by the women ;
1 Watson's Tracts, v. 339. 2 Ib. p. 341.
2so CRITICAL DEISM.
and where such an assumption has been made, it is useless to
withdraw our consent to the whole.
62. Lyttelton's similar dissertation upon the conversion of
St. Paul is described by Johnson as ' a treatise to which in-
fidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious answer.'
He professes to show that Paul's conversion was alone a suffi-
cient demonstration of the divine character of Christianity.
The usual arguments as to the absence of motive, the difficulty
of securing the necessary accomplices and of carrying on a
cheat against the scepticism of the Gentiles, who were not, it
seems, like the Jews, a credulous race, but able and disposed
to investigate his pretensions with scientific accuracy, are
triumphantly alleged to prove that St. Paul was. not a de-
liberate impostor. 1 The more reasonable alternative, that he
was an ' enthusiast,' which may be regarded as an indistinct
anticipation of the modern view, is equally impossible, be-
cause his zeal was tempered by prudence ; he was not melan-
choly, nor ignorant, nor credulous ; for his conversion was
slow, in spite of the miracles which he saw ; nor vain, for did
he not humbly declare himself to be the least of the Apostles ?
Now, 'heat of temper, melancholy, ignorance, credulity, and
vanity ' are ' the ingredients of which enthusiasm is generally
composed.' 2 And, further, however great may be the power
of imagination, it could not have made his companions hear
the miraculous voice as well as himself, nor could it have in-
duced a viper to bite without hurting him. Equally impos-
sible was it that imagination should have taught him to speak
with tongues. Finally, it is out of the question to suppose
that Paul was the victim, instead of the originator, of a cheat ;
and hence we are driven to the only possible conclusion
namely, that he was divinely inspired.
63. Annet, in his various tracts, flatly contradicts all the
assumptions made by this amiable pair. In his view, the
witnesses contradict each other, they are of doubtful authen-
ticity, their characters do not entitle them to respect, and the
stories which they tell are essentially incredible. He argues
that all the efforts of the concordance makers fail to remove
inconsistencies so gross as to imply deliberate falsehood. His
theory of the resurrection appears to be that the disciples
1 Lyltelton, Misc. Works, ii. 49. z Ib. p. 58.
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 251
stole the body. He is therefore anxious to make out that the
story of the watch set by the high priests is a mere bit of
manufactured evidence. He argues at great length that the
predictions of his death and resurrection, put into the mouth
of Christ by the evangelist, may be reasonably regarded as
forgery. 1 It is characteristic that, in meeting such an argu-
ment, the apologists constantly assume the minute accuracy
of the disputed records, and argue, for example, from the
supernatural darkness, the rending of the veil, and various
remote inferences as to the probability of the preparations for
the embalming the body being known to the high priests. 2
Such root and branch scepticism seems to have produced a
bewildering effect upon them, and they assume as incontro-
vertible the very facts disputed. Thus, for example, Annet
points out very reasonably that the supposed multitude of
witnesses to the facts is a mere illusion. St. Paul speaks of
five hundred witnesses, but the proof of the five hundred
witnesses ' depends but upon his single testimony, or of some
other in his name, or of the greatest liar in the world, the
Church of Rome.' 3 We know little of the origin of the records
in which the testimony is contained, but we do know that the
Gospels were written after the event, perhaps long after, in a
credulous age ; and, if written at the time alleged, kept secret
among the Christians for a century. 4 The apologists were
therefore wrong at every point in assuming that we have the
coherent testimony of eye-witnesses.
64. Annet's attack upon the character of the supposed
witnesses is even more characteristic. He regards them as
most people regarded the Methodists of his time. How do
we know, he asks, that ' they lived better at their trade of
fishing than preaching ? ' 8 The early community of goods
renders it probable that the Apostles ' made a good living of
it.' 6 ' Let his opponents,' he says elsewhere, ' ask Mr. White-
field if charitable collections and common purse-money are
not very good things?' 6 He pictures that notorious hypo-
crite, toasting himself over a fire lit by the folly of his converts,
drinking his wine and laughing at the gulls. St. Paul, of
1 'Collection of Tracts,' p. 280. * Ib. p. 452.
* See specially the tract in answer to Sherlock. s Ib. p. 308.
1 Annet's Tracts, p. 306. Ib. p. 392.
-52 CRITICAL DEISM.
course, fares no better. Annet is not appalled by Lyttelton's
dilemma. The great Apostle, he thinks, first hired himself to
be an informer against the Christians, and then joined the
rising sect when he thought he could make a good thing by
it. 1 It is likely that he was in love with the high priest's
daughter, and piqued by her disdain into desertion. 2 His
affectations of humility are a transparent sham. His visions
were easy lies. ' Did not John Reeves and Lodowic Muggle-
ton found their imposture on such pretensions,' 3 and what
test can possibly be devised for distinguishing the cases ?
Nay, St. Paul may be convicted of perjury from his own mouth.
When speaking of his journey to Arabia (which it is difficult
to fit into the narrative, and which is therefore supposed by
Annet to imply a falsehood somewhere), he says, ' Now
the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie
not.' ' Now,' retorts Annet, ' though he swears that he does
not lie, I believe before Ged that he swears to a lie, and that
there is no dependence for truth in these sacred stories.' 4 It
is easy to imagine what kind of caricature is drawn of the
great Apostle, and what in such hands becomes of his strange
outbursts of enthusiasm, his singular outbursts of passion, and
his strange feats of logic.
Finally, Annet argues at length that miracles are altogether
incredible. 5 All miraculous stories are therefore lies. If, he
says, a man tells me that he has crossed Westminster Bridge,
the story may be true and deserves examination, though the
Bridge is (1747) not quite finished ; but if he says that he
jumped the river, I know the story to be a lie, and trouble
myself no more about it. 6 Apply this simple criterion to the
Bible, and it is easy to see what becomes of it.
65. Annet's brutal assaults undoubtedly touched many
weak places in the line of defence. The argument had now
reached a point at which some solution resting on deeper and
wider enquiries was obviously necessary. The deists had
been, not confuted, but driven to take a bolder ground.
Collins had once said 7 that he ' thought so well of St. Paul,
both as a man of sense and a gentleman, that, if he had
1 Annet's Tracts, p. 54. 8 Ib. p. 61. s ' Supernaturals Examined. '
2 Ib. p. 56. 4 Ib. p. 68. 8 Annet's Tracts, p. 140.
7 Barrington's Works, Preface to vol. i. xix note.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 253
asserted he had worked miracles himself, he would have be-
lieved him.' On some passage being alleged to prove that
St. Paul made such claims, Collins, it is said, was confused
and retired. The practical effect, however, of calling St. Paul
into the witness-box was to make the deists call him a liar
and an impostor. In fact, they were pressed by an awkward
dilemma. Is it easier to believe in miracles, or to believe
that the early Christians were cheats and dupes ? Both sides
seemed to agree that nothing but a prospect of gain in this
world, or a clear offer of rewards in the next, from undeniable
authority, could have induced men to preach a new religion.
Which was the most difficult alternative ? Pious minds which
valued the spiritual influence of religion, and stupid minds
which saw no difficulty in miracles, naturally acquiesced in the
traditional teaching. Some acute and cynical thinkers aban-
doned the whole body of orthodox dogma as a cheat. The
great question which required decision in order to settle the
point at issue was, therefore, the credibility of miracles. We
shall presently see how this critical enquiry was conducted in
the next generation. Meanwhile, the year 1748 was distin-
guished by the appearance of two most remarkable contribu-
tions to the discussion. One came from Hume, the other from
one of the acutest writers of the time, the peculiar character
of whose influence demands a somewhat full consideration.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT.
66. Conyers Middleton, of whom I am speaking, like
Pearce, Waterland, and Sherlock, belonged to the group of
distinguished Cambridge men who, unfortunately, illustrated
the truth that wide learning and elegant scholarship may be
combined with controversial brutality. Middleton, as a young
man, was a Fellow of Trinity, and his name appears in 1709
on the petition to the Visitor of the College, which was one of
the first acts in the long and bitter warfare excited by
Bentley's over-vigorous rule. 1 Though Middleton vacated
his fellowship by marriage within a year from this time, his
antipathies survived. Some years later (in 1717), his resist-
1 Monk's 'Bentley,' i. 253.
254 CRITICAL DEISM.
ance to Bentley's demand of four guineas, as a fee due to the
Professor from newly-created Doctors of Divinity, provoked
a struggle between the University and the indomitable
master. Middleton's pamphlet contained the most galling
insults to which Bentley was exposed ; and, besides the
original matter in dispute, Middleton discovered in Bentley's
college rule, and in his proposals for a new edition of the
Greek Testament, fresh ground for virulent abuse. For a time
Middleton had the advantage over his redoubtable opponent,
but the great master finally triumphed. Middleton had to
apologise for libel ; he was fined 5O/. by the Court of King's
Bench for reflecting upon his judges ; and in the year 1724,
utterly baffled and disgusted, he undertook a journey to Italy
for the recovery of his health and spirits. A common
antipathy to Bentley had hitherto led him to associate him-
self with Sherlock, Waterland, and other members of the
orthodox party. 1 It seems probable that he considered 'himself
to have been left in the lurch by his companions, though they
rewarded his services by securing his appointment as principal
keeper of the University library. Whatever may be the
cause, there is a vein of bitterness in his later controversial
writings. Middleton has the tone of a disappointed man.
Probably he felt himself to be in a false position. He is more
open to the charge of insidious hostility to Christianity than
such writers as Tindal and Collins ; for, whilst expressing
sentiments almost identical with those of the deists, he re-
tained ecclesiastical preferment to the end of his life. Dis-
appointment at the discovery that he had forfeited his chances
of higher preferment by overstepping the conventional limits
of orthodoxy, and possibly some of the discontent often felt
by men doomed to academical retirement whilst ambitious
to be regarded as men of the world, may have contributed to
sour him. At any rate, we feel a certain suspicion of his
loudly expressed claims to disinterested love of truth, and
contempt for the trammels of worldly ambition. His best-
known book, ' The Life of Cicero,' is the chief foundation of
his claims to a peculiar excellence of style ; but his other
writings, in spite of the blemishes of sentiment, showed a
juster appreciation of the true conditions of the argument
1 Monk, ii. 151, 154.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 255
than any hitherto noticed, and may be counted as amongst
the most powerful agents in the intellectual development of
the time. Middleton, who had held his own against Bentley,
could not summarily be put down as an ignorant dabbler in
matters too deep for him. Though he advanced no general
theory, he struck at the weakest point in the orthodox line of
defences. He first opened the breach by which critics of
wider views and deeper cultivation have forced an entrance.
Walpole notices the weakness of the replies made to him as
a proof of the decline of the public interest in theological
controversy. 1 It is obvious, remarks the cynic, how much
personal prejudice influenced his antagonists, inasmuch as the
posthumous tracts, which he had kept back as too daring
during his life, received no answer after his death. The state-
ment is accurate enough. The spirit of theological controversy
was waxing faint, and the whole argument was passing into
a new phase. Middleton's writings, though vehemently
denounced, raised no excitement comparable to that which
had greeted the books of Tindal, Collins, and Woolston.
Something, indeed, must be allowed for their purely critical
character. The assault is more oblique. Middleton's strongest
statements might be accepted without injury to the more
rationalising forms of Protestantism. He was, in fact, tracing
the first parallels of the siege works ; but they were insignifi-
cant in appearance, and the body of the place was not openly
threatened.
67. The Letter from Rome, which was the first of Middle-
ton's theological works, was described by him, and was
accepted by most of his contemporaries, as a Protestant attack
upon Catholicism. Middleton had hoped, as he tells us, to
devote himself to classical studies without taking much notice
of the modern religion of Rome. To his surprise he found
that the two lines of study converged ; 2 the ceremonies of
modern Rome were the best help to an imagination which
would realise the external appearance of the old paganism ;
so striking was the mutual interpretation of the two systems,
so vividly were classical allusions illustrated by Catholic
ceremonies and modern practices explained by ancient super-
stitions, that Middleton resolved to devote himself to the
1 Walpole's ' George II.,' i. 147. * Middleton's Misc. Works, v. 91.
256 CRITICAL DEISM.
historical investigation of this curious phenomenon. The
Letter contains the result of his enquiries. The incense smok-
ing upon the numerous altars of the churches recalled Virgil's
description of the temple of the Paphian Venus. 1 The use
of holy water was long esteemed as heathenish by the early
fathers, and when adopted by the Church, the same composi-
tion of water and salt, and even the same form of sprinkling-
brush, was retained. 2 The lights which burnt before the
shrines of the saints were adopted in the same way, after
having been in the same way condemned, from the Pagan
ritual. 3 Votive offerings hung in churches as they once hung
in the temples of the Gods. 4 Crowds of worshippers still
bowed before images of wood and stone, though saints, instead
of demigods, have served as the originals. 5 The Madonna
of the Sun had displaced Vesta, and Cosmos and Damianus
have displaced Romulus and Remus ; G but the spirit of
idolatry survives the change of form. Indeed, the modern
saints have frequently been manufactured from the ancient
gods with scarcely a change of name, and sometimes by a
blundering interpretation of an old inscription. There is a
modern altar to St. Baccho ; and St. Veronica is founded
upon a blunder about the Vera Icon. 7 Chapels and rural
shrines are still to be found as of old in public ways, in sacred
groves, and on the tops of hills. 8 The pagan were merely
the rehearsal, in slightly different costumes, of Catholic
processions. 9 Pictures come down from heaven like the
sacred shield of Numa. 10 Relics and miracles are as plentiful
and as absurd as in classical times ; and the Pope's succes-
sion from the Pontifex Maximus is more plainly made out
than from the Apostle Peter. 11
68. The purpose of the argument, which is ingeniously
illustrated and agreeably written, is to base the charge of
idolatry upon a surer footing than the elaborate arguments
of Protestant divines, which are generally met with equally
elaborate evasions. Middleton, in fact, felt, in this instance,
the power of the historical method as distinguished from the
1 Middleton, v. 94. Ib. p. in. 9 Ib. p. 126.
2 Ib. p. 97. e Ib p. 117. 10 Ib. p. 145.
8 Ib. p. 101. ' Ib. pp. 121, 127. n Ib. p. 158.
4 Ib. p. 103. 8 Ib. p. 130.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 257
dogmatic arguments generally adopted. He was, of course,
not original l in his general remarks ; but he had certainly
made excellent use of a weapon destined, in the hands of
future enquirers, to yield results reaching infinitely further
than the settlement of any sectarian dispute. Probably he
was far from appreciating the ultimate bearing of his own
remarks. If he was sincere in thinking that his attack upon
the enemies of Protestantism must be harmless to Protestant-
ism itself, it was not for want of warning. A Catholic
antagonist retorted with the usual shortsightedness of con-
troversialists that the tests by which he condemned the
Popish miracles would equally condemn all miracles, and that
Protestantism could no more deny its debt to ancient pa-
ganism than Catholicism. Middleton, of course, replies by
denying the consequence. We, he said, retain none of these
pagan observances ; 2 the miracles in which we believe were
wrought for different purposes and differed in their character ;
yet he takes occasion to deny the validity of Leslie's rules
for distinguishing between true and false miracles, 3 and soon
afterwards, as we shall directly see, he developed this line of
argument on a much larger scale.
69. Middleton was thus far accepted as a respectable ally
of Protestantism. The true bearing of his theories was brought
out in his next publication. Tindal, in his ' Christianity as
Old as the Creation,' had aimed certain sidelong blows at the
Old Testament by way of testifying his dislike to a positive
religion. The gauntlet thus thrown down was raised by the
greatest living champion of orthodoxy. Waterland, leaving
to others the task of meeting Tindal's more general argument,
undertook to refute his aspersions upon the letter of the
Bible. Waterland was regarded with peculiar respect by the
clergy as having encountered, and, as was generally supposed,
1 See Middleton, v. 75, where he quotes Catholic authorities for the similarity
alleged. Warton (Essay on Pope, ii. 253) says that great part of the Letters
from Rome was taken from a little-known work called ' Conformite des Ceremonies
modernes avec les anciennes,' Leyden, 1667. A chapter in Henry More's
' Mystery of Iniquity ' partly anticipates the same line of argument. Middleton
has also been accused of gross plagiarism in his Life of Cicero. See De
Quincey's Essay on Bentley.
* Ib. p. 76. * Ib- P- 62 -
VOL. I. S
? 58 CRITICAL DEISM.
crushed, the incipient Arianism of Clarke. Not content with
the glory of vindicating the Athanasian Creed, he had carried
his warfare into the enemy's camp. He objected to any
theology based upon the unassisted reason, and tried to show
that Clarke's a priori demonstration of the existence of God
was invalid. We must believe in God, but we must believe
in him for the right reason. It was thus his natural ten-
dency to ground the evidence of religion exclusively upon
the testimony of facts, and to repudiate any theory which
implied the possibility of constructing an independent test of
his truth. The historical basis was the sole and sufficient
basis, and all that men could do was to receive with due
reverence whatever was confirmed by miracles. It is worth
while to dwell for a few moments on the answer to Tindal
constructed upon these principles ; for it would be impossible
to find a better example of that brutal theology which gloried
in trampling on the best instincts of its opponents, and which
is, in the sphere of religion, what a cynical admiration of brute
force is in the sphere of politics. A few specimens of his
replies to Tindal will exhibit the nature of this most unlovely
product of eighteenth-century speculation.
70. A sufficient instance of purely grotesque explanations
is the argument that God may have kept the clouds in
such a position that there were no rainbows before the Flood. 1
This suggests some curious problems for a Cambridge autho-
rity ; but, of course, with God nothing is impossible. Water-
land is still less felicitous in moral difficulties. Abraham, he
says, was quite right in saying that Sarah was his sister,
without adding that she was his wife. 2 Nay, his conduct was
so ' innocent and laudable,' that Isaac afterwards did the same
thing with the same success. 3 He will not altogether justify
the deceit practised upon Isaac by Jacob and Rebecca, for he
thinks that he can fasten upon Tindal a charge of sanctioning
equally loose morality ; but he works himself up to the asser-
tion that there were ' good and laudable ' circumstances in
their action which might ' move a merciful God to give a bless-
ing to it.' Esau was not prejudiced by it, for he had sold his
birthright. The Jews borrowed the property of the Egyptians
and did not return it ; but ' God had an undoubted right to
1 Waterland's Works, vol. iv. 184. 2 Ib. p. 118. * Ib. p. 190.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 259
transfer the property to the Hebrews, since the whole world
is his, and no one can put in any bar to his title.' l
God, it is plain, may in particular cases sanction down-
right lying and cheating. God, we are next told, was so
mild in ancient days, that he would have spared Sodom had
it contained ten righteous men. 2 This merciful Being, how-
ever, ordered a wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites, men,
women and children ; and Tindal's comparison of the Jewish
executors of his vengeance to the Spaniards in Mexico is
' dull and insipid,' for is it not notorious that God takes away
thousands of innocent children every day ? 3 Rahab's be-
trayal of her countrymen was laudable, for she was deeply
sensible that the Lord of heaven and earth had presented
the land to the Jews. 4 The resemblance of the crime of
Ehud to the murder of the French Henries was only super-
ficial, for the Popish assassins had not a divine commission. 5
Jael had a divine direction to drive the nail through Sisera's
head, 6 and Jephtha was right to kill his daughter, even though
he might have redeemed her according to the Levitical law. 7
His sense of honour was too delicate for such a subterfuge.
' Being a very religious man, he was scrupulous in the matter.
Having made a vow so solemn, and upon so public an occa-
sion, he might think it mean in a person of his distinction to
redeem so precious a treasure as his only daughter at the low
legal price of thirty shekels.' Since God has an ' absolute
right over the lives of all,' he was perfectly justified in punish-
ing Saul's ill-behaviour to the Gibeonites by inflicting three
years' famine upon the Israelites. 8 Since Elijah could only
bring from heaven such fire as God chose to send, he could
not have done wrong in slaying the captains who came
against him. There is nothing ' at all surprising ' in the story
of the she-bears killing forty-two children, for ' it was kind of
God to take them out of the world before they should come
to do that malevolently and of their own accord, which they
now began to do as set on and managed by others.' 9
71. All this, and more, is said, not by Voltaire in one of
his most scoffing moods, but by the most renowned living de-
1 Waterland's Works, iv. 220. 4 Ib. p. 243. ' Ib. p. 258.
2 Ib. p. 223. * Ib. p. 250. Ib. p. 270.
8 Ib. p. 233. 6 Ib. p. 256. 9 Ib. p. 277.
260 CRITICAL DEISM.
fender of the faith. Voltaire indeed had only to repeat it
literally with a covert sneer, in order to convert it into a bitter
lampoon. Waterland, for example, justifies the slaughter of
the Amalekites and Agag on the ground that the Jews had
God's express orders for it. 'What can we desire more,' he
asks, ' than an order from heaven ? ' l And here is Voltaire's
version, in the drama of ' Saul.' Samuel reproaches Saul for
pardoning Agag.
' Comment,' exclaims Agag, ' la plus belle vertue serait
regardee chez vous comme un crime ? '
Samuel (a Agag). 'Tais-toi ; ne blaspheme point.' (a Saul)
' Saul, gi-devant roi des Juifs, Dieu ne vous avait-il pas or-
donne", par ma bouche, d'egorger tous les Amalecites sans
e*pargner ni les femmes, ni les filles, ni les enfans a la
mamelle ? '
Agag. ' Ton Dieu t'avait ordonne cela ! tu t'es trompe ;
tu voulais dire ton diable.'
Agag's retort was excellent ; but, according to Voltaire, it
made very little impression upon Samuel, and Waterland was
apparently quite as indifferent as the prophet. Though he
could not hew Tindal in pieces before the Lord, he thought
that men might be hectored into orthodoxy by threats of
hell fire ; and we need not enquire whether the sarcasm of
the assailants of Christianity, or the brow-beating vulgarities
of its official defenders, did most injury to the cause.
72. The philosophy of this mode of defence is given by
Waterland himself. ' All the pretended arguments,' he says,
' against plain scriptural facts, or plain scriptural declarations,
are empty fallacies, good for nothing. The sitting down to
consider what God ought to do, without first enquiring what
he has done, is preposterous and absurd. 2 ... it is beginning
at the wrong end, regulating the divine wisdom by ours,
instead of regulating ours by his.' Therefore wholesale mas-
sacres and deliberate lying may be accepted as virtuous
actions, if only the narrator allege that the perpetrator
had divine authority for his actions. The stupidity of using
such arguments against a man who denies altogether the
divine authority of these detestable crimes, and indeed
regards them as the wild fancies of a barbarous race, passes
1 Waterland's Works, p. 263. * Ib. p. 215.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 261
out of sight in the disgust excited by such a theology as is
here implied. The truth of a religion is explicitly and avow-
edly staked not on the purity and elevation of its teaching
but on the bare historical evidence of certain events which
happened thousands of years ago. It is only in accordance
with such teaching that Waterland ridicules any motives to
virtue except fear of punishment. The hopes of heaven
and the dread of hell would, he thinks, do youth ' ten times
more service than all his (Tindal's) visionary and fantastic
helps to virtue.' l And his view of the relation of God to man
is sufficiently illustrated by his argument in defence of the
narrow area of revelation, that Nebuchadnezzar's procla-
mation which he regards as equally authentic with the
proclamation of George II. against profligacy and those of
his successors would be sufficient notice to most of the
heathen nations, unless they were culpably careless, stupid,
or prejudiced. If they did not attend to such warnings, God
might rightfully torture them in hell to all eternity.
73. Middleton entered the controversy by a bitter and
powerful pamphlet directed against Waterland. It provoked
an angry war of words, in which Pearce defended Waterland,
and accused Middleton of infidelity. Three further letters
contain Middleton 's replies, which, as is usual, degenerate
into matters of less interest, and long discussions as to the
accuracy of quotations and translations. The pith of the
assault is given in the first pamphlet.
Middleton, though eager to inflict every possible wound
upon his antagonist, says little of the strange immorality of
his apology. The point which he is specially anxious to
enforce is the utter impossibility of maintaining the dogma
of literal inspiration. He dwells, for example, on the extreme
absurdity of Waterland's account of the Fall. Waterland makes
the serpent to be the Devil, though Moses the supposed author
of the Book of Genesis says nothing about the Devil, and only
speaks of the natural subtlety of the serpent ; so that Water-
land is already forced to rationalise. 2 Eve's knowledge of the
serpent's cunning is given on one page as the reason why she
should not be surprised at his talking ; on the next, it is sug-
gested that, for want of experience, she could not know whether
1 Waterland's Works, p. 267. * Middleton's Works, iii. 15 et set/.
262 CRITICAL DEISM.
beasts talked or not. Middleton agrees with Waterland that
it is extravagant to suppose that serpents were once so like
angels that one could be easily mistaken for the other ; yet,
he says, this extravagant notion was adopted by Patrick and
other learned men, because Waterland's theory seemed still
more extravagant. Then the introduction of the Devil only
raises the further difficulty how God's justice can be vindicated
for not interposing in so unequal a combat. Is it like a good
father to disinherit a child who had been misled by the craft
of some superior sophist ? After some more ridicule of
Waterland's theory, which reads very much like ridicule of
the author of Genesis, Middleton gives some appropriate
quotations from Cicero, in one of which he ridicules a story
of a serpent talking to Alexander in a dream. Middleton
pronounces in favour of a purely allegorical interpretation,
Adam representing reason, Eve the flesh, and the serpent
lust or pleasure. It may well be doubted whether he was
more in earnest than Collins or Woolston. A more charac-
teristic argument follows, in which Middleton agrees with
Tindal in tracing many of the Jewish practices, and especially
circumcision, to the Egyptians. 1 After ridiculing the story of
Babel, taken in its literal meaning, Middleton proceeds to
give his own method of dealing with Tindal, which, it must
be confessed, was little calculated to allay suspicions of his
orthodoxy. His main assertion is that, even if Christianity
were admitted to be an imposture, it would be ' criminal and
immoral ' to attempt its overthrow, 2 ' as 'tis now established
by law, derived from our ancestors, confirmed by the belief
and practice of so many ages.' Some ' traditional religion or
other ' 3 is a necessity, and it is therefore a hopeless attempt to
supplant Christianity by reason. To defend every proposi-
tion in revelation is as absurd as to maintain that every one
of God's visible works serves an obvious purpose ; and by
voluntarily assuming the burden of supporting every text, the
apologist will ' expose religion to too great hazard, and engage
on too great odds ' with his antagonist. 4 A clergyman could
1 This view was apparently taken by Tindal from Spenser, whose treatise,
' De Legibus Hebrasorum,' appeared in 1685, and gave some offence in his advo-
cacy of the same view. Shaftesbury had dwelt upon the same point more recently.
2 Middleton's Works, iii. 52. Ib. p. 56. 4 Ib. p. 66.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 263
hardly be expected to say in plainer terms that his creed was
logically untenable, though politically useful
74. In the subsequent tracts, Middleton betrays a disposi-
tion to attack the authority of the Scriptures tempered by a
certain fear of the consequences. The controversy turned in
part upon the correct interpretation of a passage in which
Josephus, comparing Moses to Minos, and other lawgivers
of Greek legend, seems to admit the existence of a certain
amount of statecraft in the Jewish prophet. Middleton
guardedly infers that we should use ' reserve and moderation '
in speaking of the ' marvellous and supernatural part of
Moses's character.' l He is anxious, however, to soften the
effect of his language, and though attacking the literal inter-
pretations of the Fall and the Tower of Babylon, declares that
he only rejects the narrative ' hypothetically or conditionally.' 2
He says that it is not 'material to enquire' 3 how much there
may be of an historical element in such stories ; and he finally
formulates his opinion in four propositions. 4 He maintains,
first, that the Jews derived some of their customs from Egypt ;
secondly, that the Egyptians possessed arts and learning in
the time of Moses ; thirdly, that the primitive vindicators of
Scripture were compelled to have recourse to allegory ; and,
fourthly, that the Scriptures are not of absolute and universal
inspiration.
75. No one would care to deny any of these propositions
at the present day ; but, harmless as they appear, they had a
very marked significance. The method was of more impor-
tance than the result Middleton had, in fact, a more distinct
view than any of his contemporaries of the essential conti-
nuity of history. The dogma of literal inspiration stood in
his way, by giving to the Bible a character entirely disparate
from that of all other historical records. The narrative itself,
and the events of which it spoke, were removed by a super-
stitious veil of sanctity from the domain of historical criti-
cism. To remove that veil, and to apply the same methods
of enquiry to all periods and all nations, and to show how the
supposed breaches of continuity disappeared under closer
investigation, was the aim of all Middleton's writings. One
1 Middleton's Works, p. 107. * Ib. p. 233.
2 Ib. p. 220. * Ib. p. 277.
264 CRITICAL DEISM.
of his posthumous tracts, called ' Reflections on the Variations
to be found in the Four Evangelists,' expresses very clearly
the bearing of these principles upon the dogma of literal
inspiration. Considered as historical documents, he says,
they are confirmed by their trifling discrepancies. But this
argument, familiar enough to apologists, becomes, as he says,
' wholly trifling and impotent ' on the theory which repre-
sents the Evangelists as mere ' organs and pipes ' for conveying
the utterances of the Divine Spirit to men. 1 The only legiti-
mate method is to cast aside this needless hypothesis, which
reduces us to ' miserable shifts and evasions,' and to look facts
in the face. 'The case is the same in theological as in
natural enquiries ; it is experience alone, and the observation
of facts, which can illustrate the truth of principles. Facts
are stubborn things, deriving their existence from nature, and
though frequently misrepresented and disguised by art and
false colours, yet cannot possibly be totally changed or made
pliable to the systems which happen to be in fashion, but
sooner or later will always reduce the opinions of men to
compliance and conformity with themselves.' 2 Middleton
evidently anticipates the fundamental principles of historical
criticism.
76. His various tracts are directed chiefly against the be
lief in verbal inspiration ; that belief, however, was obnoxious
chiefly as standing in the way of a more important doc-
trine, which finds expression in his ' Free Inquiry into the
Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have existed in the
Christian Church through several successive Ages.' This
book appeared in 1748, and is said by Hume to have
' eclipsed ' his ' Essay on Miracles,' which, by a noteworthy
coincidence, appeared in the same year. It had been pre-
ceded, in 1747, by an ' Introductory Discourse,' which, as usual,
led to some further controversy. A certain Dr. Chapman
conceived himself to have discovered a Jesuit plot, the first
result of which was Hardouin's attempt to prove that the
writings attributed to the ancient classical authors were
modern forgeries ; and the last, Middleton's assault on the
fathers ; the general purpose being to throw discredit on all
human testimony. Middleton's argument, if not inspired by
1 Middleton's Works, ii. 341. 2 Ib. 375.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 265
the Jesuits, might well be regarded as insidious by a sound
divine, for it was obviously capable of a far wider application
than that which he avowedly gave to it. It touched the
central problem.
77. The question had frequently been asked ; where was
the line to be drawn between the exceptional world ruled by
supernatural agencies and the existing world, in which the
laws of nature worked without interruption ? So profound a
distinction might, one would have fancied, be marked by a
corresponding breach in the continuity of history. Miracles,
as the writers of that day expressed themselves, had plainly
ceased ; but when and where did they cease ? Did the
extraordinary powers confided by Christ to his Church expire
with the Apostles ? Did they continue over the palmy days
of the first three centuries ? Did they last through the fourth,
or even into the fifth, age ? All those opinions had been
held by Anglican divines of reputation, whilst the ingenious
Whiston had hit upon the alternative doctrine that the super-
natural powers were withdrawn from the Church A.D. 381, on
account of the Athanasian heresy ; but that from that time
the Devil had supplied an efficient substitute. 1 Middleton,
assuming that the purity of doctrine was guaranteed by the
continuance of miracles, inferred that miracles could not be
admitted without danger to Protestantism even in the third
century, inasmuch as many superstitious observances, such as
the worship of images and relics, prayers for the dead, and
the superstitious use of crosses, had already crept in. This
part of his argument, it may be noticed in passing, contributed
to the temporary conversion of Gibbon, who thought the
proof of the existence of these beliefs more satisfactory than
the proof of the discontinuance of miracles. Middleton, how-
ever, had good reason to urge for his incredulity. The
earliest fathers, he said, did not claim miraculous power. The
later fathers who put forward that claim were fools or liars,
but especially liars. Justin Martyr, for example, who is the
earliest of those whose character is impugned, tells a quantity
of silly stories, quotes acknowledged forgeries, such as the
Sibylline books, with profound reverence, and blunders between'
Simon Magus and the Sabine deity, Semosanctus. Irenaeus
1 Middleton's Works, i. xliii.
266 CRITICAL DEISM.
relies upon the authority of Papias, who, as Eusebius says,
' was a weak man of very shallow understanding,' and imposed
a quantity of silly traditions upon the early ecclesiastical
writers. The strange conceits which they took for arguments
are a sufficient proof of the imbecility of these authorities.
Later fathers, of greater reputation, sanctioned pious frauds.
Jerome deliberately confesses the practice ; after relating a
silly story about certain relics at Jerusalem, he adds that he
does ' not find fault with an error which flows from an hatred
of the Jews, and a pious zeal for the Christian faith.' l The
learned Mosheim does not scruple to intimate his fears that
' those who search with any attention into the writings of the
greatest and most holy doctors of the fourth century will find
them all, without exception, disposed to deceive and to lie
whenever the interest of religion requires it.' 2
78. Whatever the justice of these accusations, which Mid-
dleton supports by many illustrations, it must be admitted that
he shows the harshness of judgment characteristic of his time.
Charges of deliberate fraud and imposture are always on his
lips. Such a story, for example, as that of St. Anthony, who
told Athanasius how he had seen the Devil in person knocking
at the door of his cell, in order to propose a truce, is unhesi-
tatingly set down to fiction, instead of, what would be more
familiar to the present generation, the diseased imagination
of the ascetic monk. To the suggestion, not a very happy
one, it must be admitted, in the mouth of an apologist, that the
fathers may have been deceived as well as deceivers, Middle-
ton replies that they could not have been so stupid. It is
odd, he says, that the state of the controversy is suddenly
reversed. ' Dr. Middleton conceives so good an opinion of
their (the fathers') understanding, as to think it impossible
that they should not discover the palpable forgery of the
absurd stories which they relate ; whereas the Observator
takes them to have been so grossly ignorant and credulous
that they might probably believe them.' 3 Though Middleton
errs, with all his contemporaries, in attributing to the fathers
the same degree of critical faculty which was developed in
later times, we cannot doubt the value of his main contention,
that the same tests should be applied by us to the narratives
1 Middleton's Works, i. 288. 2 Ib. p. 291. 3 Ib. ii. 39.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 267
of those days which should be applied now. The belief in
the miraculous had so far died out that it was enough to
relate the stories simply, and to leave them to be confuted by
their intrinsic absurdity. The tacit presumption which still
favoured the Gospels had already disappeared in regard to the
less familiar narratives of a later time. St. Augustine, for
example, gives a curious account of certain miracles which
occurred in his own day, and complains of the singular in-
difference which prevailed among the Christians themselves.
To put an end to this negligence, he took care that narratives
should be drawn up by the parties concerned in any miracle,
and publicly read to the people. Yet they still made no
impression. To explain this, says Middleton, it is only
necessary to attend to the miracles themselves. 1 One story,
for example, relates how some holy earth, brought from
Christ's grave, instantly cured a paralytic patient. After
repeating two of these stories 'so precisely described and
authentically tested by one of the most venerable fathers in
all antiquity,' Middleton assumes that they confute themselves,
and that the indifference of the people shows simply that they
' saw, or suspected the cheat, and were tired with the repeated
frauds of this kind which their bishops were imposing upon
them.' 2 No evidence, he in fact assumes, can be sufficient to
establish our belief in such nonsense. He exposes the fallacy
of Dr. Chapman, who had argued that we have as much evi-
dence for a belief in the miracles of St. Simeon Stylites as
for a belief in his existence, by pointing out, in the spirit of
Hume, that miraculous stories require a very different weight
of evidence from ordinary facts. The cures, for example,
attributed to Vespasian would be accepted by nobody, and in
the same way, we take the word of ecclesiastical historians so
long as reason and religion permit, and ascribe the rest to
their ' credulity, prejudices, and erroneous principles.' 3 One
miracle, it may be worth notice, is easily explained by a
scientific observation. The miracle of the tongueless confes-
sors is mentioned by Gibbon as resting on remarkably good
evidence. 4 He had apparently forgotten, however, that
1 Middleton's Works, i. 267. 2 Ib. p. 275. 3 Ib. p. 301.
4 ' Decline and Fall,' ch. xxx^ii. Disraeli ( ' Curiosities of Literature,' p. 426)
mentions a book published in Paris in 1765, the title of which begins with the
268 CRITICAL DEISM.
Middleton shows, what has since been illustrated by fresh
cases, that people in modern times have been known to speak
without tongues. 1
79. Middleton is on stronger ground when he assigns the
general intellectual condition of the age as the true source of
miracles. He shows, for example, that the belief in diabolical
possession and the efficacy of exorcism was not confined to
the Christians, 2 but was equally prevalent amongst Jews and
Gentiles. The name of Christ worked no greater wonders
than the name of Solomon, and the fathers admit the reality
of the pagan miracles, only attributing their power to diabolic
influence. If they were deluded by such impostors, why not
by men of their own persuasion ? If not deluded, might they
not find it convenient to oppose one cheat to another, and
beat their antagonists at their own weapons ? 3 The fact that
the power of exorcism was finally put under restriction, and
allowed only to those who had been appointed by bishops, is
a sufficient proof of the scandal which had been brought upon
the Church by impostors and enthusiasts. 4 And, finally, we
observe the same phenomena in our own day. No miracle is
' so authentically attested as the existence of witches.' 5 Yet
the utter ' incredibility of the theory prevailed, and was found
at length too strong for all this force of human testimony ; so
that the belief of witches is now utterly extinct.' 6 Nay, there
is hardly a single fact alleged to have occurred in primitive
times which might not be paralleled in some modern sect of
Christians. We now attribute such events to the craft of a
few operating on the many. Why not apply the same rule
to the earlier records ? Middleton, it may be remarked in
conclusion, combats the application of his principles to the
case of the Gospel narratives. His defence, however, seems
to be weak, and he ends by declaring that the argument
remains the same whatever the consequences ; if the fathers
are convicted of craft and credulity, we must not believe
words ' The Christian Religion proved by a single Fact ; a Dissertation in which it
is shown that the three Catholics of whom Hunneric, King of the Vandals, cut
the tongues, spake miraculously for the remainder of their days.' See, too, Mr.
Twisleton's curious monograph upon that subject, called ' The Tongue not essen-
tial to Speech.'
1 Middleton's Works, i. p. 315. 3 Ib. p. 213. 5 Ib. p. 355.
* Ib. p. 209. 4 Ib. p. 221. 8 Ib. p. 357.
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 269
them, whatever may be the conclusions to which our disbelief
may lead. 1
80. No part, it may be, of Middleton's attack was strictly
original. The fathers had already been assailed by Protestants,
especially Daille, in the preceding century, and more recently
by Barbeyrac in the interests of freethinking. But Middleton
brought together a significant series of arguments, which
tended to place the whole subject in a new light. The at-
mosphere of opinion was already hostile to miracles. ' Our
ingenious friend ....,' he writes to Warburton in 1736, 'has,
as you observe, rightly charged the source of infidelity on
the miraculous history of each Testament ; yet our divines
are continually haranguing upon it, as reflecting nothing but
lustre and brightness on the evidences of both ; ' and this
remark is appended to the observation that the ' lives and
characters of the fathers are more likely, in my opinion, to
shake a settled, than confirm a wavering faith.' 2 Middleton
certainly used them for that purpose. Opinion had so far
developed itself, that he could, as we have seen, quote a
miraculous story as a sufficient refutation of itself. Within
the sacred precincts of Bible history, this, indeed, could not
be done ; but the limit between the regions where the Almighty
was allowed, and that where he was forbidden to work miracles,
was fluctuating and uncertain. By trying to throw it further
back, Middleton was extending the area of free criticism, and
the extension might obviously be indefinite. All that was
required was to induce men to look upon the history of Moses
as they looked upon the history of Marlborough ; and his
mode of approaching the problem was effective because it threw
upon his opponents the burden of drawing a distinction between
the two cases. Why, he asked, by insinuation, should you be-
lieve Moses or Matthew if you won't believe St. Augustine ?
Why, if you believe St. Augustine, do you disbelieve modern
stories of miracle and witchcraft ? How and upon what prin-
ciples is the line to be drawn ? The effect of the argument as
a whole may be inferred from the task thus imposed upon his
antagonists. To answer Collins or Woolston plausibly, it was
enough to give the solutions provided by the ingenuity of
generations of commentators for each difficulty. To answer
1 Middleton's Works, i. 324. 2 Ib. i. 385.
270 CRITICAL DEISM.
Middleton plausibly, it would have been necessary to enter
into the general principles of historical criticism, and to find
the solution of many of the problems round which contro-
versy is labouring, or affects to be labouring, at the present
day. Middleton closes the deist controversy, for he explicitly
challenges the assumption which characterises, as we have
seen, the whole school of apologists and their assailants
namely, the breach of continuity between sacred and profane
history and he challenges it in such a way that evasion is
impossible. The answers attempted to this most insidious of
all assailants of Christianity were too feeble to justify any
notice.
His writings and Hume's essay form the starting-point
for the discussions which occupied the next half-century.
Here, however, at the middle of the century, it is as well to
pause for a moment, in order to consider what have been
the real points at issue and what conclusions had been
reached.
8 1. Middleton's covert assault upon the orthodox dogmas
was incomparably the most effective of the whole deist con-
troversy. It indicates the approach of a genuine historical
method. Middleton was the first to see, though he saw
dimly, that besides the old hypotheses of supernatural inter-
ference and human imposture, a third and more reasonable
alternative may be suggested. The conception is beginning
to appear, though still obscured by many crude assumptions
of a really scientific investigation of the history of religious
developments. Middleton is thus the true precursor of
Gibbon, whose immediate relation to him has already been
noticed ; and yet, after Middleton comes a sudden pause in
the controversy a pause which is generally described by
saying that the deists had been silenced by force of argument.
It is just as true that the orthodox had been silenced. Mid-
dleton, as I have said, received no serious answer ; and thus
the sceptics had the last word in the controversy, and that
the most effective word which had been spoken. To ex-
plain the facts, we must look at the whole phenomenon
from a point of view above mere partisan interests. I have
remarked upon the substantially sceptical tendency of the
whole controversy upon the so-called internal evidences a
VI. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 271
tendency which, as we shall presently see, is most strongly
marked in Butler, incomparably the greatest of the Christian
advocates. The deists had triumphed so far as they had
insisted upon the impossibility of reconciling the historical
conception of the Christian Deity with the conceptions of
metaphysical optimism. The Christians, on the other hand,
had shown as triumphantly that the attempt to transfer to
the pale abstraction called Nature the emotions excited by
the historical religion was futile in itself, and condemned by
the broad facts of experience. The result was the decline of
the pale shadow of Christianity which called itself Deism,
and which had never excited an enthusiastic or disinterested
support ; and, on the other hand, the practical admission that
Christianity must seek for support elsewhere than in abstract
philosophy. Meanwhile, the argument upon the external
evidences had been gradually developed. Leslie's writings
represent the initial stage. The sacred narrative appeared
to rest upon a body of evidence so compact, flawless, and
coherent, that it could only be rejected by the most reckless
scepticism. The deists begin by saying that the Bible itself
is open to criticism. True, reply the orthodox, but sound
criticism shows the flaws to be superficial. The deists retort
that criticism destroys one main element of strength namely,
the mutual corroboration of the Old and New Testaments.
The orthodox, discovering the danger of defending the posi-
tion in detail, reply that the great fact of a general corre-
spondence still remains. The deists proceed to ridicule the most
improbable facts of the sacred narrative. The reply is to
fall back upon the central fact of the resurrection, and to say
that the evidence for this miracle, at least, is conclusive ; if
its truth be once granted, the whole narrative may be accepted.
This position, however, not only implies a long retreat from the
original assumption of the unassailable accuracy of the whole
narrative, but provokes a more dangerous retort. Hume replies
that no evidence can prove a miracle, and Middleton that
stories of miracles only prove the credulity of the narrator. One
writer appeals to logic, and the other to historical evidence ;
and no real answer is attempted to either. And yet, at this
critical point, the controversy drops.
82. The full explanation of this curious fact probably de-
272 CRITICAL DEISM. ,
pends upon a wide combination of conditions, to some of
which I shall refer hereafter. So far as is due to the logical
development of speculation, its true meaning seems to be
tolerably clear. The intellectual change, of which the deist
controversy was rather a symptom than a cause, implies
the growing difficulty of maintaining the old separation
between the sphere of sacred and profane history. The mere
habit of critically discussing the ancient records, however
inadequate the critical methods, and however orthodox the in-
tention of the ablest writers, necessarily implied a growing ten-
dency to measure their value by the ordinary critical tests, the
simple reason being that no others are available. The process
naturally culminated in the denial of the miraculous element,
which, in other words, is the denial of any distinction between
the two spheres. But, on the other hand, a purely critical
process of this kind, especially when conducted with totally
insufficient means, is necessarily unproductive. If Middleton
had caught a faint glimpse, Middleton alone had caught
any glimpse of sounder principles. Such assailants as
Woolston or Annet might lower the general reverence for
the Gospel narratives, but did not even remotely hint at any
more worthy solution than the old hypothesis of imposture.
So far from any philosophy being ready to profit by the
victory over the old beliefs, the only so-called philosophy
was rapidly expiring. The deists might show conclusively
that many parts of the biblical narrative were unworthy of the
God of nature, as they conceived him, but their conceptions
were so faint, and so rapidly decaying, that the discord was
of little importance. The scepticism implied in the orthodox
argument was rather confirmed than weakened by such dis-
coveries. Men of keen and cultivated intellects were, indeed,
led by the whole argument into scepticism, but it was a scep-
ticism of the indolent variety. They agreed substantially
with Middleton's view, which was shared by men like Gibbon
and Horace Walpole. The traditional religion was absurd ;
but men must have a traditional religion. There was no
better explanation of the universe to be offered ; and so long
as the hands of priests could be tied, or enthusiasm kept in
order, it was better to allow the old ideas to go through the
slow process of natural decay. In more commonplace minds
VI. THE. HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 273
the same sentiment took a different form. They thought that
they could strike out a judicious mean by believing every-
thing, but believing nothing too vigorously. They could
make a kind of. common-sense religion out of the old prejudices,
and satisfy their not very craving appetite for truth by a
vague admission that the Bible was not flawless, though true
enough for practical purposes. In short, the main result of
the attack and defence was to lower the general tone of reli-
gious feeling, without destroying the respect for established
creeds ; to make men unwilling to ask awkward questions,
and condone with their consciences by not making arrogant
assumptions ; and generally to bring about a comfortable com-
promise, which held together till Wesley from one side, and
Tom Paine from another, forced more serious thoughts upon
the age. The only positive result, which will be noticed in a
succeeding chapter, was a tendency to substitute a still crude
method of historical enquiry for the old discussions of first
principles.
83. Before approaching this subject, however, I shall con-
sider more fully three typical representatives of thought. In
Butler's writings, the orthodox position is given in the fullest
and most philosophical shape, though in a shape marked by
the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the author. Hume represents the
fullest development of the scepticism latent in many inferior
minds, and, alone amongst all writers of the century, confronts
the ultimate questions which underlie all philosophy and
theology. Warburton, incomparably inferior in real intellec-
tual power to either of these great men, represents the strange
medley of inconsistent theories evolved by the shifting currents
of contemporary thought. Butler attempts to meet the deist
position by saying that nature reveals to us the same God as
Christianity. Hume denies that nature does or can reveal to
us any God. Warburton says that the different revelations
are in fact irreconcilable, but that it is because God has changed
his policy on several occasions. Each answer is characteristic
in its way, and deserves a fuller examination.
VOL. I.
274 CRITICAL DEISM.
NOTES TO CHAPTER IV.
THERE is a curious little bit of literary history in regard to Collins's con-
troversy with Bentley, of which I must venture to give some account.
Poor Collins's character has suffered at the hands of orthodox theologians,
and I should be glad to clear him though at so late a period ! from
unjust censure, and to save future readers a little trouble.
A story noticed by various writers is thus given in Monk's ' Life of
Bentley' : ' ' Instead of defending himself against Bentley's " Remarks,"
which called in question his character, both for scholarship and good
faith, he (Collins) endeavoured to elude them by pitiful stratagems. He
reprinted his book at the Hague with a London title and with such a re-
semblance in the form and number of its pages as gave it the appearance
of an original edition, but with a few omissions and alterations in certain
passages which Bentley had exposed as disgraceful to his character ; in
order that future readers might believe him innocent of these charges.'
In a note to this passage Bishop Monk says : ' It absolutely had this
effect with Mr. Pritchard, a gentleman of Ledbury, in Herefordshire, a
disciple of the Freethinkers' sect.' After quoting Bentley's exposure
of Collins's blundering translation of idiotis evangelistis by ' idiot evan-
gelists,' the bishop proceeds, ' In the reprint mentioned in the text,
Collins omitted the words by idiot evangelists, and Mr. Pritchard, who
possessed that copy and believed it to be the original, persuaded himself
that this disgraceful translation was nothing but an impudent forgery of
Bentley, invented to discredit his antagonist. There may be found in
Nichol's " Literary Anecdotes " (vol. ii. 673) an amusing correspondence
on the subject between this gentleman and Professor Lort.' Monk adds
that Collins published another edition, with more alterations, and super-
intended a French translation of the ' Discourse,' with further attempts
to evade Bentley's strictures. These artifices, he adds, are detailed in a
French book published at Amsterdam many years afterwards, termed
' Friponnerie la'ique.' This book, I regret to say, I have not seen.
The accusation reappears with characteristic exaggeration in De
Quincey's review of Monk. 2 ' Collins,' he says, 'wanted something more
than piety ; he was not even an honest man ; for he reprinted his work
in Holland, purified from the gross cases of ignorance exposed by
Bentley ; and then circulating this improved edition among his friends in
England, which he had taken care to mask by a lying title-page, he per-
suaded them that the passages in question were mere forgeries of
Bentley's.'
Here we see that the mistake to which Collins's alterations led Mr.
Pritchard is represented, without a shadow of evidence, as being the result
of Collins's direct persuasion. Surely Collins must have been wanting
not merely in honesty and piety, but in the most ordinary common sense,
1 Vol. i. 352-3. Second edition. 2 De Quincey's Works, vol. vi. 115.
NOTES.
275
whei: he endeavoured to circulate a delusion so easily exposed. All
literary England was ringing with Bentley's answer. Could the most
impudent of men expect to convince people with the books in their hands
that Bentley's quotation was an ' impudent forgery ? '
The facts, however, will speak for themselves. The whole force of the
accusation rests upon the hypothesis that Collins meant his manipulated
edition to be passed off as a first edition. There is surely no want of
candour in correcting a blunder which has been exposed, and Monk might
have noticed a simple explanation suggested in the passage quoted from
Nichol's ' Literary Anecdotes,' namely, that on discovering his error
Collins had cancelled one sheet of his book.
I have seen four editions of Collins's ' Discourse,' all of which have
London 1713 on the title-page ; though the last appears from its type to
have been printed in Holland, and is, I presume, the reprint noticed by
Monk. None of these editions, moreover, have any notice of a preceding
edition on the title-page, and, so far, there seems to be some plausibility
in the accusation.
The first edition of 178 pages (at p. 90) has the words 'idiot evange-
lists,' as quoted by Bentley. The second edition closely resembles the
first. It has the same number of pages, and for the most part is an
exact reproduction. Certain errors, however, noticed in a list of errata
in the first edition are corrected in the next ; and for idiot evangelists we
have the Latin words idiotis evangelistis without translation. Two or
three additions are made, but all the other passages attacked by Bentley
remain unaltered. The third edition differs in type and has 140 pages ; at
page 73 we have idiotis evangelistis. In this and other respects it seems
to be taken from the previous edition. Possibly it is a piratical reprint.
If Collins attempted to pass off either of these editions as the first, he
incurred the trouble, expense, and risk of detection in order to evade this
one charge of mistranslating ' idiotis? There are, however, other errors
equally manifest, and these, or several of them, are corrected in the
fourth, or Dutch, edition. Here, too, we have ' ignorant evangelists '
instead of the other phrase ; and other changes are clearly intended to
meet Bentley's criticisms. Could Collins, then, have intended to pass
off this for the first edition ? One little circumstance should have been
noticed by his assailants which shows conclusively that he could not. To
' ignorant evangelists ' (p. 74) is appended a reference to ' Phileleutherus
Lipsiensis' (i.e. Bentley's) ' Remarks on the Discourse of Freethinking.'
Another reference to Bentley's book is given at page 68, and a long
note about the 30,000 corrections contains a reference to Hare's letter of
thanks to Bentley for exposing Collins. Surely a man who corrects a
blunder and refers to the critic who pointed it out deserves, if anything, to
be praised for his candour. It is at least plain that Collins could not
have meant to pass off as original an edition which notices the answer to
his previous edition. A collation of this edition is given in Dyce's edition
of Bentley's miscellaneous works.
I shall venture, in conclusion, to give an example, I hope unique, of
the candid treatment which Collins received from an orthodox writer.
276 CRITICAL DEISM.
1 The late Mr. Cumberland,' says Disraeli, in the ' Curiosities of Litera-
ture,' 1 ' in the romance entitled " His Life " gave this extraordinary fact,
that Bentley, who so ably replied by his " Remarks," &c., to Collins's
" Discourse of Freethinking," when many years afterwards he discovered
him fallen into great distress, conceiving that, by having ruined Collins's
character as a writer for ever he had been the occasion of his personal
misery, he liberally contributed to his maintenance. In vain I men-
tioned to that elegant writer, who was not curious about facts, that
this person could never have been Anthony Collins, who had always a
plentiful fortune ; and when it was suggested to him that this A. Collins,
as he printed it, must have been Arthur Collins, the historical com-
piler, who was often in pecuniary difficulties, still he persisted in sending
the lie down to posterity, totidem verbts, without alteration in his second
edition, observing to a friend of mine that " the story, while it told well,
might serve as a striking instance of his great relative's generosity ; and
that it should stand, because it could do no harm to any but to Anthony
Collins, whom he considered little short of an atheist." '
Disraeli gives some curious letters as to the fate of certain MSS. left
by Collins at his death to Des Maizeaux. Collins's widow got them from
Des Maizeaux for fifty guineas. Des Maizeaux afterwards repented of
this transaction and returned the money. The MSS., however, disap-
peared, like the second volume of Tindal's work.
The chief authorities for the above chapter and the editions cited are
as follows :
ADDISON, Joseph (1672-1719), 'Truth of the Christian Religion,' 1730.
Watson's Tracts, vol. v.
ANNEX, Peter ( ?-i 768), 'Judging for Ourselves,' &c., 1739. 'Resurrec-
tion of Jesus Considered,' 1744. ' Supernaturals Examined,'
1747. ' Social Bliss,' 1749. ' Free Enquirer,' 1762.
BARRINGTON, J. S. (1678-1734), 'Miscellanea Sacra,' 1725. Works.
London : 1828.
BENTLEY, Richard (1662-1742), ' Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,' 1713. Mis-
cellaneous Works, edited by Dyce.
BLOUNT, Charles (1654-1693), 'Anima Mundi,' 1678-9. 'Apollonius
Tyanasus,' 1680. ' Oracles of Reason,' 1693.
BROWNE, Simon (1682-1732), ' Fit Rebuke to a Ludicrous Infidel,' 1732.
BULLOCK, Thomas, ' Reasoning of Christ and the Apostles,' 1728.
CHANDLER, Edward (1668-1750), ' Defence of Christianity,' 1725. Second
edition: 1725. 'Vindication of Defence,' 1728.
CHANDLER, Samuel (1693-1766), 'Vindication of Christian Religion,'
1725. 'Witnesses of the Resurrection.' 'Plain Reasons for
being a Christian,' 1730. Watson's Tracts, vol. iii.
1 Ed. 1841, p. 380.
NOTES. 277
CHURCH, Thomas (1707-1756), 'Vindication of the Miraculous Powers,
1749. 'Analysis of Bolingbroke/ 1755.
COLLINS, Anthony (1676-1729), ' Essay on Reason,' 1707. ' Priestcraft in
Perfection,' 1709. ' Discourse on Freethinking,' 1713. ' Grounds
and Reasons of Christian Religion,' 1724. 'Scheme of Literal
Prophecy,' 1727.
DODWELL, William (1709-1785), ' Free Answer to Middleton,' 1749.
GIBSON, Edmund (1669-1748), ' Pastoral Letter against Woolston,' 1728.
GILDON, Charles (1665-1724), ' Deist's Manual,' 1705.
LARDNER, Nathaniel (1684-1768), 'Credibility of Gospel History,'
1723-43. 'Vindication of Three Miracles,' 1739.
LESLIE, Charles (1650-1722), ' Short and Easy Method,' 1697. 'Vindi-
cation of Short and Easy Method,' 1710. ' Truth of Christianity
Vindicated,' 1711. Works. Oxford: 1832.
LYTTELTON, Geo. (1709-1773), ' Conversion of St. Paul,' 1747. Miscel-
laneous Works. Third edition : 1776.
MIDDLETON, Conyers (1683-1750), ' Letter from Rome,' 1729. 'Answer
to Waterland,' 1730. 'Miraculous Powers,' 1747. 'Free En-
quiry,' 1748. Miscellaneous Works. Second edition : 1755.
NEWTON, Thos. (1704-1782), ' Dissertations on Prophecies,' 1754.
PEARCE, Zachary (1690-1774), ' Miracles of Jesus Vindicated.' Third
edition : 1730.
PRIDEAUX, Humphry (1648-1724), ' Letter to the Deists,' 1697.
ROGERS, John (1679-1729), ' Necessity of a Divine Revelation,' 1727.
SHERLOCK, Thomas (1678-1761), ' Use and Extent of Prophecy,' 1724.
' Trial of the Witnesses,' 1739. Works. London: 1830.
STACKHOUSE, Thomas (1680-1750), 'Defence of Christian Religion,'
WATERLAND, Daniel (1683-1740), 'Scripture Vindicated,' 1731-2.
Works. Oxford: 1833.
WEBSTER, W. (1689-1758), 'Fitness of the Witnesses of the Resurrec-
tion/ 1731.
WEST, Gilbert (1700?-! 755), 'Observations on the Resurrection,' 1747.
Watson's Tracts, vol. v.
WHISTON, William (1667-1752), ' Essay towards Restoring the True
Text,' &c., 1722. ' Literal Accomplishment of Scripture Pro-
phecies,' 1724.
WOOLSTON, Thomas (1669-1733), ' Free Gifts to the Clergy,' 1723-4.
'Moderator between an Infidel and an Apostate,' 1721. 'Six
Discourses,' 1727-30.
278
CHAPTER V.
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
i. JOSEPH BUTLER belonged to the exceedingly small class
of men who find in abstract speculation not merely the main
employment, but almost the sole enjoyment, of their lives.
He stands out in strange contrast to the pushing patronage-
hunters of his generation. Amongst the clergy, Berkeley
alone was his equal, as, in some respects, Berkeley was greatly
his superior in speculative power. But Berkeley was im-
pelled by his ardent benevolence into active occupations,
whilst Butler passed his days, like a certain philosopher men-
tioned by Voltaire, in profound meditation. In David Hume
the purely intellectual temperament was still more strikingly
manifested. Hume's philosophical curiosity or love of truth
whatever we please to call it was freer from any alloy
of ulterior motive. But if Hume gained as a philosopher, he
lost as a practical teacher of mankind, by his want of that
deep moral earnestness which is Butler's great claim upon our
respect. Butler stood apart from the world. Good prefer-
ments, indeed, were showered upon the solitary thinker,
without solicitation of his own. He had the fortune to be
introduced to Queen Caroline, the only member of the Hano-
verian family in that age who loved or even tolerated intellec-
tual excellence. Her favour presented him, when already in
possession thanks to an earlier patron of ' one of the richest
parsonages in England,' to the rather incongruous dignity of
a bishopric. The poverty of the see of Bristol was eked out
by the revenues of the deanery of St. Paul's ; and, shortly
before his death, he was translated to Durham. He used his
wealth liberally, as one to whom earthly possessions were of
little importance, and seems to have discharged his episcopal
duties conscientiously, and even admirably, if judged by
BUTLERS 'ANALOGY? 279
the lax standard of the time. In those days bishops had
leisure. The most characteristic anecdote related of him
comes from Dean Tucker, whom he distinguished by his
friendship at Bristol. The bishop was accustomed to walk
in his garden through many hours of the night ; and, on
one occasion, he suddenly turned to his companion Tucker,
and put the well-known question, whether nations might not
go mad as well as individuals ? Butler did not escape the
ordinary penalties of singularity. His contemporaries, puzzled
by his ascetic and meditative life, thought there must be some-
thing wrong about an episcopal recluse who, to say the truth,
would have been more in his element in a monastic cell, or in
the chair of a German university, than in the seat of an
eighteenth-century bishop. When he put up a cross in his
chapel, and was convicted of reading the Lives of the Saints,
the problem seemed to be solved, and he was set down as a
papist.
2. Butler was born in 1692, and died June 16, 1752. The
two books upon which his fame rests, the ' Sermons ' and the
'Analogy,' were published in 1726 and 1736 respectively.
They are remarkable amongst other things for the fact that
they produced no contemporary controversy. The industry
of a biographer has only hunted up a single pamphlet, by one
Bott, in which the ' Analogy ' was attacked. And yet the
books indicate an absorbing preoccupation in the controversies
of the day. Butler has deeply pondered the ordinary argu-
ments ; he has brooded over them, worked them out, and set
down his conclusions, as tersely often, it must be added, as
clumsily as possible. The ' Analogy ' has been built up like
a coral reef by slow accretions of carefully digested matter.
The style corresponds to the method. We may say, if we
choose to be paradoxical, that the 'Analogy' is an almost unique
example of a book which has survived, not merely in spite of,
but almost by reason of, its faults of style. The paradox, in-
deed, holds only in so far as the faulty language is indicative
of the effort to pack thought more closely than it will easily
go. The defect results from a good motive. But it is also
characteristic of the lonely thinker who forgets the necessity
of expounding with sufficient clearness the arguments which
have long been familiar to himself. And, in this sense, it is
28o BUTLERS 'ANALOGY?
indicative of a more serious weakness. Butler's mind, like
the mind of every recluse, was apt to run in grooves. He
endeavoured, as he tells us, to answer by anticipation every
difficulty that could be suggested. But, unfortunately, he
has always considered them from the same point of view.
He has not verified his arguments by varying the centre of
thought or contemplating his system from the outside. And
thus his reasoning often reminds us of those knots which bind
the faster the more they are pulled in a given direction, but
fall asunder at the first strain from another quarter. The
pursuit of truth, as he told Clarke, was the object of his
life. Every page confirms his veracity. And yet the same
letter shows the strong prepossessions with which he started.
He is anxious, he says, to discover a demonstrative proof of
the existence of God doubtless, a most natural and innocent
desire. Yet it is a desire which suggests the question, what
would be his course if such a proof should not be forthcoming ?
Would he have the rare intellectual courage which enables a
man to face the most appalling consequences ? Might he not
share the weakness of Don Quixote, and unconsciously resolve
not to put his newly-framed armour to too severe a test ?
That some hidden weakness was lurking in his argument is
suggested from a remarkable peculiarity of the ' Analogy.'
It is a rare instance of a theological argument which may,
with some plausibility, be called original ; it has ever since its
publication retained a high place in our literature ; and many
men of great ability, and in widely different schools of thought,
have ascribed to it a profound influence upon their minds.
James Mill and Dr. Newman, at the opposite poles of specu-
lation, are typical examples of the lines of thought which may
diverge from this common centre. And yet the book, like
its author, remains, in some sense, isolated. It does not seem,
so far as I can judge, to have materially affected the con-
temporary currents of thought. It has found more admirers
than imitators, and the mine which it opened has not been
extensively worked. One explanation is suggested by the
names just mentioned. Though Butler is habitually described
as amongst the ablest champions of Christianity, he has pro-
bably made few converts, and has clearly helped some thinkers
towards scepticism. The fact is, as we shall see, that his
BUTLERS ANALOGY: 2 Si
reasoning is open to applications which he never suspected.
The absence of that power of looking through other men's
eyes which can rarely be acquired by a lonely thinker, blinded
him to one side of the question. The ' Analogy' impresses us
in literature like some mass of rockpiercing strata of a dif-
ferent formation, unmoveable and undecayed, but yet solitary,
exceptional, and barren.
3. Butler's aim is, in brief, to countermine the ordinary
deist position. Fragmentary anticipations of his argument
are to be found scattered here and there through many con-
temporary writers. But, as I have said, they are wanting
in philosophical breadth and consistency. The orthodox
reasoner of the time is beset by a difficulty which expresses
his equivocal position. He half admits and half denies the
deist assumptions. He professes to believe in such a God
of nature as the deist postulates a God whose attributes are
discoverable by reason, and whose law is the embodiment
of reason. But when this conception is confronted with the
historical Deity of Jewish and Christian mythology, he
begins to retract, and he asserts that, as a matter of fact, God
has not been discovered by reason, and cannot be shown
to have governed men according to the laws of reason.
This is substantially to admit an irremovable discrepancy
between theory and observation, and to cover it by the decent
name of mystery. The difficulty could only be removed by
looking more closely into the assumptions which both sides
accepted with a suspicious facility. Before we can argue
safely from our conceptions of the Deity, we must ask what
they are, and how are they determined. Two assumptions,
in fact, are made on all sides ; first, that there is a God ;
and, secondly, that he is the God of the rationalists the
God, that is, whose attributes were demonstrated by
Clarke, and accepted by Tindal. To take those doctrines for
granted is to beg the ultimate questions of philosophy, and
therefore to be inevitably superficial. The whole aim of
Butler's book is summed up in his treatment of the secondary
assumption as to the divine character. He takes for granted
the assumption of the divine existence. We believe, he says
substantially, in a God of natuie, uut the God of nature is
such a God as nature reveals, and not the God who is
2S2 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY. 1
described by your a priori speculations. God, as known to
us by the analogy of nature that is to say, by that kind of
imperfect induction which alone is available in these deep
problems is no longer different from the God revealed to us
in the Bible ; on the contrary, he appears, so far as our
faculties can be trusted, to be the very same Being. The
difficulty, therefore, of the orthodox argument disappears ;
and, instead of half granting and half admitting the appeal
to reason, we can admit it frankly and unreservedly.
4. Meanwhile, Butler passes lightly over the ultimate
problem. He takes it ' for proved, that there is an intelligent
Author of nature, and natural Governor of the world.' l He
accepts the validity of all the ordinary reasonings upon which
this doctrine has been based ; the arguments, that is, from
analogy, from final causes, from abstract reasoning, from
tradition, and from general consent. 1 He elsewhere accepts,
in particular, the argument of Descartes or Anselm, derived
from the necessary existence of an archetype corresponding to
our idea of ' an infinite and immense eternal Being.' 2 Butler,
therefore, does not address himself to atheists, if such there
be, who dogmatically deny the existence of God ; nor to the
undoubtedly numerous class who, neither denying nor affirm-
ing, hold that our vision is limited to this world by a veil
of impenetrable mystery. He excludes as chimerical the
dark doubts which, to many readers, are the most conspicuous
results of his arguments, and he assumes that all arguments
for a God must make for such a God as his theory implies.
A pressing difficulty is thus unconsciously evaded. Butler
does not renounce the a priori line of reasoning, though it was
probably a sense of its difficulties which led him to seek for
a more tangible ground of controversy. He is content to
leave it to others to discover the essential nature and attri-
butes of the Deity ; but, far from rebuking their presumption,
or from suspecting any possible discrepancy between himself
and them, he fully accepts their conclusions. His task is
the collateral one of discovering in what character the Deity
actually manifests himself to men. The difficulty, therefore,
of the ordinary theologian is not so much solved as trans-
ferred to another application. For the difficulty of proving that
1 Butler's Works, i. 7. 2 Ib. i. 130.
BUTLEKS ( ANALOGY: 283
the God of nature is also the God of revelation, we have with
Butler the difficulty of believing that the God known equally
through nature and revelation can be the God of abstract
speculation. In neglecting to face this question, or even to
understand that any such question can arise, Butler, though
going deeper than his less thoughtful colleagues, fails to probe
the real depths of the question ; and he lays himself open to
a retort from a scepticism which is not afraid to pass beyond
the limits of accepted theology. A writer who would raise a
firm system of belief must follow Descartes' principle of
doubting whatever can be doubted. He must look carefully
to every foundation of belief.
5. The belief in God and the belief in a soul are with
Butler the primary articles of natural religion. The first is
assumed ; the validity of the second is examined in the first
chapter of the 'Analogy.' Though hesitatingly and in cau-
tious language, he is here forced to interweave a proof of
different character with the ordinary tissue of his argument.
This rather heterogeneous element was due immediately to
Clarke. A curious controversy between Clarke and Collins
had for its pretext a singular crotchet of the learned nonjuror
Dodwell. Dodwell's brain, bewildered with excessive reading,
and crammed with obsolete theological curiosities, had ex-
cogitated a strange doctrine as to the natural mortality of the
soul. Baptism by the successors of the Apostles could alone
confer immortality. The souls of dissenters, it would seem,
were to be revived by an express exertion of divine power,
with a view to receiving their dues, whilst the souls of those
who had never heard of Christ might be mercifully dismissed
to insensibility. Clarke, instead of treating this absurdity
with pity or contempt, wrote a solemn remonstrance to its
author (1706) ; and Collins, as in the similar case of Whiston,
caught at an opportunity of assailing established dogmas
under cover of supporting an indisputably Christian writer.
Four pamphlets by Collins received four elaborate replies
from Clarke. As usual, the controversy gathered heat, and
lost in relevancy towards the conclusion. Clarke's main ar-
gument is simple enough. Though drawn from the common
armoury of his school, it is still used by controversialists with
little modification. The soul cannot be material, for the pro-
2$4 SUTLER'S 'ANALOGY:
pertics of any aggregate of particles can be but the sum of
the properties of the separate particles. As separate particles
cannot think, no aggregate of particles can think. There
must be an immaterial subject in which thought inheres, and
as thought is an ' individual power ' incapable, that is, of
analysis into simpler elements this subject must be 'indis-
cerptible,' and therefore naturally immortal.
The argument, in short, is the familiar doctrine of Des-
cartes, elaborated into quasi-mathematical shape, 1 and ren-
dered more precise by help of the distinction between primary
and secondary qualities. The mathematical qualities are
inherent in matter. Others, like sound or smell, are not really
qualities of matter, but modes of the thinking substance ;
others again, like ' magnetism and electricity,' are general
names which express ' the effects of some determinations of
certain streams of matter.' * Consciousness obviously cannot
belong to either class of derivative qualities, nor can it be put
in the same category with motion and figure, which, indeed,
are but the formula for the opposite pole of existence. As
consciousness must be a quality of something, and cannot be
a quality of matter, the something must be immaterial.
6. Collins's reply is ineffective, in so far as he seems to
admit the assumptions on which the conclusion is virtually
given. He does not anticipate Berkeley's denial of matter, or
rest, as a modern upholder of his position would do, upon our
necessary inability to penetrate to the ultimate essences of
things. At times he seems to change weapons with his
antagonist. ' As far as I can judge,' he says, ' all this talk of
the essences of things being unknown is a perfect mistake ; *
and he accordingly pronounces the essence of matter to be
solidity. Relying upon such hand-to-mouth modes of argu-
ment, he generally (in my judgment at least) leaves the logical
victory with Clarke ; though here and there he hits the true
difficulties of his antagonist's position. He attempts, for
example, to show that the production of ' roundness ' from
particles not themselves round is analogous to the production
of thought from unthinking matter. Clarke fairly replies,
though after some needless argumentation, that the difference
between the whole and its parts is merely in the abstract name
1 See it fully stated, Clarke's Works, iii. 795-799- * Ib. iii. 88 1.
SUTLER'S < ANALOGY: 285
and not in the thing. 1 Clarke, too, has an equal advantage
in maintaining against Collins that it is impossible to regard
thought as a ' mode of motion.' Any mode of combining
things regarded as external to ourselves must result in an
external product. To call motion thought is, in fact, to con-
fuse the radical opposition of subjective and objective ; and
so long as Collins falls in with Clarke's fundamental method
of representing that opposition as embodied in the distinction
between primary and secondary qualities, he in vain attempts
to give an air of plausibility to his escape from Clarke's con-
clusion. Elsewhere, as in the illustration of the egg, which
runs through two or three letters, he presses his antagonist
harder. 2 That consciousness does in fact arise from certain
collocations of matter is a fact which Clarke struggles to
evade rather awkwardly by the hypothesis of an ' immaterial
principle ' somehow added to the embryo. 3 But Collins does
not seem to have a sufficiently firm grasp of principles to
turn his opponent's weakness to account. The question re-
curs at intervals, though it is one of those which seem to be
generally passed over in silence by a kind of tacit agreement.
Andrew Baxter published a long ' Enquiry into the Soul '
some years afterwards, which may be read by persons curious
to study the effect of exploded metaphysics on a feeble,
though ingenious, intellect ; and Hume's posthumous essay,
or notes for an essay, on the Immortality of the Soul, con-
tains some rather obvious criticisms on the accepted doctrine.
It is enough to notice Butler's reasoning.
7. Butler's correspondence with Clarke, a few years later,
seems to imply that he was more or less sensible to the
hollowness of the ground. In reference to one of Clarke's
ontological arguments, Butler, then (1713) a student at
Tewkesbury, asks the significant question What is space ?
His doubts were not pressed very far, nor does he conceal his
anxiety to be relieved from them. They would have taken
him to the root of the questions suggested by Clarke's whole
1 Clarke's Works, iii. 833.
2 The same illustration, it may be noticed, appears in a similar controversy
between Mr. Martineau and Mr. Herbert Spencer. See 'Contemporary Review,'
April and May, 1872. Professor Tyndall refers to the same illustration, 'Fort-
nightly Review,' November 1875.
8 See Clarke's Works, pp. 788, 789, 810.
286 BUTLEKS 'ANALOGY?
philosophical method. Butler, however, seems to have thought
that a sound thread of argument might be extricated from
the web of questionable metaphysics. ' It has been argued,'
he says, referring in a note to Clarke's letters, ' and, for
anything appearing to the contrary, justly,' l that the unity
of consciousness implies the unity of the conscious being ;
or, at least, as he presently says, with characteristic cau-
tion, there is ' no more difficulty in conceiving ' the being
to be a unit ' than in conceiving it to be a compound.' 2 In
this case, our organised bodies would be no more parts of
ourselves than any surrounding matter. Though ' experi-
mental observations ' cannot prove the doctrine, they ' fall in
with it,' 3 and we are therefore somehow enabled to ' conclude
certainly that, our gross organised bodies . . . are no parts
of ourselves.' 3 Thus he persuades himself that our eyes and
feet are in reality no more than glasses and crutches ; 4 and,
consequently, though the destruction of our bodies destroys
the proof of our vitality, there is no ground to think that it
destroys the living agents themselves. The familiar argu-
ment from the case of animals is met by the familiar appeal
ad ignorantiam, and by the more specific argument that the
higher intellectual faculties appear to be, in some way, in-
dependent of our senses. 5
8. The discussion is characteristic of Butler's whole method.
Whatever plausibility it possesses, is due to the preliminary
assumption of the unity and separate existence of the soul.
Butler's admission that this assumption is not proved by ob-
servation, but falls in with it, is equivalent to saying that
observation does not contradict it. But neither, it is plain,
can observation really confirm it. Nobody would argue in
the sphere of observation that, because a man can in some
sense do without his legs, he can therefore survive in some
sense without his brain ; or that because parts of the organism
are not essential to life, therefore the whole organism is super-
fluous. The whole hypothesis ot an independent entity called
the soul is simply irrelevant from the scientific point of view ;
and to infer from its being not upset that it is confirmed is a
palpable fallacy. Butler, however, by dwelling exclusively
upon the absence of direct contradiction, and sinking the
1 Butler, i. 21. * Ib. p. 23. 4 Ib. p. 28.
2 Ib. p. 22. 5 Ib. p. 31.
BUTLERS ' ANALOGY.' 287
absence of confirmation, converts absolute ignorance into
the likeness of some degree of positive knowledge. He
obtains, that is, a delusive appearance of independent scientific
grounds for what is really a purely a priori deduction. He
finds it desirable, however, to add that the credibility of a
future state answers ' all the purposes of religion ' as a demon-
strative proof would do. 1 The chances are so awful that we
cannot afford to neglect them. If there is no presumption
against the existence of heaven and hell, there is a presump-
tion for it ; or, at least, a plain reason for acting as though it
were a fact. The doctrine of probability which we thus meet
at the beginning of Butler's whole argument colours the whole
book. It is his unique distinction amongst theologians that,
whilst writhing in the jaws of a dilemma, he refrains from
positively denying that any dilemma exists. Yet even Butler
will not admit that the doubts which he allows to be possible
should influence our conduct. And thus he is tempted to
attempt the impossible feat of transmuting blank ignorance
into some semblance of positive knowledge. The difficulty in
one shape or another underlies his whole argument.
9. The essential data for a creed being thus provided,
Butler has to turn them to account. His thesis is, as we have
seen, that the God of nature resembles the God of revelation.
He disperses with true insight one class of fallacies which had
gathered round the question. The ordinary language implied
an untenable distinction between divine and natural. Divines,
for example, thought that some heresy lurked in the assertion
that the rewards and penalties of another state would be
the ' natural ' consequences of our actions. 2 Butler sees the
distinction to be unphilosophical. All God's commands are
at once divine and natural. ' Natural ' can only mean ' stated,
fixed, or settled.' 3 Civil government is itself natural, if
natural be taken in this wider sense ; and civil punishments
are, therefore, part of the 'natural' punishment of sin. 4
Butler, of course, guards himself from too unreserved an
acceptance of his own principles. ' For aught we know,' he
says, future punishment may be the 'natural consequence of
1 Butler, i. 38.
* See e.g. Warburton, Works, iii. 15; Conybeare against Tindal, p. 389;
Leland against Tindal, i. 234.
1 Butler's Works, i. 37. 4 Ib. i. 49.
288 . BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
vice,' l in the same sense as the present punishments. ' For
aught I see,' we are afterwards told, it comes to the same
thing whether this be the case or not 2 He disposes in the
same way of the equally futile distinction between positive
and moral precepts, which reflected the ordinary assumption
of an arbitrary element in the divine nature. ' Moral pre-
cepts,' he says, ' are precepts the reason of which we see ;
positive precepts are precepts the reason of which we do not
see.' 3 He is, of course, careful to add that ' there is not
altogether so much reason for the determination of this ques-
tion ' (as to the relative claims of the two classes of commands)
' as some people seem to think.' 4 To make an unnecessary
assumption, however undeniable, would apparently have been
torture to his strangely cautious understanding.
10. So far the case seems to be clear. The laws of nature
are the laws of God, and the distinctions drawn by divines
who feared lest God should be lost in nature were plainly
irrelevant. Yet Butler is, of course, equally alive to that
danger. His God must be a real governor, separate from
the universe. God's conduct, as he says (though he does
not hold the dogma to be strictly relevant to his argument),
must be determined by a certain ' moral fitness and unfitness
of actions prior to all will whatever.' 5 Something must
exist outside of God. Some material must be provided upon
which the divine will may operate. And yet, if nature be
related to God as the effect to the cause, how are we to infer
anything from nature but a counterpart of nature ? From the
ontological point of view, we have a difficulty in distinguish-
ing between God and pure being. From Butler's experiential
point of view, it seems to be equally difficult to distinguish
between God and the sum of all the forces of the universe.
It is necessary for his purpose to show that the Author of
nature has ' some character or other ; ' 6 something, as he
explains, analogous to that which in men we call ' temper,
taste, disposition, practical principles ; that whole frame of
mind from which we act in one way rather than another.' 6
We are able to assign character to individuals and classes,
1 Butler's Works, i. 186. 4 Ib. i. 190.
2 Ib. i. 235. 5 Ib. i. 343.
3 Ib. i. 187. 6 Ib. i. 136, and note.
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.' 289
because we can stand outside them, compare them with some
external standard, or measure them by each other. But how
is this method to be applied to the Whole ? Where is our
fixed element in this shifting phenomena of experience which
will enable us to determine their relation not to each other,
but to the absolute and eternal ? If all exists by God's will,
how can the observation of particular existences reveal a special
purpose distinct from the general will implied in creation ?
Divines had boldly argued from the immunity of vice in this
world to its punishment in the next. Given some independent
source of knowledge as to the attributes of God, the argu-
ment might be valid ; but from the bare fact by itself we can
only reach such a conclusion by inverting all the canons of
induction. The whole pith of the 'Analogy' is given by
the answer to this difficulty. The mere fact of injustice in
this world cannot, as Butler sees, prove justice in the next.
Why, as one of his objectors asks and Butler's objectors
are never men of straw should we not suppose that ' things
may be now going on throughout the universe, and may go
on hereafter, in the same mixed way as here at present upon
earth ? ' ! Butler's reply admits in substance that we cannot
infer from the world as we see it anything but a similar world ;
but we may, he thinks, show that the facts fall in with a
doctrine which implies a very different world. The ' usual
known arguments' in behalf of a future state of retribu-
tion are, in his opinion, ' plainly unanswerable.' 2 Though he
renounces direct proof, he thinks that he can discover a con-
firmation of them in experience. What, for example, if some
system could be detected amidst the apparent uncertainty of
distribution ? He has remarked that the good and bad ten-
dencies of virtue and vice are ' essential, and founded in the
nature of things, whereas the hindrances to their becoming
effect are, in numberless cases, not necessary but artificial
only.' 3 Does not this observation make it probable that, in
another world, the tendencies will work themselves out more
clearly ? The argument seems to involve a distinction between
natural and artificial as arbitrary as those which Butler
has exposed. We must, however, look more minutely into
the argument, to see how he conceives the question.
1 Butler's Works, i. 80. 2 Ib. i. 8l. 3 Jb, i. 83.
VOL. I. U
2QO BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
ii. A striking chapter is devoted to prove that we can
dimly discern a vast providential scheme. 1 Since we see only
a part, we may infer that all objections to its justice and
wisdom are founded in our ignorance ; and yet we can see
enough to be certain that it exists. The vast mass of ob-
servable phenomena is not a chaos, but an organised system.
Besides simply enumerating facts, we can detect principles
of arrangement which will justify a partial induction. Man
is intelligible, so far as he is intelligible, as a fraction, not as
an integer ; the world is one province of an ordered universe.
The hypothesis of a divine government supplies the necessary
clue to the bewildering labyrinth. This world and the next
tally in such a manner that our observations, though imper-
fect, give dim indications of the complementary sphere.
The relation between this and a very different set of theories
is significant. It is evident, says Butler, that the ' course of
things which comes within our view, is connected with some-
what, past, present, and future, beyond it. So that we are
placed, as one may speak, in the middle of a scheme, not a
fixed, but a progressive one, every way incomprehensible ;
incomprehensible, in a manner equally, with respect to what
has been, what now is, and what shall be hereafter.' 2 Men
accustomed to regard the world as the scene of a gradual
evolution may adapt the phrase to their own purposes. We
may perceive, they might say, in the midst of mysteries, a
tendency to the development of certain social and intellectual
types, which it is our duty to forward or to retard. But But-
ler has in view a different series. The successive terms are
not the savage, the civilised being, and the ideal man of the
golden age to come ; but corrupt man man perfected here
by grace, or ruined by rejecting it, and man in a state of final
reward or punishment His induction, one may say, cuts the
line of scientific induction at right angles. It must then be
justified by some extra-scientific assumption. The scientific
series remains within the limits of experience. The first terms,
already known by observation, contain the law which will be
revealed to future observers. Butler's series contains a trans-
cendental element. To verify it we must be able to discover
a standing-point outside the world of the senses ; and find
'- 'Analogy,' part i. ch. vii. 2 Butler's Works, i. 162.
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.' 291
an absolute scale upon which to measure the relation of God
to man.
12. The second and third chapters of the first part show
us how this external standing-point is to be attained. Butler
starts from the undeniable fact that happiness depends in great
measure upon conduct. We are enabled ' to foresee,' he says,
' with more or less clearness, that, if we act so and so, we shall
have such enjoyments ; if so and so, such sufferings.' 1 ' This,'
an objector replies, ' is to be ascribed to the general course of
nature.' ' True,' says Butler, ' that is the very thing I am
contending for.' l The course of nature is the order of things
appointed by the Author of nature. God or nature the .
two words are so far interchangeable has affixed pain and
pleasure to different courses of action. This, in theological
language, is to admit that God governs us. It matters not
whether we suppose God to be always acting directly or that
his laws operate without further intervention. If the laws of
civil magistrates operated automatically and unerringly, we
should still be under their government, though in a much
higher degree. Here, then, is a solid statement of undeniable
fact. God governs. Further, God is a moral governor. The
penalties which he inflicts are affixed to vicious courses,
and the rewards to virtuous courses. Of the general fact,
Butler admits no doubt. Neither is it doubtful that, per-
plexing as may be the distribution of happiness and misery,
virtue as suck is rewarded, and vice as such punished. The
nature with which we are endowed, and the power which we
can exercise over others, provide certain sanctions ; amongst
which we must reckon the penalties of civil governors, and
the hopes and fears of futurity, which whatever their origin
undoubtedly exist. Our intuitive moral judgment entitles us
to set aside apparently conflicting cases, in which impulses,
implanted in us for good purposes, have been perverted to the
punishment of the good and reward of the bad. And, finally,
the intrinsic excellence of virtue is illustrated by the hypo-
thetical case of a perfectly virtuous kingdom, which must bring
the whole world under its empire, either ' by what must be
allowed to be just conquest,' 2 or by the voluntary submission
1 Butler's Works, i. 42. n - Ib. i. 79.
V 3
2Q2 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
of less happily constituted races. The argument would fall
in with an exposition of the doctrine of ' the survival of the
fittest ; ' and indeed the statement is substantially that
races will flourish as they adapt themselves to the laws of
nature.
13. This is the main substance of Butler's constructive
argument, and it suggests an obvious criticism. The bare
statement that happiness and misery follow certain courses is
almost trivial. It receives a peculiar colouring in Butler's
hands, from his introduction of the words reward and punish-
ment. How then do we know that the suffering which follows
sin is a divinely inflicted punishment, whilst the suffering
implied in self-sacrifice or submission to tyranny is merely a
proof of the perversion of natural instincts ? To answer that
question, we must know what is meant by virtue. The utili-
tarian answer soon to be explicitly given by Hume is
obvious. Virtue is that which promotes the happiness of
mankind. To show, then, that virtue is conducive to happi-
ness is to show that virtue is virtue. Temperance, for ex-
ample, is virtuous because, and in so far as, it is conducive to
health. To represent health as a divine reward annexed to
temperance is to fall into the error of the person who won-
dered at the goodness of providence in bringing navigable
rivers by large towns. The statement, indeed, becomes more
complex in regard to the social virtues ; where the motive of
the individual may conflict with the interests of the race. A
modern disciple of the derivative school of morality would
say that the moral law is substantially a code of rules, worked
out by more or less conscious experience, which express the
most obvious conditions of general well-being. So far as they
are accurately known, the effect of observing them must be
to increase the general sum of happiness. That part of moral-
ity which coincides with personal prudence must generally
increase the happiness of the individual. The ' altruist ' in-
stincts will not have that effect so uniformly, because the
present social order is far from allowing a perfect harmony
between the individual and the whole organism. Still, as
Butler very rightly argues, the mass will approve, and to that
extent reward, qualities which they recognise as plainly bene-
ficial to themselves ; and the fact of our mutual dependence
SUTLER'S 'ANALOGY:
293
implies, as a condition of social existence, that the interests
of the mass and of its units must coincide through a great
part of our relations. Justice will make the just man happier,
because it secures one essential condition of happiness, namely,
the goodwill of his fellows. A similar inversion naturally
follows whenever a scientific view is substituted for a view
based upon the doctrine of final causes. What to Butler
seems to be a mysterious harmony appears in a derivative
system of morality as the necessary result of the conditions of
existence. Any special inference as to a supposed intention
of the Divine legislator disappears or melts into the general
consideration of a fixed order in the universe. Butler's blind-
ness to this very obvious inversion of his argument is ex-
plained by the fact that he contemplated utilitarianism only
in its crudest form, as sanctioning individual selfishness. 1 The
social virtues of veracity, justice, and public spirit, which
Hume described as ' artificial,' appeared to him as necessarily
implying the existence of an independent moral faculty, inas-
much as their immediate motive was unselfish. Their re-
wards, therefore, seemed to be annexed by a divine regulation,
even when he goes far towards explaining their natural
origin.
14. Here, then, is that absolute standing-point which
Butler needed. His essential doctrine is the independent
system of morality. Without it, his arguments crumble ;
with it, we can understand their plausibility. Denying that
the consequences of an action are directly or indirectly the
determining causes of its morality, the consequences, so far as
they affect the agent, appear to him to be plainly rewards or
punishments, annexed by the Divine Governor. The God
whom Butler worships is, in fact, the human conscience
deified. The evidence of his existence and interest in the
world rests not on certain miracles wrought some centuries
ago in Palestine, but on that great standing miracle the
oracle implanted in every man's breast For what can be
1 See especially the dissertation on the nature of virtue, where the utilitarian
view is emphatically rejected. The language of some writers might, he thinks,
lead to the impression that virtue consists in aiming at the promotion of human
happiness in this life, and vice in the contrary ; ' than which mistakes none can be
conceived more terrible ' (Butler's Works, i. 382).
294 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY?
more miraculous than an infallible faculty, not derived from
others or developed by the pressure of society and the external
world, but absolute, authoritative, and inexplicable ? Each of us
is provided by nature with a compass pointing undeviatingly
to celestial regions. By that gift we can recognise the giver
and understand his character. The character of the God of
nature is summed up by saying that he loves virtue and hates
vice. Having proved this, our course is clear. We can trace
the great outlines of the providential scheme. The world is no
longer a scene where forces are steadily working for inscrut-
able ends, wielded by a Being of whose character, if he has a
character, we have not the dimmest conception ; where we
can only say that the races succeed best which are most in
harmony with the conditions ; and where, if we can vaguely
forecast the future of the race, we can see no traces of care
for individuals. To Butler the individual is the centre of
interest. God is the Almighty chemist, testing all men in his
crucibles ; the process in what Butler calls the state of pro-
bation either strengthens or weakens the qualities in which
he delights ; he places the thrice-tried jewels in the cabinet
of heaven ; and throws aside the rest upon the heap of refuse
called hell.
1 5. Will this theory fit the facts ? Can we regard this
world as a forcing-house, in which qualities primarily suited
for another world are stimulated to activity? The dis-
cipline of life clearly trains the race in habits which are
useful here, whatever they may be hereafter. Butler
seizes upon this fact as affording an instructive analogy.
After describing the process by which prudence is fostered in
our temporal capacity, 1 he adds : ' Substitute now the word
future for temporal, and virtue for prudence, and it ' (the de-
scription of our state of trial in our temporal capacity) ' will
be just as proper a description of our state of trial in our re-
ligious capacity, so analogous are they to each other.' 2 Are
1 Butler hesitates as to calling prudence a virtue. In part i. ch. iii. , and in
the 'Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue,' he inclines to call it a part of virtue.
In part i. ch. iii. the stress laid on the analogy between prudence and virtue
seems to imply that one cannot be part of the other. But the argument does not
seem to be really affected.
2 P. 90.
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY* 295
they not rather identical ? Virtue, on Butler's showing, would
seem to be distinguished from prudence if any distinction
be necessary by the circumstance that prudence guards us
against temporal, as virtue against spiritual, dangers. The
likeness, indeed, is so marked that Butler anticipates, though
he properly repels, the charge, that with him virtue is but a
discipline and strengthening of self-love. 1 The likeness or
identity of the two leads, however, to a serious difficulty. In
the case of prudence, we evidently mean by ' discipline ' that
the conditions of our existence are such as to make prudence
useful. Must it not mean the same in the case of virtue ?
The process described as the moral government of God,
means that, on the whole, virtue is useful in this world.
Butler, it is true, regards virtue as a plant intended to flourish
more vigorously in another world. The Almighty gardener
is cultivating plants of an odour too ethereal for our earthly
perceptions. If, in fact, this could be made out with any
show of plausibility ; if, that is, we could prove that the
discipline of this life tended to develop qualities fitted for
another life, Butler's argument would be forcible. But,
unfortunately, this is just what the ' Analogy ' cannot possibly
prove, or even tend to prove. The very meaning of the sup-
posed discipline is that virtue is advantageous under existing
conditions. The whole evidence open to him by the very
nature of his argument is the tendency of the present state
to encourage virtue. So far as virtue is not profitable here,
his argument collapses. And yet his conclusion is only
plausible so far as it is profitable in a different state from
this. If, in short, he could point to some quality, encouraged
by the existing conditions, and yet not useful under present
conditions, his case would have a certain support. But as
qualities are encouraged just so far as they are useful as the
utility is the sole evidence of the supposed encouragement
he is in a dilemma, from which there is no escape.
1 6. Indeed, he states the theory himself. ' Our nature,' he
says, ' corresponds to our external condition. Without this
correspondence, there would be no possibility of any such thing
as human life and happiness ; which life and happiness are,
therefore, a result from our nature and condition jointly ;
1 Butler's Works, i. 122.
296 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY?
meaning by human life, not living in the literal sense, but
the whole complex notion commonly understood by those
words.' ' A modern evolutionist could not say more plainly
that happiness results from the harmony between the organism
and its environment, and the natural inference is that the
science of morality is simply a statement of the rules" by
which that harmony is promoted. It remains true, of course,
that, as Butler labours to show with much ingenuity,
qualities strengthened by our discipline in this life may be
useful in another life. Meanwhile, it cannot be argued, from
the mere absence of harmony here, that there must be harmony
elsewhere ; or that, because, under existing conditions, many
virtues run to waste, and conduct regulated by a regard to
general rules produces misery instead of happiness in par-
ticular cases, the wasted qualities will be turned to account
in a different order. Butler is too logical to draw this as an
inference, though he seems to countenance the opinion incul-
cated. He is content to argue, in his usual method, that the
assumed utility of virtue in the next world is consistent with
the facts of observation, without saying explicitly that obser-
vation suggests or necessitates the assumption.
17. Meanwhile, he tries to turn the facts to account in a
rather startling way. ' The present state,' he says, ' is so far
from proving in effect a discipline of virtue to the generality
of men, that, on the contrary, they seem to make it a discipline
of vice.' The garden of the Lord produces more weeds than
flowers. And what is the explanation ? Of the numerous
seeds prepared for growth, ' we do not see that one in a
million actually ' comes to perfection. ' Yet,' he adds, ' no
one who does not deny all final causes, will deny ' that these
seeds answer the end for which they were designed by nature.
' And,' he concludes, ' I cannot forbear adding, though it is
not to the present purpose, that the appearance of such an
amazing waste in nature, with respect to these seeds and
bodies, by foreign causes, is to us as unaccountable as, what
is much more terrible, the present and future ruin of so many
moral agents by themselves, i.e., by vice.' 2 The fact, thus
candidly acknowledged by Butler, throws a strange light upon
his theory. It is one of the facts which science takes into
1 Butler's Works, i. 98. 2 Ib. i. 120, 121.
SUTLER'S ' ANALOGY: 297
account as explaining the gradual adaptation of the race to its
new conditions of life. From Butler's point of view, it seems
to imply either that the plan of the Almighty is a failure,
or that he is not a benevolent agent. The world is a state
of probation, and it is a probation which ruins the vast
majority of those who undergo it. The dying out of drunkards
may explain how the race gradually increases in sobriety ;
but the death of ten drunkards, to say nothing of the punish-
ment of their posterity, seems to be a strangely awkward way
of teaching one man to be sober in a world where, so far as
we know, there is to be no more drinking. Butler suggests what
no one can deny, that such qualities as ' veracity, justice, and
charity' may be useful elsewhere. 1 So, for anything we can
tell, may temperance, soberness, and chastity. Yet, admitting
the possibility, and admitting that a state of probation here
may be the prologue to a state in which there is no probation,
we see that Butler has once more succeeded in proving only that
the facts do not necessarily contradict the theory. The whole
appearance of plausibility is obtained by stating undeniable
facts in his own language, and then assuming that, because
they can be so stated, the theory embodied in the language
is confirmed. Call the evil consequences of vice its punish-
ment ; the development of character under the action of
circumstances, probation ; take for granted the existence of
a moral governor, and a separate and indestructible entity
called the soul ; and, undoubtedly, theology will give an
interpretation of the facts which, though it may conflict
with our preconceived notions of divine benevolence, does not
conflict with the facts observed.
1 8. The great difficulty remains. Butler's God is revealed
through conscience. Does his conscience reveal a just God ?
This is the old and familiar difficulty, which has tasked the
ingenuity of innumerable thinkers. Why does the potter
complain of his pots ? Is it divine or childish to set puppets
in motion, and be angry because they do not work out the
supposed design ? Who is to blame if we, feeble creatures of
circumstance, are such as circumstances, or, if you will, the
divine system of government, has made us ? Because we
have strayed where we had no light, and been fused by a
1 Butler's Works, i. 109.
298 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
probationary fire too hot for our constitutions, are we to be
everlastingly tortured ? Butler's treatment of this ever-recur-
ring problem is probably the weakest part of his argument.
He argues that the opinion of fatalism or necessity is not
necessarily opposed to religion, or rather that the ' absurd
supposition,' as he calls it, of ' universal necessity,' must be
reconcileable to religion, that is, to his theological system, if
it be reconcileable to facts given by experience. 1 The state-
ment indicates at once a confusion between two really con-
tradictory theories. ' Universal necessity ' makes ' fatalism '
impossible ; for fatalism assumes what necessity excludes, the
existence of an arbitrary element in the universe. Butler, for
example, argues at length, and for a moment a humorous
smile seems to flit across his grave countenance, that a boy
brought up without fear or shame would ' be the plague of all
about him and of himself too, even to his own destruction.' 2
There cannot be a doubt of it. If the boy thought that he
was not blamable for lying because a dark power, called fate,
moved his tongue ; or that he might as well jump out of the
window as walk through the door, because fate had decided
whether he should die or live, that boy would soon cease to
plague anybody in this world. The hypothesis, however, of
a fate which determines certain points in the chain of events,
and does not determine the intermediate points, is not only
absurd in itself, but radically opposed to the doctrine of
necessity. ' Necessity ' would make the boy jump out of
window if he was to be killed, or walk out of the door if he
was to live. As a fatalist, the boy might be right in holding
that he was not to be blamed for lying, because acting under
outward compulsion. As a necessitarian he would be illo-
gical. Praise and blame are as much matters of necessity as
anything else, and indeed are only intelligible on the assump-
tion that acts are caused ; and that lying, therefore, implies a
certain disposition. The two doctrines clash irreconcilably,
and Butler's confusion between them is one more proof of his
feebleness in dealing with purely metaphysical questions. In
this respect he is but a child compared with such men as
Hume, Hobbes, or Jonathan Edwards. (
19. Butler's position, however, is instructive. He remarks
1 Butler's Works, i. 128. 2 i. 132.
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY* 299
very truly that the doctrine of necessity does not explain
' how things came to be and to continue as they are,' but only
adds the circumstance that they could not have been other-
wise. 1 The necessitarians and the advocates of free-will
would alike infer an architect from a house, whether the
architect were conceived as a free or a necessary agent. It
would appear, then, that the doctrine of necessity, consistently
carried out, has no practical bearing ; like an atmosphere
pressing equally in all directions, it leaves the previous equi-
librium unaltered ; affecting no truth, or all truth equally, it
will not affect our view of facts. The doctrine of necessity, it
would be more accurate to say, so far as it is equivalent to
the assertion of universal causation, gives an essential postu-
late for all reasonings about fact, but does not affect one
reason more than another. Necessity, regarded as an ex-
ternal entity, compelling events to conform to their laws, is a
metaphysical figment, which causes nothing but confusion.
It is in this sense, however, that Butler takes the doctrine.
His ' necessity ' is a dark power, coercing God and man
alike. It belongs to the super-divine sphere if the phrase
may be used where exists the eternal and immutable nature
of things by which even God's will is determined. Butler
argues that such a necessity would destroy all morality.
Destroying the injustice of the murder, it would destroy also
the injustice of punishing murder. 2 And thus the Divine
judge must be excused on the very plea which we advance to
excuse the criminal.
20. The responsibility, it would be more accurate to say,
is transferred to the new God called Necessity. If, however,
Necessity, as in the more profound theology, means God's will,
the answer becomes irrelevant. God, being subject to no ex-
ternal coercions, cannot be excused because he forces himself
to punish. The argument really involves a confusion which
lies at the root of Butler's method. It is in substance that the
doctrine of necessity, and, therefore, its scientific successor, the
doctrine of universal causation, must destroy the conception of
desert which from his point of view is an essential part of the
conception of morality as between man and man, along with
the conception of desert as between man and God. The fal-
1 Butler's Works, i. 129. * i. 136.
300 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY?
lacy is clear. In speaking of desert between two agents, we
imply that they are subject to a law which defines their rela-
tions, and that the action in respect of which desert accrues is
independent of the will of the agent obliged. But the concep-
tion fails us when one agent is supposed to be both the sole
source of law and the determining cause of the character and
surroundings of the other. The category which is applicable
to the conduct of finite beings breaks down when one being is
supposed infinite. Man can have no rights as against God. A
sovereign power can do no legal wrong, because law means
that which the sovereign wills. God can do no moral wrong,
because, however we settle the question of precedence, his will
and the moral law necessarily coincide. Regard God as the
sole cause, and the words just and unjust can have no refer-
ence to him, whilst they retain their full meaning in regard to
human beings. We may still ask whether he is, or is not,
benevolent, but not, in any proper sense of the words, whether
he is or is not just. Butler does not contemplate this mode
of conceiving the case. He assumes that a doctrine which
deprives desert of an absolute meaning must also destroy its
relative meaning. His God, I have said, is revealed by con-
science. He is the God of whom our hearts tell us that he
will punish our sins ; and, therefore, the God who leaves to us
a certain sphere of independent action. When the concep-
tions applicable to the case of a finite moral governor are
transferred to the case of an infinite cause, contradictions
necessarily emerge. The doctrine of the penal character of
suffering, which is intelligible in one case, becomes monstrous
in the other ; and thus Butler's assumption of the first article
of his creed allows him to overlook the fact that the God
proved by ontological reasoning is really a different being
from the God assumed by the conscience.
21. From this want of philosophical clearness his final reply
to objectors becomes strangely unsatisfactory. Government by
reward and punishment, the necessitarian is supposed to say,
' must go upon supposition that we are free and not necessary
agents. And it is incredible that the Author of nature should
govern us upon a supposition as true which he knows to be
false ; and, therefore, absurd to think that he will reward and
punish us for our actions hereafter ; especially that he will do
BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.' 301
it under the notion that they are of good or ill desert.' Butler
replies : ' The whole constitution and course of things ' shows
' beyond doubt that the conclusion from this argument is false,
wherever the fallacy lies.' The fallacy lies, as he thinks, in
the belief that we are necessary agents. If that belief be
right, the fallacy must lie in the assumption 'that it is in-
credible necessary agents should be rewarded or punished.' 1
And why ? Because, as a matter of fact, God does reward
and punish ' even brute creatures,' and punishes and rewards
men in respect of actions to which the sense of desert has
been annexed. Butler's identification of suffering with punish-
ment has become so indelible, that he thus treats it as simple
matter of fact ; and is appalled by no conclusion to which it
leads when for the conception of a Governor we substitute the
conception of a Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
22. To Butler, of course, the difficulty is masked by the
theory of free-will the device by which most theologians
justify God's wrath with the work of his own hands. Thinkers
who proceeded by a different method saw that the device
was in any case insufficient. When God is presented as equi-
valent to nature, it matters little whether we do or do not con-
cede to man that trifling capacity for modifying his destiny
which we call free-will. The utmost amplitude that we can
conceive implies but a kind of futile wriggling upon the hook
implanted in our vitals and drawn by irresistible power.
Let the will be ' free,' yet we must admit, and Butler's theory
of ' probation ' emphasises the fact, that nature turns out
murderers as regularly as rattlesnakes. The omniscient and
omnipotent Being who made and exposed us to temptation
must surely have known, or at least have formed a shrewd
suspicion about, our probable fate. No evasion can blind us
to the true bearing of Butler's statement. God made men
liable to sin ; he placed them where they were certain to sin ;
he damns them everlastingly for sinning. This is the road
by which the ' Analogy ' leads to Atheism. If this be the
logical result of accepting theories, better believe in no God
at all. If nature reveals to us a being who acts upon such
principles, and will probably carry them out more sys-
tematically in another world, let us dispel the hideous night-
1 Butler's Works, i. 145-6.
302 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY.'
mare by holding that God and a future life are priestly
fictions. Butler appeals to conscience, and conscience, as in-
terpreted by him, reveals Almighty injustice seated on the
throne of the universe. If suffering is punishment, and
punishment distributed as recklessly as suffering, belief in
theology becomes an insult to humanity.
23. These consequences, however, are comparatively in
the background in the first part of the ' Analogy ; ' for there
our attention is fixed chiefly on the appearances of distributive
justice. They recur in a darker shape in the second part,
which deals with revealed religion. Butler, though he takes a
deeper view than his contemporaries of the significance of
Christianity, has no special qualifications for dealing with
historical evidence. His most original remarks apply to the
theory of the Atonement, and it is probably this part of the
' Analogy ' upon which the wisdom of succeeding divines has
most delighted to dwell. The argument is simple. That we
should suffer for the sin of our parents is only in accordance
with the general course of providence. 1 The scheme of re-
demption is equally conformable to observation ; for 'vicarious
punishment is a providential appointment of every day's
experience. ' 2 Human punishments are sufferings inflicted
upon the criminal on account of his crimes. The chief argu-
ment of the first part of the ' Analogy ' relies upon the state-
ment that this is approximately true of divine punishments.
We are now invited to attend to a different, and it would
seem contradictory, series of facts. Divine punishments
sometimes strike the virtuous person on account of his virtue ;
they often miss the vicious person on account of his vice ;
they constantly and systematically strike the innocent person
instead of the guilty ; and the penalty is not even roughly
proportioned to the offence. Why, because they resemble
punishment in one respect, should we call them punishments
at all ? Simply because Butler's conscience has told him that
a certain Being is the avenger of sin ; because he has identified
this Being with nature, and has therefore inferred that where-
ever nature produces pleasure or pain, they are produced as
sanctioning the criminal law of the universe. Happiness and
misery are but the reflections of divine gratitude or vengeance,
1 Butler's Works, i. 245. 2 i. 254.
SUTLER'S 'ANALOGY: 303
and therefore divine rewards and penalties appear to be in-
flicted pretty nearly at random.
24. The difficulty is exaggerated in the second part of the
book because it is not diminished. ' What men require,' says
Butler, with unusual unfairness, ' is to have all difficulties
cleared.' l What they really expect is that a divine revelation
should make some difficulties clearer. Revelation, if it did
not solve the enigma, might at least show it to be soluble.
In answer to a similar difficulty, Butler complains that the
absence of proof is turned into a positive argument ; or, as he
elsewhere says, ' over and above the force of each particular
difficulty or objection, these difficulties and objections are
turned into positive arguments against the truth of revelation.' 2
Butler may be exposed to a similar retort ; for when he argues
that ' speculative difficulties ' are probationary in the same
sense as ' external temptations,' he comes near converting the
deficiency of proof into a positive ground of belief. 3 Such
reasoning provokes the criticism most commonly directed
against the 'Analogy.' It is an attempt to meet difficulties,
by suggesting equal or greater difficulties. It should, there-
fore, lead to scepticism rather than to conviction. Butler, as
usual, anticipates and tries to meet the objection. It is a
' poor thing,' says the objector, ' to solve difficulties in reve-
lation by saying that there are the same in natural religion.' 4
Butler's reply is more obscure than usual, and has an air of
depression very unlike the triumphant summing up of the
ordinary controversialist. It is a poor thing, perhaps ; but the
epithet poor may be applied to most things in human life.
' It is most readily acknowledged,' he says again, ' that the
foregoing treatise is not satisfactory, very far from it ; but so
would any natural institution of life appear if reduced into a
system, together with its evidence.' The last words, obscure
even for Butler, reflect the general perplexity produced by
his contemplation of this troublous world. He retires upon
the one main principle of his book. We are under the moral
government of God. That is plain, whatever is doubtful. The
argument, he admits, proves the credibility, not the reason-
ableness, of religion ; except in so far as the existence of the
1 Butler's Works, i. 332. Ib. i. 272.
* Ib. i. 258, 335. * Ib. i. 331.
304 BUTLERS 'ANALOGY?
laws is a sufficient proof of their wisdom and justice. At any
rate, there is proof enough to make obedience judicious. In
matters of health or money, we have to act upon insufficient
evidence. Why not in matters of salvation ? Hell is probable
enough to be worth avoiding. 1
25. Of revelation, as of natural religion, Butler has shown
that it does not contradict the testimony of facts. That con-
clusion is, with him, equivalent to a strong presumption in its
favour. The plausibility of such a theory is obvious in this, as
in the other case. Religious theories have been suggested to
men by the observation of facts, and are an attempt to state
them as coloured by the imagination. There is nothing,
therefore, surprising to us in the circumstance that a religious
doctrine which has embodied the conclusions of many gener-
ations of the most civilised races and the greatest of intellects,
should give a statement not obviously in conflict with universal
experience. That it should be so far tenable was a condition
of its existence, and is therefore no proof of its supernatural
origin. Butler, who only contemplated as possible the alter-
natives of a divine inspiration or direct imposture, just as he
held that morality must be revealed through an independent
faculty or regarded as a human fiction, naturally estimated
the value of this coherence between fact and theory by a
different scale. And yet there is a wide gulf, even from his
own point of view, between his arguments and the acceptance
of an implicit belief in Christian revelation. He seems to have
shown at most that it may be true. His version of the facts
will stand till a better has been suggested ; and whilst it
stands, it is wise to act upon it. The gulf, however, was
filled in Butler's mind by a series of tacit assumptiors. He
has taken for granted, as I have pointed out, the answers to
the most vital questions of philosophy. He tells us 2 that he
has omitted to rely upon the two great doctrines of the free-
dom of the will and the independent origin of morality,
because, though he held them, they were disputed by his
antagonists. Yet, as we have seen, they are implicitly as-
sumed throughout ; and, in addition to them, he assumes the
doctrines of the existence of God and of the soul ; and assumes,
1 See this doctrine burlesqued in Price's ' Morality.'
* Butler's Works, i. 343.
BUTLER'S ( ANALOGY: 305
moreover, that those doctrines can be established in the sense
required for his argument. Grant that there is a God who is
a moral governor, and a soul which is an immortal entity ;
that the soul is in some sense independent of God and circum-
stances, and that morality is not determined by the conditions
of human life ; and Butler has shown that the facts of obser-
vation may be fitted into his framework of theory. Regarding
those assumptions as having a strong a priori probability, and
further holding that the Christian doctrine is practically the
only alternative to Atheism, he thinks that this argument is
not only negatively strong, but may in some sense stand by
itself. It may force even those who start by denying the
truth of Christianity to admit ' the absurdity of all attempts
to prove Christianity false, the plain undoubted credibility of
it ; ' and he adds, rather vaguely, a hope that it will prove ' a
good deal more.' ' The Conclusion reiterates his position.
God's existence being proved by the indications of design,
infidelity is the result of attending to the difficulties involved
in Christianity and neglecting those involved in natural
religion. The case fairly stated, it is plain that ' there is not
any peculiar presumption against Christianity.' Even doubt
implies that there is some evidence in its favour, and enough
to compel our serious attention. The lowest degree of opinion
possible to the candid mind is a ' serious apprehension ' that
Christianity may be true, 'joined with doubt whether it be so ;'
and even such a state of mind about Christianity ' lays persons
under the strongest obligations in regard to it throughout the
whole of their life ; a regard, not the same exactly, but in
many respects the same with what a full conviction of its
truth would lay men under.' That is the last effort to repre-
sent doubt as a ground for action.
26. Butler, in spite of all the eulogies of his admirers, was
no philosopher in the strict sense of that word. The essence
of his method, as of that of the common-sense school, to
whom he is most nearly related, is to pass by those ultimate
problems which are strictly called philosophical. The attempt
to frame a religious theory without thoroughly sounding its
foundations led to the inevitable result Butler fails to under-
stand that his assertions read by the light of a different set
1 Butler's Works, i. 346,
VOL. I. X
306 BUTLER'S 'ANALOGY:
of assumptions would lead to a totally different result. His
conclusions appear to some minds to be a reductio ad absur-
dum of his principles. Even theologians should be slow to
praise the philosophical acuteness of a writer whose defence
of Christianity is so easily convertible into an attack upon
theology. It is not upon this side that we must look for the
secret of Butler's greatness. His attitude is impressive from
the moral side alone ; but from that side its grandeur is unde-
niable. In the ' Analogy,' as distinctly as in the Sermons, the
deification of the conscience is the beginning, middle, and end
of Butler's preaching. Duty is his last word. Whatever
doubts and troubles beset him, he adheres to the firm convic-
tion that the secret of the universe is revealed, so far as it is
revealed, through morality. Removing the colouring of theo-
logical dogma, his doctrine thus becomes a lofty stoicism.
Whatever happens, and whatever prospects are revealed, he will
hold to this creed. Read by- the light of this belief, all suffer-
ing becomes punishment. The difficulty of reconciling this
with the actual distribution of happiness presses upon him ;
but all difficulties must be faced. The doctrine seems to
imply that God is unjust. The conclusion is horrible, and, of
course, ' there must be a mistake somewhere ; ' but it cannot
be in his original principle. The doctrines learnt from reve-
lation increase the difficulty, but never overwhelm his faith.
Men suffer here, as Butler urges, and suffer ' irremediably ' for
a certain amount of folly and vice. Here, however, we have
the remedy of death a remedy not available to save us from
the Almighty avenger. If, then, suffering be punishment,
analogy suggests that everlasting torture will punish the
misdeeds of the most frail and sorely tempted. We must
believe it rather than give up our moral conception. God
Almighty, maker of all things and ruler of all men, came
down from heaven in bodily form, and conveyed a message
of unspeakable moment. He gave it only to a few, but he is
always partial. The message said that God would punish
the good for the crimes of the wicked. That is not sur-
prising, for it is a matter of everyday experience : if I get
drunk, my son has the gout. The message confirms our
darkest forebodings of the future ; otherwise, could it be in
analogy with our observations ? God, then, has said, Let there
BUTLERS 'ANALOGY? 307
be light, and there is no light no light, or rather darkness
visible, such as ' serves only to discover sounds of woe.' Well,
if nature is a riddle, how should the message of the God of
nature be clear ?
27. This is hardly a caricature of Butler's arguments,
though it is an interpretation of them into a different dialect.
And if they have as is undeniable a revolting side, they
are also imposing by the sheer tenacity with which, in spite of
perplexity and confusion, Butler clings to the one great dogma,
that God hates sin. However differently stated in systems
of more philosophical width, the conviction must always sur-
vive, and Butler's firm grasp of it gives a kind of sublimity to
his troubled utterance. Moreover, it enables him to give due
weight to the facts overlooked by his opponents. As against
Deism, the force of Butler's argument is undeniable. Nature
has its dark side. It is not that amiable power which fluent
metaphysicians constructed out of a priori guesses. Their
creed in the long run turned out to be mere moonshine. His
is, at least, an impressive statement of certain truths, though
they are seen in a distorted form through the traditional haze.
No religion can be powerful which does not give forcible ex-
pression to men's conviction of the prevalence of natural and
moral evil, and of their intimate connection. The shallow
optimism of the deists blinked the obvious facts. Butler re-
cognised them manfully, in spite of the additional horrors of
the nightmares which haunted his imagination. There is such
a thing as evil in the world, he seems to say, and the worst of
evils is vice. The philosophy might be improved ; but the
very want of a philosophy makes his vigorous grasp of such
truths the more impressive. Butler's influence is thus an
indirect testimony to the fact that no vigorous creed can be
reconciled with a tacit denial of the evils which disturb the
world and perplex the intellect.
28. Butler has been compared to Pascal. Infinitely in-
ferior in beauty of style, and greatly inferior in logical clear-
ness and width of view, as Butler is to Pascal, there is a
certain resemblance. Butler and Pascal are both sensible, as
the noblest minds are alone sensible, to the sad discords of
the universe. To both of them it seemed to be a scene of
blind misery and confusion. Pascal, in despair, pronounces
X 2
3o8 BUTLERS 'ANALOGY?
man's intellect to be helpless, and does his best to prostrate
himself before an earthly idol. Butler, trained in a manlier
school, refused to commit intellectual suicide. Reason, he
says, is feeble ; he disdains to conceal how feeble ; and yet
he resolves painfully and hesitatingly to grope out a path by
this feeble guidance. He is as far from joyful confidence as
from blank despair. He staggers out of Doubting Castle
with trembling knees and wearied limbs. He puzzles out his
track by such guidance as he can find, and that guidance is in
substance that, whatever fails, a man must try to do his duty.
That belief, if nothing else, is of heavenly origin. So doubt-
ing a pilgrim could hardly guide others authoritatively ; he is
no Greatheart, nor has his voice the true spirit-stirring ring of
a born leader of men. Christian advocates praise him, declare
his arguments to be irrefragable, and find an easier path for
themselves. We can but honour him as an honest and brave
man honest enough to admit the existence of doubts, and
brave enough not to be paralysed by their existence.
DATES.
1692. Joseph Butler, born at Wantage, Berkshire.
Goes to a dissenting academy in Tewkesbury.
Nov. 4, 1713. Begins correspondence with Clarke.
March 17, 1714. Admitted at Oriel College, Oxford.
1718. Preacher at the Rolls.
1722. Rector of Houghton.
1725. Rector of Stanhope ' not dead but buried.'
1726. Publishes fifteen sermons preached at the Rolls Chapel.
1733. Chaplain to Lord Chancellor Talbot ; LL.D. at Oxford.
1736. Clerk of the Closet to Queen Caroline.
Publishes the ' Analogy.'
1738. Bishop of Bristol.
1740. Dean of St. Paul's ; resigns Stanhope.
1746. Clerk of the Closet to George II.
1750. Bishop of Durham.
1751. Charge on ' External Religion.'
June 16, 1752. Dies.
References to Butler's Works, Oxford, 1835.
309
CHAPTER VI.
DAVID HUME.
I. 'I FLATTER myself,' says Hume, in the Essay upon
Miracles, ' that I have discovered an argument of a like nature '
(the reference is to Tillotson's argument on transubstantiation),
' which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an ever-
lasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and, con-
sequently, will be useful as long as the world endures.' l This
preliminary trumpet-flourish, intended probably to startle the
drowsy champions of the faith into some consciousness of the
philosopher's claims, has been as nearly fulfilled as could have
been expected. Hume's argument, neglected for the moment,
soon attracted the assaults of theologians. 2 Since his day
eager apologists have denounced it, reasoned against it,
passed it under the most rigid examination, and loudly and
frequently proclaimed the discovery of some fatal flaw. The
fact that the argument is being answered to this day proves
that its efficacy is not exhausted. Every new assault is a
tacit admission that previous assaults have not demolished
the hostile works. It is needless to enquire how far this par-
ticular logical crux has contributed to the decay amongst
rational thinkers of a belief in the miraculous. That belief
forms part of a system of thought, and grows faint as the
general system loses its hold upon the intellect. The pro-
1 Hume's Works, iv. 89.
2 The first reference to Hume's Essay which I have noticed is in Skelton's
' Ophiomachia, or Deism Revealed,' vol. ii. 20, &c., London, 1749. It is
said that the bookseller was determined to publish this treatise by the advice of
Hume, who accidentally saw it in MS. at the bookseller's shop. See Chalmers's
' Biog. Dictionary. ' Hume passed most of the year 1 748 in London, and his
Essays were published by the same bookseller, Millar. The first answer, accord-
ing to Mr. Burton, was Adams's Essay, in 1751. See Burton's 'Life of Hume,'
i. 285.
310 DAVID HUME.
minence given to the essay, except as an admirable specimen
of the dialectical art, may, therefore, be easily exaggerated.
No single essay has sapped the bases of belief. On the other
hand, the essay is but a small part of Hume's attack upon
the fundamental dogmas of theology. His popular reputa-
tion, indeed, is almost exclusively based upon it ; he is known
as the author of this particular dilemma ; all else that he
wrote is ignored ; and so exclusively has attention been fixed
upon these particular pages, that few of his assailants take
any notice even of the immediately succeeding essay, 1 which
forms with it a complete and connected argument.
2. Various causes may be given for this neglect. Hume does
not himself give any intimation that the Essay on Miracles re-
quires (if, indeed, it does strictly require) any supplement. The
essay gives a direct and tangible issue for the popular dis-
putant. A tricky or illogical, though not consciously unfair,
antagonist might feel that the argument was more manageable
when detached from its setting, or might be unable to appre-
ciate the wider philosophical considerations ; or, possibly,
might not have taken the trouble to read any farther in so
scandalous a performance. But it is also true that there
exists a kind of tacit consent to pass by the questions raised
by Hume's other writings upon theology. We dare not face
them. Our cowardice and our better feelings shrink from the
possibilities of a negative reply. Our belief may be too faint
to allow of a keen interest in the discussion, or we have too
much at stake, and are appalled by what appears to be a
complete disintegration of the universe. The doubts which
may chill our hearts are forbidden to pass our lips. Argue
this or that theological dogma, if you please ; even dispute the
value of Christianity as compared with pure theism ; but do
not ask the tremendous questions which lie beyond Is there
a God ? or, rather, have we any means of knowing whether
there be a God or not ? What, again, do we mean by God in
any case ? Is the holiest of names but a periphrasis for our
ignorance, or a name for some reality, apprehensible, however
dimly, by human intelligence ? Many men, we cannot doubt,
have agreed with Hume's answer, though few have dared to
confess their agreement publicly ; but that kind of intel-
: That on ' A Particular Providence and a Future State.'
DAVID HUME. 311
lectual courage which faces such doubts in the ordinary spirit
of scientific enquiry is only less rare than the courage which
will proclaim to the world that they are insoluble. Our litera-
ture swarms with so-called demonstrations of the existence of
God. The half-formed suspicion of their authors that the
foundation of their reasonings may be unsound is rarely
indicated by frank admissions, though betrayed in the dex-
terity with which they sidle past the ancient pitfalls, and the
obstinacy with which they deny, not the validity, but even the
existence, of objections. Hume's reasonings were, until very
recent times, the single example in our literature of a passion-
less and searching examination of the great problem.
3. The vigour of his mind is exhibited in these writings
even more conspicuously than in his metaphysical arguments.
His scepticism in metaphysics seems at times to be but half
sincere, as scepticism must be which not only disputes certain
dogmas, but throws doubt upon the validity of the reasoning
process itself. The so called scepticism of the theological
essays is not in this sense sceptical ; it admits the validity of
reason in its own sphere, but seeks to demonstrate that theo-
logy lies outside of that sphere. In the metaphysical writings
Hume throws doubts upon the validity of our belief in the
invariable order of the universe. His theological writings are
made more cogent by admitting that fundamental truth. The
doubts which he expounds are not the mere playthings of
philosophical fancy, which vanish when we leave the closet
for the street. They are strong convictions seen from another
side ; and are as dogmatic, in one sense, as the theologian's in
the opposite sense. From his various writings, the ' Treatise
on Human Nature,' the ' Dialogues on Natural Religion,' the
' Philosophical Essays,' and the ' Natural History of Religion,'
we may frame a complete and logically co-ordinated system of
argument. Mr. Mill, the most distinguished of Hume's recent
disciples, left behind him an essay upon theism, discussing the
same vital problems with the advantage afforded by familiarity
with subsequent speculation. Though more symmetrically
arranged, it scarcely includes a single argument not explicitly
stated or clearly indicated by Hume. It is marked, however,
by one quality, curiously absent from Hume's colourless logic.
A pathetic desire to find some remnant of truth in the ancient
312 DAVID HUME.
dogmas breathes throughout its pages, and is allowed to exer-
cise a distorting influence upon its conclusions. In Hume there
is no trace of such a sentiment. As a rule, he neither scoffs,
nor sneers, nor regrets. The dogma under discussion seems
neither to attract nor to repel him. Here and there we may
trace too complacent a sense of his ingenuity, or a desire to
administer a passing rebuff to the confidence of men like
Warburton ; but the stream of his logic is generally as un-
ruffled and limpid as though he were discussing a metaphy-
sical puzzle unrelated to human passion, or undertaking an
historical enquiry into the truth of some doubtful legend.
This strange calmness is characteristic of the man and of his
age ; it is only possible to a consummate logician, arguing at
a time when theology, though living amongst the masses, was
being handed over by thinkers to the schools. We have in
his pages the ultimate expression of the acutest scepticism of
the eighteenth century ; the one articulate statement of a
philosophical judgment upon the central questions at issue.
4. Let us endeavour to state Hume's reasonings as calmly
as they were propounded. What are the appropriate methods
of proof? Kant, in the ' Critique of Pure Reason,' resolves all
possible methods into the ontological, that of which Descartes'
argument is the fullest expression ; the cosmological, or the
familiar argument from the necessity of a first cause ; and
the physico-theological, or the argument based upon the
evidences of design. According to Kant, the last two argu-
ments are ultimately resolvable into the first ; and the first is,
according to him, untenable. The pure reason cannot supply
a basis for theology ; a function which, however, is discharged
by the practical reason. Kant's reasonings are stated with
much greater scholastic precision than Hume's, and imply a
more systematic conception of the relations of theology and
philosophy ; but they scarcely show greater acuteness, and
they do not show an equally unbiassed attitude of mind.
His scheme may enable us to condense Hume's arguments,
dispersed through various essays, into a definite system of
reasoning.
5. The belief in God may be regarded as an ultimate
truth, above all need of demonstration. We know the exist-
ence of God, as we know our own existence, by direct
DAVID HUME. 313
intuition. This doctrine may take the mystical shape, or the
common-sense shape, or it may appear as the ontological
argument. The mystic is outside of argument. The vague
yearning which sees no personal deity, and requires no logical
apparatus of articulate demonstration, but recognises the
divinity immanent in all nature through some supersensual
faculty, was beyond Hume's cognisance. The doctrine par-
takes more of the character of emotion than reason, and the
mere logician is powerless either to assail or support it. As
represented by the common sense philosopher, who says dog-
matically that a belief in God is a first principle, the doctrine is
equally unassailable by argument. The believer must, in fact,
say to the atheist, ' You lie,' or he must say, ' I have a faculty
which you have not.' Locke put the dilemma in his controversy
with Stillingfleet, The argument from universal consent, he
says, which is the historical form of the same theory, must be
useless; 'for, if anyone deny a God, such a perfect universality
of consent is destroyed ; and, if nobody does deny a God, what
need of arguments to convince atheists ? ' l All serious argu-
ment implies the possibility of sincere dissent. Against an
opponent of theism who is not really an atheist, we require not
argument, but exhortations to truthfulness. If the believer
claims a special faculty, the question arises, whose faculty is
the most trustworthy ; and the argument passes into some
other form. Hume regarded all mystics as foolish 'enthu-
siasts,' represented at the time of writing only by such solitary
recluses as Law, or by fanatical followers of Wesley. He
would have thought it a mere waste of time to direct his
batteries against them ; and the common-sense philosophers
did little more than give him the lie direct.
6. His whole philosophy, however, is the antithesis of
the doctrine upon which reposed the ontological proof of
Descartes, or the more familiar cosmological proof repre-
sented by Clarke. His scepticism is one continuous assault
upon the validity of their methods ; and the direct applica-
tion is made, though with some veil of reticence, in the fourth
part of the ' Treatise of Human Nature,' and more explicitly
in the posthumous ' Dialogues on Natural Religion.' Aban-
doning the high a priori road, divines might betake them-
1 Locke's Works, iii. 495.
3H DAVID HUME.
selves to the ' physico-theological ' argument, generally
described as the argument from final causes. A prolonged
and most ingenious discussion of this theory forms the main
substance of the Dialogues. Reasoners, again, who doubted
the soundness of this mode of argument, or shrank from
raising the fundamental questions involved, might retire to
the moral argument, which, in one shape or other, has the
strongest influence with many minds. The theory of the
' categorical imperative,' and the deduction of theology as a
regulative principle of conduct, was not known to English
thinkers, but it has a close affinity to the ethical doctrine of
Clarke, and is represented to some extent in Butler's doctrine
of the conscience. Hume's morality, if accepted, strikes at
the root of this theory ; and the application to Butler's argu-
ment is sufficiently indicated in the essay upon ' A Particular
Providence and a Future State.' Finally, abandoning all
strictly philosophical arguments, the divine might fall back
upon the historical argument. He might appeal to experience
at large, as showing that the idea of a supreme Deity must
have been supernatural ly implanted in men's minds, or to the
particular experience embodied in the history of revelation.
The answers to these arguments are given by Hume in
the ' Natural History of Religion,' and in that Essay
on Miracles, which alone excited any vehemence of contro-
versy.
7. The whole cycle of reasoning is thus completed. Later
developments of thought have presented some of the argu-
ments assailed by Hume in a form intended to evade the
destructive effects of his criticism. Whether that intention
has or has not been successfully carried out is a question
beyond my province. It is enough to say for the present
that, whatever the value of Hume's reasonings, he has, at
least, the high merit of having unflinchingly enquired into the
profoundest of all questions, and of having dared to give the
result of his enquiries without fear or favour. The want of
intellectual courage displayed by his contemporaries is doubt-
less pardonable, in one sense. We cannot judge harshly of
men who feared to injure a doctrine which, true or false,
seemed to afford the only lasting consolation to suffering
humanity, and the only sound basis for morality. But, in
DAVID' HUME. 315
another sense, no cowardice is ever pardonable, for it is never
pardoned by facts. Want of candour brings an inevitable
penalty upon the race, if not upon the individual. The hol-
lowness in theory and the impotence in practice of English
speculation in the last half of the century, is but the natural
consequence of the faint-hearted ness which prevented English
thinkers from looking facts in the face. The huge develop-
ment of hypocrisy, of sham beliefs, and indolent scepticism,
is the penalty which we have had to pay for our not daring
to meet the doubts openly expressed by Hume, and by
Hume alone.
8. Hume's scepticism cuts away the very base of onto-
logical proof. The mind, according to him, is unable to rise
one step beyond sensible experience. It can separate and
combine the various ' impressions ' and ' ideas ; ' it is utterly
unable to create a single new idea, or penetrate to an ulti-
mate world of realities. The 'substance' in which the
qualities of the phenomenal world are thought to inhere is
a concept emptied of all contents, and a word without a mean-
ing. The external world, which supports the phenomena, is
but a ' fiction ' of the mind ; the mind, which in the same
way affords a substratum for the impressions, is itself a fiction ;
and the divine substance, which, according to the Cartesians,
causes the correlation between these two fictions, must that
is the natural inference be equally a fiction. Impressions
and ideas, combining and separating in infinite variety, being
the sole realities ; the bond which unites, and the substratum
which supports them, must be essentially unknowable, for
knowledge itself is but an association of ideas. Dismiss these
doubts, attempt to frame ontological propositions, and the
fallacy manifests itself afresh in the futility of the dogma
which emerges. Under the form of examining Bayle's criti-
cism upon the ' hideous hypothesis ' of Spinoza ! Hume ex-
hibits the inevitable antinomies, which beset the reason in its
endeavour to soar beyond experience, and, therefore, on his
assumption, to transcend itself. 2 Metaphysicians had insisted
upon the utterly disparate character of mind and matter.
The two could not be brought into relation, except by the
verbal explanation of the divine power. It was only neces-
1 'Treatise,' i. 524. * Ib. part iv. sec. v.
316 DAVID HUME.
sary, then, to exhibit this antithesis, to show that the doctrine
was inconceivable. Mind cannot be resolved into matter,
therefore materialism is absurd. But neither can mind be
brought into contact with matter, unless mind be itself ex-
tended. Therefore spiritualism is equally absurd. 1 The
external universe, said Bayle, in answer to Spinoza, in all its
complex variety, cannot be a simple undivisible substance.
Neither, then, can the soul, whose ideas, by the hypothesis,
reflect every conceivable modification of the external universe,
be a simple indivisible substance. 2 Whatever may be said of
the assumed object, may be said of the impression by which
it is represented. Matter and motion, it was argued again,
however varied, could still be nothing but motion and matter.
Hume's theory of causation destroys the argument. Causes
and effects are but names for conjoined phenomena, and we
cannot assert d priori that any two phenomena will or not be
conjoined. No position of bodies can produce motion, any
more than it can produce thought ; for, turn it which way you
will, it is still but a position of bodies. 3 As thought and
motion are, in fact, constantly united, motion may be, and on
Hume's definition it actually is, the cause of thought. We
must either assert that causal connection between two objects
exists only where we can perceive the logical nexus between
their ideas, or we must admit that uniform conjunction implies
a causal relation. In the first case, there can be no ' cause
or productive principle ' in the universe, not even the Deity
himself. For we have no ' idea ' of the Deity, except from
impressions, each of which appears to be an independent
entity, and, therefore, includes no efficacy. If we still assert
the Deity to be the one cause which supplies this defect, he
must be the cause of every action, virtuous or vicious ; and
we fall into Pantheism. If we admit that uniform connection
is sufficient to establish cause, we must then admit that any-
thing may be the cause of anything ; 3 and the argument
against Materialism vanishes. Nominally retorting upon
Bayle the objections to Spinozism, Hume is really extending
Bayle's scepticism beyond its immediate purpose ; and bring-
ing out the contradictions which inevitably beset the attempt
to treat of absolute substances supposed to exist in perfect
1 'Treatise,' i. 523. 2 Ib. pp. 526, 527. * Ib. p. 530.
DAVID HUME. 317
simplicity and independence of all relations. His argument
was blunted by a thin veil of reticence, and the defects of
style which mar the early treatise : and it dealt with con-
siderations too abstract to impress the ordinary reasoner. In
the posthumous Dialogues he comes to closer quarters with
the popular theology.
9. The Dialogues are prefaced by an apology for adopting
that form of argument. The true motives are obvious enough.
Theologians might indulge in demonstrations. The sceptic
finds it convenient to create personages to whose utterances
he is not obviously pledged. Moreover, the form of the Dia-
logue itself implies an argument. The sceptic Philo medi-
ates between the rigidly orthodox Demea and the more
amenable Cleanthes. Demea and Cleanthes represent, in
fact, two opposite schools of theology, and Philo finds in each
of them an ally in his assault upon the other. We have
already noticed the antithesis between Clarke and Waterland,
or between Browne and Berkeley. When each divine accused
his brother of sanctioning the first principles of Atheism, so
keen an observer as Hume was not likely to overlook the
advantage to himself. He could stand aside, like Faulcon-
bridge in ' King John,' and watch France and Austria shoot in
each other's faces. Demea, in fact, represents the a priori
school, who at once assert the existence of God and exhaust
themselves in assertions of the utter inconceivability of his
attributes. Cleanthes, relying upon the argument from final
causes, is forced to admit a certain analogy between the
Divine workman whose purpose is revealed in his work, and
the human observer who can understand his designs. The
agreement of theologians is an agreement to use a common
name, but the name covers radically inconsistent conceptions.
The arguments of the anthropomorphist for a limited Deity
tell against the ontological argument for an infinite Deity.
The worship of nature can be no more made to square with
the worship of Jehovah than with the worship of the supreme
artisan. Hume is least antipathetic to the least exalted con-
ception. He has a common ground with the reasoner from
design, and resents the metaphysical arrogance which at once
admits that its dogmas are unintelligible, and insists upon
3i8 DAVID HUME.
their acceptance. There is hope of a definite issue between
ourselves and a reasoner who accepts our method. Between
the a priori school and Hume's the opposition was vital,
though in practice the ontologists might frame a theology of
a more neutral tint than that of their rivals.
10. In the Dialogues, Hume deals briefly with the a priori
argument. Assuming the truth of his philosophy, it falls, as
we have seen, to the ground. He states, however, distinctly
the main ground of the difficulties to which it is exposed.
Admitting ostensibly the necessity of a belief in God, he
quotes Malebranche, and adds that he might have quoted any
number of philosophical divines l in favour of the utter incon-
ceivability of the divine nature. We call him a spirit to signify
that he is not matter ; but without venturing to imply that
his nature has any resemblance to ours. We attribute to him
thought, design, knowledge ; but such words are used in a
sense indefinitely distant from that which they bear when
applied to mankind. Cleanthes, the advocate of final causes,
asks Demea the representative of the a priori theorists
how this doctrine differs from that of the sceptics or atheists,
who declare the first cause to be unknown and unintelligible ? 2
Men, he says, who assert that God can have no attributes
corresponding to human ideas, that he is absolutely simple
and immutable, are in fact atheists without knowing it. ' A
mind whose acts and sentiments and ideas are not distinct
and successive ; one that is wholly simple and totally immut-
able, is a mind which has no thought, no reason, no will, no
sentiment, no love, no hatred ; or, in a word, is no mind at
all.' 3 The ontologists may prove the existence of God ; but
God with them means pure Being a blank, colourless, and
useless conception.
1 1. But can it be proved ? Hume lays down as a principle
that it is evidently absurd to demonstrate a matter of fact, or
to prove it by any arguments a priori* ' Nothing is demon-
strable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing
that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. What-
ever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-
existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence
implies a contradiction. Consequently, there is no being
1 ' Dialogues,' ii. 390. 2 Ib. ii. 405. ' Ib. ii. 407. '' Tb. ii. 432.
DAVID HUME. 319
whose existence is demonstrable. I propose this argument
as entirely decisive, and am willing to rest the whole contro-
versy upon it.' l This, in fact, is Hume's retort to the onto-
logical argument of Descartes. It anticipates the more
elaborate analysis of the same argument by Kant ; and
though it may need development, seems to be substantially
unanswerable. Reid characteristically admits its validity in
regard to all truths concerning existence, excepting ' only the
existence and attributes of the Supreme Being, which is the
only necessary truth we know regarding existence/ 2 It is
impossible, however, to assign a clear logical ground for this
judicious exception. The Cartesian proof is really a subtle
mode of begging the question. It is contradictory to speak
of non-existing existence ; and, therefore, if God be defined
as the existing Being, his existence is, of course, necessary.
But to transmute this logical necessity into an objective
necessity is a mere juggle. It proves that God exists, if he
exists ; which is indeed a true, but not a fruitful, proposition.
The argument, in fact, proves nothing, or simply asserts the
apparently identical proposition that all existence exists.
Every being which exists is known as related to and limited
by other existences. From our experience of a particular
existence, we may advance by help of such relations to other
existences, beyond our immediate experience. But an exis-
tence, proved by a priori argument, and therefore independent
of all relations to the facts of experience, can be nothing but
the totality of all existence. The conclusion must be as wide
as the premisses. From an argument, independent of all
experience, we must infer an existence which does not affect
experience, or which affects all experience equally. It has
been attempted to revive the ontological argument thus assailed
by Hume and Kant ; but their criticism is at least decisive
against its original form.
12. The ' cosmological ' argument attempts to amend this
plea by introducing a datum from experience. Something,
it is admitted, exists ; therefore, there is a necessary exist-
ence. Hume scarcely distinguishes this from the ontological
argument with which, as Kant says, it is ultimately identical.
In a shoH passage, however, he touches the vital point.
1 'Dialogues,' ii. 432. 2 Reid, p. 430.
320 DAVID HUME.
Clarke had argued that matter could not be the self-existent
Being, because any particle of matter might be conceived to
be annihilated or altered. But it is equally possible, as
Hume rejoins, to imagine the Deity to be non-existent, or his
attributes to be altered. If that be impossible in fact, it is
impossible in virtue of some unknown and inconceivable attri-
butes, which may, therefore, be capable of union with matter.
Or, if we put the argument into the more familiar form of the
' first cause,' we are falling into another fallacy. To ask for
the cause of an eternal succession is absurd, for cause implies
priority of time. In the everlasting chain each link is caused
by the preceding, and causes the succeeding. But the whole
requires a cause ? To call it a whole is an act of the mind
which implies no difference in the nature of things. If I
could show the cause of each individual in a collection of
twenty particles, it would be absurd to ask for the cause of
the whole twenty. That is given in giving the particular
causes. 1 Hume sees, in fact, that the conception of causality
which compels us to bind together all beings as mutually
conditioned by each other, cannot, without a logical trick, be
transferred to the totality of being. If applicable at all, it
would produce an infinite series ; for, having determined the
cause of the whole, we should have to ask for the cause of the
cause. The application of the principle is in its very nature
incapable of ever leading to an ultimate conclusion. It sug-
gests only an infinite progression, reminding us once more of
Locke's famous illustration of the Indian philosopher and his
world-supporting elephant. 2
13. Hume suggests this last difficulty in answer to the
physico-theological disputant, whose argument, as we shall see,
slides into the other. He concludes his brief argument against
the a priori philosopher by the undeniable remark that such
reasoning has never had much practical influence upon any
minds except those of metaphysicians attempting to trans-
plant the mathematical argument into an inappropriate
sphere. 3 The argument from final causes, on the other hand,
is the most popular pretext for belief, even where it has not
been the efficient cause of belief. 'He that made the eye
shall he not see ?' has been from of old the mo$t effective
1 < Dialogues,' ii. 433. 2 Ib. ii. 408. 3 Ib. ii. 434.
DAVID HUME. 321
retort upon the unbeliever. To deprive this argument of its
authority, says Kant, is a hopeless task, though he denies it
to be demonstrative ; and Hume himself admits that (in the
character of Philo) he needs all his ' sceptical and metaphy-
sical subtlety ' to elude the grasp of the believer. 1 And yet
it is plain that this celebrated argument involves another
form of the same difficulty. The first steps of the reasoning
are enticingly plain and simple ; but when we would reach
the conclusion, we suddenly find a huge gulf yawning across
our path. Remain in generalities : argue that the general
order implies some vaster intelligence, underlying the whole
universe, and the argument seems to be satisfactory, as, in-
deed, Hume seems to admit in some sense at the end of the
treatise. He concludes, and apparently with sincerity, that
we may admit as the final outcome of natural theology this
'simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined
proposition ; that the cause or causes of order in the universe
probably have some remote analogy to human intelligence.' 2
But try to press the argument home, to grasp it in a tenable
definite shape, and it crumbles in our hands. We can see it
when we do not look at it directly. It affords a basis for a
vague surmise, not for a distinct dogmatic belief.
14. Hume's argument is a little disordered by the exigen-
cies of the Dialogue ; and, perhaps, by his preference of literary
effect to scholastic perfection of system. It may, however, be
easily reduced to logical coherence. The real difficulty, as
Hume very clearly sees, is that the argument, if valid, is in
favour of some anthropomorphic conclusion ; and that it loses
its validity in proportion as it gains in dignity. This is the
objection which Demea and Philo, the orthodox and the
sceptic, concur in pressing upon Cleanthes, the upholder of its
validity. You do not prove, they urge, the existence of God,
but of a god or gods a Demiurgus, not a Supreme Being.
The objection may be evaded in two ways : we may either
assert that the inference from the part to the whole is legiti-
mate, in which case the argument melts into the a priori or
ontological argument ; or we may be content with proving
the existence of a God, considered as a part of the universe,
1 'Dialogues,' ii. 443. - Ib. ii. 467.
VOL, I. Y
322 DAVID HUME.
and leave the subsequent transition to be tacitly effected.
We have to choose between reaching a sufficiently wide con-
clusion and having a forcible argument. Thus, we may say
a watch implies a maker, a house an architect, a book an
author, and, therefore, the universe at large must have a
contriver. Or, we may say, since the watch implies a maker,
the eye equally implies a maker ; and, from the numerous
cases of a similar character, we gain a cumulative proof for
the existence of a being who has put together a number of
natural contrivances, as men have put together their artificial
contrivances. The distinction is not precisely made by Hume
in this form, and some of his arguments may be applied to
either hypothesis ; but, by taking it into account, we shall be
able to appreciate the argument more clearly without any
real alteration of Hume's meaning.
15. The argument, as originally stated by Cleanthes, is
that the world is ' nothing but one great machine, subdivided
into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit
of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses can
trace and explain.' 1 The adaptation of means to ends is
throughout similar; and we are, therefore, justified in inferring
the existence of a supreme contriver, with faculties in some
sense resembling, though infinitely superior to, our own. The
sceptic urges that analogy must grow weaker as the cases
diverge, and that the supposed resemblance between a house
and the universe is obviously too faint to justify more than a
guess or conjecture. 2 Thought is but one of the forces which
are operative throughout the universe ; heat and cold, attrac-
tion and repulsion, are equally active causes. We are not
justified in the wide jump from a minute part to the whole.
Even assuming that we may argue from the operations of one
part of nature upon another to the origin of the whole
(' which never can be admitted), yet why select so minute,
so weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason of animals is
found to be upon this planet ? What peculiar privilege -has
this little agitation of the brain, which we call thought, that
we must thus make it the model of the universe?' 3 There
are, he afterwards says, four principles reason, instinct,
generation, vegetation each of which, or any one of a hundred
1 ' Dialogues, 1 ii. 392. 2 Ib. ii. 393. * Ib. ii. 396.
DAVID HUME.
323
others, might be selected for the analogy. 'The world re-
sembles a machine, therefore it is a machine ; therefore it
rose from design ' that is the final cause argument. Why
not say ' The world resembles an animal, therefore it is an
animal ; therefore it arose from generation ? ' l The steps in
the last argument are not wider, and the analogy, says
Hume, is more striking than in the first. And thus we have
the old doctrine of the anima mundi or the ancient mytho-
logical fancies of the origin of nature from animal birth. It
is, indeed, easy to suggest an escape from such difficulties ;
but the escape is by changing the argument from design
into the ontological argument, and a revival of all the old
difficulties. The existence of reason, we must now say,
implies the existence of a supreme creative faculty which
includes, though it is not to be identified with, reason. We
must, then, universalise our terms. The order observable in
the universe implies, not the specific faculty of reason, but a
divine mind, whose ideas correspond to the visible universe
as the architect's plan corresponds to the house. Hume
meets us again. Granting this, we have the old set of per-
plexities. The mental world requires a cause as much as the
material world. Thought, as we know it, implies a machinery
as curious as matter. Must we find a new cause for this ideal
world, and so be led into an infinite progression ; or shall we
assert the existence of a self-ordering principle in ideas ? But
ideas may be disorganised as well as matter, and experience
can tell us nothing of such an ultimate principle. It is, in
fact, nothing better than those occult qualities assumed by
.the old physiologists, who would say that bread nourished by
.its nutritive faculty. It is but a ' more learned and elaborate
way of expressing our ignorance.' At the end of all dis-
cussion we come to the inscrutable. An ideal system
arranged without preceding design is no more explicable than
a material one. 2
- 1 6. Thus, if the argument be made apparently tenable by
extending its terms, we find that we have but explained the
universe by assuming a counterpart, itself equally in need of
explanation. That, in spite of such reasoning, there remains
> Dialogues,' ii. 424. * Ib. pp. 408-11.
324 DAVID HUME.
an ineradicable impression that, in some undefinable sense,
some mysterious power, to which reason bears an indefinable
analogy, must underlie the visible world, is a doctrine not to
be entirely dispelled ; nor, as I have already said, does Hume
appear to disavow it. His arguments might be met by the
believers in later ontological systems ; though no reasoning
can express this shadowy belief in definite logical form, and
still less frame from it an available system of theology. We
shall presently see Hume's observations upon the gulf which
yawns between such a philosophical theism, or, rather, pan-
theism, and the theism which alone can regulate men's lives,
or alter their conceptions of fact.
17. Meanwhile, the popular argument escapes the difficulty
by a different path. Man, it says, makes houses ; God must
have made the eye. Admit the force of the reasoning, and
we are evidently proving the existence of a being, existing in
time and space, and operating upon matter external to him-
self. The cause is proportional to the effect From a finite
effect we can only infer a finite cause ; and from an imperfect
effect an imperfect cause. The many difficulties in nature are
explicable, as an illusion produced by the limitation of our
faculties if a priori reasoning has established the existence of
a perfect creator ; but when made the groundwork of an argu-
ment, they must imply that the creator has been at fault ; or,
at lowest, that we cannot tell whether he has or has not been
at fault 1 Not only does the argument go to prove a creator
finite in power and imperfect in skill, but it does not even
tend to prove his unity. If a city implies many men, why
should not the universe imply many deities or demons ? 2 The
vaster we suppose the power, the less close the analogy.
Polytheism, in short, with all its accompaniments of the grossest
anthropomorphism, is the most natural, though not the neces-
sary, inference from the argument, for the closer the re-
semblance discovered, the closer the likeness of the unknown
cause to man. 3
. 1 8. An objection is made by Cleanthes, which, indeed,
forms a natural part of the argument from final causes. He
argues from the brief course of modern history that the
world must have had an origin in time ; and, if an origin,
1 ' Dialogues/ ii. 412. z Ib. ii. 413. * Ib. ii. 414.
DAVID HUME. 325
then a maker. The sceptic replies that the argument suggests
the probability of convulsions sufficient to have swept away the
traces of former civilisations ; and that, in fact, we have geo-
logical proofs throughout the world that every part of it has
been covered with water. The most consistent explanation,
then, is to suppose incessant and continuous change. An
' eternal inherent principle of order,' with ' great and continual
revolutions and alterations,' will solve all difficulties as well as
any other theory ; and thus the argument is equally favour-
able to scepticism, polytheism, or theism. 1 Another cosmogony
is suggested which forms a kind of link between the ' old
epicurean hypotheses ' and modern systems of evolution. We
may regard order as the condition of the continuous existence
of a given state, not as its creative principle. ' Unguided
matter ' going through eternal revolutions will at times fall,
so to speak, into positions of stable equilibrium. One of
them when once reached will necessarily have a comparative
permanence. Upon this hypothesis, it is vain to insist upon
the uses of the parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious
adjustment to each other. ' I would fain know how an animal
could subsist unless its parts were so adjusted ? ' 2 The doc-
trine of final causes is here met by that doctrine of the survival
of the fittest, or the correspondence between the organism
and its medium, which in recent times has been its most fatal
antagonist
19. The argument thus appears to be unmanageable. It
concludes, if it concludes for anything, for a finite and im-
perfect creator ; and, if for a finite creator, then for any number
of creators, or for the absence of any distinct creator.. We
are no longer seeking for the sole and supreme cause, but
endeavouring to account for a set of adaptations, effected by
some unknown agent acting under strict conditions and at
some particular point. We have almost substituted an anti-
quarian investigation for a philosophical discussion. One
mythology will serve for such a purpose as well as another.
We admire a ship which has really been the gradual product
of a system struck out by much botching and bungling ; the
world may have been made after the same fashion, or have
been constructed by an infantile or superannuated or in-*
1 ' Dialogues/ ii. 419-20. * Ib. ii. 428*
326 DAVID HUME.
capable deity. 1 In such arguments, says Hume, where we
are guided by a finite analogy, it would be easy to suggest
any number of systems, though the odds would be indefinitely
great against right conjecture. 2
20. The ambiguity of the argument is not its only defect.
The theory, when pushed home, seems to contradict the very
experience to which it appeals. In our experience, ideas are
always copied from external objects, and mind is capable of
affecting only that matter with which it is so conjoined that
there is a reciprocal influence between them. The theory
reverses these and similar relations. 3 Hume, as we have seen,
argues in various shapes, that, if we appeal to experience,
generation, and not conscious construction, will be the mode
in which complex organisms arise. By what right do we
change our ground ? What is the logic when articulately ex-
hibited ? The argument from experience in all ordinary cases
is, upon Hume's theory, that the constant conjunction of two
species generates the custom of inferring one from the other.
This, and this alone, warrants me in attributing human works
to intelligent action. But how can I be justified in making
a similar inference in regard to objects ' single, individual,
without parallel or specific resemblance ? ' 4 To afford grounds
for the necessary indication, we ought to have had experience
of the rise of several worlds. To ascertain that ours must
have arisen from a thought and art resembling the human is
simply ridiculous. The universe, as he puts it elsewhere, 8 is
a unique effect. Our methods of investigation leave us help-
less before such problems.
21. The more closely we scrutinise this imposing argu-
ment, the less we can trust it. It proves too much or too
little. It lands us in downright anthropomorphism, or it leaves
us with nothing but a vague doctrine. We may admit that
the reasoning is compatible with the orthodox theory, we
cannot hold that it proves it. And yet, if we admitted its
value, we should be in face of a still more tremendous difficulty,
1 * Dialogues,' ii. 413-41 See the illustration of the ship worked out very in*
genbusly by Mandeville, though for a different purpose (' Fable of the Bees,' pt. ii.
dial. 3).
* Ib. ii. 426. * Ib, ii. 430. Ib. ii. 398.
* Essays, iv. 121 ('Essay on a Particular Providence').
DAVID HUME.
327
Establish the existence of a first cause or a contriver, by
appeals to reason or to experience, and we have still to ask
whether we can discover a supreme moral ruler. Whether
the world may have been made in this way or that is com-
paratively a question of curiosity. Whether it is governed by
a ruler armed with the power and the will to secure our hap-
piness is the real question. It is the consciousness of man's
imbecility and weakness, says the orthodox Demea, that
causes him to search for an all-powerful protector. That
sentiment is the source, and strives to be the guarantee,
of the religious instinct. The sceptic joins with Demea to
enforce the old text of human misery ; and Cleanthes
struggles feebly to uphold the optimist view. Yet, granting
all that he asserts, the sceptic urges unanswerably that a
doubtful balance of happiness over misery is not what we
should expect from infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite
goodness. ' Why is there any misery at all in this world ?
Not by chance surely. From some cause then. Is it from
the intention of the Deity ? But he is perfectly benevolent
Is it contrary to his intention ? But he is almighty.' Here,
indeed, is the hopeless dilemma to which no answer can ever
be suggested. ' Nothing,' as the sceptic Philo says, ' can
shake the solidity of this reasoning, so short, so clear, so
decisive ; except we assert that these subjects exceed all
human capacity, and that our common measures of truth and
falsehood are not applicable to them ' a doctrine which the
anthropomorphist Cleanthes has all along denied. 1 Here,
says Philo, ' I find myself at ease in my argument.' In dis-
cussing the natural attributes, he felt that he was struggling
against the obvious probabilities ; but he adds : ' It is now
your turn to tug the labouring oar, and to support your
philosophical subtleties against the dictates of plain reason
and experience.' *
22. Cleanthes replies by an anticipation of the theory
which seems to have commended itself to Mr. Mill ; he re-
verts to the doctrine of a limited deity already suggested as
the logical result of the argument from design ; and thinks
that 'benevolence, regulated by wisdom and limited by
necessity, may produce just such a world as the present.' *
1 ( Dialogues,' ii. 443. 2 Ib. ii. 444.
328 DAVID HUME.
Philo replies by a more elaborate statement of his argument.
Admitting, as before, that the facts are not incompatible with
the orthodox theory, he denies that they have any tendency of
themselves to suggest it The misery of life may be attributed
in great measure to four causes, all of which, so far as our
limited powers entitle us to speak, might be removed. 1 The
first, is the employment of pain as well as pleasure to excite to
action ; the second, the fact that the world is conducted by
general and inflexible laws, which could not, it is true, be
abrogated without palpable inconvenience, but which might
be suspended often enough to extirpate evil, or, at any rate,
directed without interfering with our powers of prevision. A
touch to Caligula's brain in his infancy might have made him
into a Trajan, and human foresight would have been no more
perplexed than by the apparent accidents of storm or sick-
ness. 2 Thirdly, it seems as though natural powers had been
so frugally doled out as just to preserve existence. There is
no such superfluous stock of endowments as might have been
provided by an indulgent parent. But a little more industry,
a nd the vast mass of evil which arises from idleness would be
abolished. And, fourthly, the ' inaccurate workmanship ' of
all parts of the great machine is constantly producing evils.
Storms arise in the moral and in the physical universe, and
the secretions of the frame are constantly in excess or defect.
There may be good reasons for these causes of evil, but
what they may be, and whether they exist, is altogether
beyond our knowledge ; and thus, though we may save, we
cannot establish, the orthodox conclusion as to the divine
attributes.
23. The universe, in short, suggests to us a ' blind nature,
impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth
from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed
and abortive children.' 3 Shall we adopt the Manichean
principle as the " best explanation of this strange mixture
of good and ill ? It is specious, and in some respects more
1 ' Dialogues,' ii. 446.
- This is certainly a curious argument from the opponent of miracles. If
such miracles could happen without our knowledge, how do we know they have
not happened ? Perhaps this may suggest a new mode of assailing Hume to his
orthodox antagonists ; but the argument would require delicate handling.
3 Ib. ii. 446-452.
DAVID HUME. 329
probable than the common hypothesis, but scarcely com-
patible with the general uniformity. Cold and heat, moisture
and drought, alternate in nature ; but the alternation suggests
rather indifference than conflict. Of four hypotheses in regard
to the causes of the universe that they are perfectly good, or
perfectly bad, or good and bad in conflict, or indifferent the
two simple hypotheses are condemned by the mixture of
phenomena ; the hypothesis of conflict is condemned by their
uniformity ; the last hypothesis, therefore, that of indifference,
' seems by far the most probable.' *
24. Each man sees the universe coloured by his own
temperament ; and to Hume, in his speculative moments, it
naturally appeared to be all but colourless. His final conclu-
sion so far as it can be taken as a serious expression of opinion
is equally characteristic. After all, he says, is it not a dispute
about words ? ' The theist allows that the original intelligence
is very different from human reason ; the atheist allows that
the original principle of order bears some remote analogy to
it.' 2 Where is the great difference ? The misfortune is, however,
that religion, as we know it, is something very different from
that calm assent to a hazy belief, which, on Hume's show-
ing, should supplant our elaborate systems of dogma. The
' Dialogues ' conclude with some pregnant remark supon the
important truth that the prevailing religions which are sup-
posed to comfort man and restrain his passions, do, in fact,
reflect his deepest melancholy and his worst feelings. The
ordinary assumption, that beliefs are somehow imposed from
without, instead of being generated from within, maintains a
very erronous estimate of their influence ; and Hume's brief
suggestions, if conceived in too hostile a spirit, go to the
root of the matter.
25. Hume, as I have said, expressly takes notice that he
does not assert facts to be incompatible with the theological
solution, but only that they afford no presumption in its
favour. It may be true, so far as we can say, that God is
benevolent and omnipotent, or that his power or his benevo-
lence is limited ; any cosmogony, indeed, is compatible with our
observations ; to dogmatise in the negative sense is as incom-
patible with the sceptical view as to dogmatise in the positive
1 'Dialogues,' ii. 452. J Ib. ii. 459,
330 DAVID HUME.
sense. The denial of all certainty is, however, equivalent to
a denial that theology can have any influence upon our lives.
We could not, in any case, allow ourselves to be guided by the
bare possibility that our actions may have influences which
are, by their very nature, inscrutable. The possible truth of
the Christian, or Pagan, or Epicurean solutions is, in the same
way, too remote a contingency to be taken into account.
Absolute ignorance can never be a ground for action. We
cannot confute the Rosicrucian dreams of sylphs and invisible
agents ; we must act without reference to them. But the
admitted possibility leaves room for an argument of a different
kind from those hitherto considered. The argument from
final causes is an argument from analogy ; but analogy had
been applied in a different sense by Butler. The Christian
theory, he said, in substance, gives a view of the world similar
to the view which is suggested by a fair interrogation of ex-
perience. If we assume for a moment the truth of the Chris-
tian dogma, it will fall in with our independent experience.
The two views will coalesce and mutually strengthen each
other. And if, as cannot be denied, there is some indepen-
dent evidence for Christianity, our provisional belief will be
transmuted into something like certainty by this process.
Introduce but an appreciable fragment of independent evi-
dence, and our previously chaotic knowledge will crystallise
round the nucleus. Though we do not profess to obtain a
demonstration, our opinions may thus acquire a degree of
probability sufficient to prompt us to action. Hume's reply
to this theory is given in the essay on ' A Providence and a
Future State,'
26. The essay, 1 written in Hume's most admirable style,
is, in form, art imaginary defence of Epicurus against the
ordinary accusation's. Your tenets, say his accusers, afe
immoral ; he replies that the terlets, however interesting to
gpeculatists, nave flo bearing upon practice. It would be
more accurate, of course, to say that their bearing upon
society is confined to the destruction of opinions which are
demonstrably false. The position taken by his opponents is
that assumed by Cleanthes in the Dialogue. From the crea-
1 It was originally called ' Of the Practical Consequences of Natural Re-
ligion' a title which seems to correspond more accurately to the contents.
DAVID HUME. 33 1
tion they infer an intelligent creator ; and thence an intelli-
gent government of the world. Hume starts by laying down
the principle that the cause must be proportional to the effect.
A definition of cause and effect, more accurate than Hume's,
would strengthen his case, for we shduld then consider the
effect and cause to be but the same phenomenon contemplated
from different points of view. Hume, however, seizes the prin-
ciple firmly enough, though his statement may be open to cavil.
' A body,' he says, ' of ten ounces raised in a scale may serve
as a proof that the counterbalancing weight exceeds ten
ounces, but can never afford a reason that it exceeds a hun-
dred.' l Rather, we should say, the suspension of the weight
proves the weight on the other side to be exactly ten ounces.
It may be that the pressure is produced by the piston of a
steam-hammer, which, in case of need, could exert a pressure
of as many tons. That is merely to assert, that, under
existing conditions, the pressure is ten ounces, though, under
other conditions, the pressure might be indefinitely increased,
' The same rule,' as Hume continues, ' holds whether the cause
assigned be brute unconscious matter, or a rational intelligent
being.' 2 From one of Zeuxis' pictures, we may safely infer
that he possessed precisely the amount of artistic skill dis-
played ; we cannot infer that he was also an architect or a
sculptor. Applying the same principle to the case in point,
we must allow that the gods, the supposed cause of the
universe, possess the amount of skill and intelligence which
appears in their workmanship. We can prove nothing further,
unless we supply the defect of reason by flattery, We cannot
' mount up from the universe, the effect, to Jupiter, the cause,
and then descend downwards to infer any new effect to that
cause. . . The knowledge of the cause being derived solely
from the effect, they must be adjusted exactly to each other ;
and the one can never refer to anything furthef, or be the
foundation of any new inference and conclusion.' 8 Hence,
though we may accept the religious hypothesis as accounting
for the phenomena, ' no just reasoner will ever presume to
infer from it any single fact, and alter or add to the pheno-
mena, in any single particular.' 4 The application to the
1 Essays, iv. H2. * Ib. iv. 113.
* Ib. iv. 112. 4 Ib. iv. 115.
332 DAVID HUME.
case of Epicurus is obvious. He is accused of denying a
supreme governor who rules the course of events, but he does
not and cannot deny the course of events itself. As, then,
the governor is only known through the events, every argu-
ment which is fairly -deducible from the supposed cause is
equally deducible from the effect.
27. The reply which would be made by any ordinary
reasoner is obvious. From the painting, he would say, I infer
that Zeuxis possesses at least the amount of skill displayed.
He must have so much, he may have more in any degree. I
infer, too, that Zeuxis has the qualities which would fit him
to be an architect or a sculptor, if applied to that end. This
is merely to say that, in different relations, Zeuxis would
be a cause of different effects, which is to state a truism, if
not to make an identical proposition. But, to avoid all ap-
pearance of quibbling, it is plain that my real inference is,
that Zeuxis, under the given conditions, can produce precisely
such a picture as that which I see : though I may infer that,
under other conditions, he would produce better or worse, or
entirely different works of art. The ground of this inference
can be nothing but my experience of Zeuxis and other mem-
bers of the species in varying relations. I learn from experi-
ence that a man who can do this or that in one case, can do
such and such things in another case. As Hume says, when
we find 'that any work has proceeded from the skill and
industry of man ; ' as we are otherwise acquainted with the
nature of the animal, we can draw a hundred inferences con-
cerning what may be expected from him ; and those inferences
will all be founded in experience and observation.' But did
we know man ' only from the single work or production
which we examine, it were impossible for us to argue in this
manner, because our knowledge of all the qualities which we
ascribe to him, being in that case derived from the produc-
tion, it is impossible they could point to anything further, or
be the foundation of any new inference.' ! Thus a footprint
on the sand proves that there was probably another footmark,
now obliterated, because we know independently that most
men have two feet.' 2 Here we mount from the effect to the
cause, and, descending, infer alterations in the effect. But
1 Essays, iv. 118. 2 Ib. iv. 119.
DAVID HUME. 333
that is because other experiences enable us to strike into
another chain of reasoning. We are not simply ascending
and descending the same set of links.
28. The application is clear. The Deity is a single being
in the universe ; he is not comprehended under any species ;
he is known by one single effect, and from the very nature
of the case, we are excluded from knowing what he would
be in any other relation. The universe is the picture ; and
Zeuxis the deity ; but in this case we cannot even in thought
refer to other pictures ; nor, if we could, would our inference
be profitable. We must therefore always think of our Zeuxis
as acting under the same relations as those in which he
painted the picture. Zeuxis, as producer of that single effect,
is, for us, the only Zeuxis.
29. Hume concludes the essay by asking the question,
already noticed in the ' Dialogues,' whether the inference from
a unique effect to a unique cause be legitimate ? However
that question be answered, the argument that such a cause
can give us no more than is known in the effect is irrefragable,
and in passing the argument overturns by a single stroke the
laborious edifice raised by the patient ingenuity of Butler.
What, he asks, are we to think of philosophers who hold
this life a mere passage to something further ; and, what is
more, to something contrasted with it ; ' a porch which leads
to a greater and more vastly different building ; a prologue
which serves only to introduce the piece, and give it more
grace and propriety ? ' l Arguing from present phenomena, we
can never, it is abundantly plain, infer anything dissimilar.
The Deity may possibly be endowed with attributes which we
have never seen exerted ; but this is a mere possibility, and
can never justify an inference. You argue, for example, from
the marks of a moral government. ' Are there,' then, ' any
marks of a distributive justice in this world ? If you answer
in the affirmative, I conclude that, since justice here exerts
itself, it is satisfied. If you reply in the negative, I con-
clude that you have then no reason to ascribe justice, in our
sense of it, to the gods. If you hold a medium between
affirmation and negation, by saying that the justice of the
gods, at present, exerts itself in part, but not in its full extent,
1 Essays, iy, 116,
334 DAVID HUME.
I answer that you have no reason to give it any particular
extent, but only so far as you see it at present exert
itself.' * The ordinary theologian calmly inferred that the
next world would be the complement, instead of the continua-
tion, of this, without troubling himself about the logic. Butler,
looking at the world through certain preconceptions, painfully
convinced himself, not indeed that the facts would justify the
inference, but that they would bear being stated so as to
harmonise with the theory, when once obtained. No colour
can be given to any form of the argument, as I already tried
to show, unless we can find a standing-point outside of our
experience, when judging of facts. Hume rightly asserts the
feat to be impossible ; and in his lucid statement, the facts
fall into their proper order ; and the plausibility of Butler's
tortuous reasoning vanishes. 2 How are we to infer the whole
from a part ; to regard nature, the indifferent, and universal
as taking sides in our petty conflicts ?
30. That is the ever-recurring difficulty, which reappears
in a thousand shapes throughout all theological controversy.
If God is less than nature, he is not really God ; if identified
with nature, then he is not a God whom we can love, fear, and
worship. In the ' Dialogues ' this difficulty, as we have seen,
appears in the shape of a conflict between the anthropomor-
phic and the ontological conceptions. It may be approached
from yet another side. If we fall into hopeless perplexities
when discussing the logical basis of the belief, how are we to
account for its historical origin ? The belief was not originally
suggested by metaphysicians, though they may sanction it as
they sanction many others which have sprung up sponta-
neously. Was it, as the orthodox maintained, the result of a
direct revelation, the memory of which was preserved by
tradition, or can it be explained by any of the ordinary laws
of our constitution ? Hume's answer is given in the ' Natural
History of Religion.'
31. This brief treatise, originally published in 1757, gives
Hume's last views upon the philosophy of religion ; for the
1 Essays, iv. 116-7.
2 The excellent Beattie recommends a perusal of Butler as an antidote to the
cavils of this ' flimsy essay.' He is right in noticing their opposition (Beattie's
'Essay on Truth," part i. ch. ii. sec. 5).
DAVID HUME, 335
' Dialogues,' not published till after his death, had been
already written. The fact illustrates his tendency to turn
from abstract reasoning to historical methods. To Hume,
of course, the various sources of information from which a
history of primitive opinions could be now compiled, were
not open. The whole method of modern enquiries into
such matters was still unknown. He could see, as the most
superficial view of history would suggest, that barbarism must
have preceded civilisation, and that, 1700 years ago, poly-
theism was, with scarcely an exception, the religion of the
world. His speculations as to its nature and origin were
suggested almost exclusively by the classical writers, or by
his own observations of existing modes of thought amongst
the ignorant and superstitious. The materials, however,
though scanty enough for any minuteness of theory, were
sufficient to suggest the main outlines of a scientific view.
All ignorant nations are still polytheist ; all history takes us
back to an age of polytheism ; in civilised countries, the
vulgar are still polytheists. It is equally plain that the
reasoning on which monotheism is ostensibly based implies
a cultivated understanding. Polytheism, then, was the primi-
tive religion. What may we conjecture of its origin ? Re-
produce in imagination the state of the primitive man, and
the answer must be obvious. Our happiness depends upon a
multitude of unknown causes, whose laws were utterly obscure,
and which could only be conceived in the vaguest way by a
savage. Now we find in all men a tendency to transfer their
own emotions to other objects. The tendency is illustrated
in poetry, and has even forced its way into philosophy, and
generated such fancies as the horror of a vacuum ; and the
whole series of sympathies and antipathies. What more
natural, then, than that mankind should personify these
unknown causes, upon which they so intimately depend, and
attribute to them passions and feelings like their own ? l In
modern phrase, the origin of theology is to be sought in
fetichism. We need look no further for an answer to our
question. Gods so formed are, of course, anthropomorphic.
They are not regarded as the creators of the world, but as
invisible beings interfering in its affairs, like the fairies of our
1 'Natural History,' &c., iv. 317.
336 DAVID HUME.
own popular mythology. Their worshippers treat them with
strange disrespect, as befits beings composed of like materials
to themselves. 1 Art takes advantage of these imaginary
existences ; poets embellish them with allegory ; and heroes,
remembered for their great deeds, are added to the pantheon,
whilst their stories pass, with various distortions, into the
great store of tradition. 2 Admitting the truth of hypotheses
so easy and so often verified, we come to a further conclusion.
The reasons now given for theism are not the source of the
belief. Nay, if you ask one of the vulgar at the present day
for his reasons, he will not refer you to the order of nature,
and the beautiful economy of final causes. He will tell you
of sudden deaths, of famines or droughts, which he ascribes to
the action of Providence. His reasons are the reverse of
the official reasons. ' Such events,' says Hume, and it is one
of his most pregnant remarks, ' such events as, with good
reasoners, are the chief difficulties in admitting a supreme
Providence, are with him the sole arguments for it.' The
philosopher relies upon order; the vulgar rely upon the
apparent exceptions to order. To deny special interposition
is supposed to be a proof of infidelity; and yet a philo-
sophical theist relies upon regularity and uniformity as the
strongest proofs of design. 3
32. If this be true, even of the less educated in theistical
nations, it is clear that their theism does not arise from argu-
ment. It is really due, says Hume, to the gradual promotion
of some favoured deity, upon whom epithets of adoration are
accumulated by his special worshippers, until infinity itself has
been reached. 4 Are examples of the process required ? Did
not Jupiter rise to be the Optimus Maximus of the heathen ?
And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the supreme
Deity and Jehovah of the Jews ? Has not the Virgin Mary
usurped many of the divine attributes amongst the Catholics ?
Hume intimates, in a passage softened as it went through the
press, that, in the same way, the Jewish God has been developed
from the purely anthropomorphic conception indicated in the
early chapters of Genesis. 5 He does not add, but his readers
would be dull indeed not to infer, that a Jewish peasant has
1 ' Natural History,' &c., iv. 320-325. 2 Ib. iv. 325-328.
* Ib. iv. 329. Ib. iv. 330. Ib. iv. 332.
DAVID HUME.
337
in the same way been elevated to union with the Supreme
Being. The doctrine is confirmed by saying that the vulgar
belief, however refined in words, is still essentially anthro-
pomorphic ; and that it is impossible to maintain a pure theism
without stimulating a belief in inferior mediators to satisfy the
popular imagination. 1 The remainder of the essay contains
many interesting remarks upon the strange compromises
which arise in the conflict between the philosophic and the
vulgar conceptions. Superstition suggests dreadful attributes
in the Deity ; philosophy bids us lavish upon him the highest
terms of praise. And thus a god may be verbally repre-
sented as the perfection of benevolence and wisdom, whilst,
in fact, his conduct is represented as outraging all our notions
of humanity and justice. 2 The divorce of religion from
morality is a natural consequence of the desire to propitiate
an imaginary being by services which will appear to be more
religious as they have less utility to ourselves or our neigh-
bours. 3 And thus, if the tendency to believe in invisible
intelligences may be considered as a stamp set upon man by
his Maker, we find that the beings actually created in virtue of
this power are stained with caprice, absurdity, and immorality. 4
Religion is blended with hypocrisy ; absurdities are blended
with philosophy ; without religion man is a brute ; and yet
ignorance is the mother of devotion ; the morality inculcated
by many religions is as pure as the practices which they sanc-
tion are corrupt ; the hopes which they hold out are most
comforting, but they are swallowed up by the more dreadful
forebodings suggested. ' The whole is a riddle, an enigma,
an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of
judgment, appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny
concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human
reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that
even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld, did we
not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition
to another, set them a quarrelling ; while we ourselves, during
their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the
calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.' 5
33. Hume has thus touched all the great lines of argu-
1 'Natural History,' &c., iv. 333-6. 8 Ib. iv. 359. Ib. iv. 363.
* Ib. iv. 355. 4 Ib. iv. 362. '
VOL. I. Z
338 DAVID HUME.
mcnt which have been made to converge upon the proofs
of natural theology, and has pronounced them to be incon-
clusive and inconsistent. Neither the a priori nor the a
posteriori reasoning can be made to hold water ; the anthro-
pomorphism implied in one set of theories is radically opposed
to the ontological view implied in the other ; if the proof
could be made out, it would still lead to an essentially
equivocal conclusion, which might be of speculative interest,
but could have no bearing upon practice. And, finally, if we
apply the historical method, we shall see that the fatal con-
tradiction, which lies at the very root of natural theology, is
but the inevitable consequence of its mode of development.
Successive explanations of the order of the universe have led
men through a complete circle of belief. The change which
has made the sun instead of the earth the centre of our
system, is not greater than the change which has made the
deities the expression of the orderly, instead of an expression
of the arbitrary, elements of the universe. But in theology
men have retained a single name to express two antagonistic
conceptions. The theory of final causes ;s, in fact, the natural
expression of the transitional stage, in which the Supreme
Being is conceived as interfering with an external universe,
but yet as interfering upon a definite plan. What wonder
that the conclusions which try to blend the primitive with the
latest mode of thought should yield a fatal antinomy upon
analysis ! Through many of his arguments, Hume might
claim the partial approval of orthodox divines. Before and
since his time, distinguished theologians have exhausted
language in proclaiming the utter inconceivability of the
divine nature ; others have insisted upon the incapacity of
the unassisted reason to attain to a knowledge of God ; and
others, again, have denounced all the primitive religions as sub-
stantially equivalent to Atheism. 1 To combine their varying
theories was to bring out the inherent difficulties of all theo-
logy. But another view remained. Theologians have accepted
and gloried in the contradiction thus exposed. The familiar
words ' very God of very man ' remind us that the Christian
Church have ordered us to accept this very contradiction as
1 Hume, 'Natural History,' &c., iv. 320. ' These pretended religionists' (i.e.
the polytheists) 'are really a kind of superstitious atheists.'
DAVID HUME. 339
the groundwork of our faith on penalty of damnation.
What Hume would have called nonsense, they have revered
as mystery ; and, it must be admitted that the escape is,
in one sense, complete. A man who really renounces reason
cannot be reached by reasoning, though there is some diffi-
culty in understanding why he believes, or what he means by
believing. In one direction, however, he comes apparently
to an issue with the sceptic. Mysteries, it is admitted, can
be proved by revelation alone ; and revelation, upon the
ordinary theory, was to be proved by miracles. To consider
the value of this method of proof is, therefore, the final task
for Hume's ingenuity.
34. It would be superfluous to treat at length an argu-
ment which has been so frequently and elaborately discussed.
I will content myself with briefly noticing its place in the
general argument. The essay, I may say briefly, appears
to me to be simply unanswerable if the premisses implicitly
admitted by Hume be accepted. Apparent success has been
reached by tacitly shifting the issue, and discussing problems
which may be interesting, but which are not the problem
raised by Hume. Two modes of evasion have been com-
monly used, and to point out their nature will be to illustrate
the position sufficiently. In the first place, the argument is
often shifted from the question whether any evidence can prove
a miracle, to the other question, whether there are a priori
grounds for denying the possibility of miracles. It is tacitly
taken for granted that, if a miracle is possible, the proof of a
miracle is possible. Now the very purpose of Hume's argu-
ment is to set aside as irrelevant the question as to the a priori
possibility of miracles. And the endless discussions as to the
meaning of natural laws, and the possibility of their being
modified, imply a continuous ignoratio elenchi. Hume stated
his argument in this form precisely to avoid such a hopeless
controversy. In fact, Hume could not on his own principles
deny that a being of indefinably superior powers to the human
might affect the ordinary series of phenomena. If an extra-
mundane being can, so to speak, impinge upon the world, we
are bound by the theory of causation to anticipate 'novel
effects. The reply, so far as a reply was required, to this
hypothesis, is given in the essay on a ' Particular Providence.'
Z2
340 DAVID HUME.
It is simply that, if God be inferred solely from the order of
the universe, we cannot logically attribute to him interferences
with its order. When Paley calmly says, if we believe in
God, there is no difficulty in believing miracles, Hume's
answer is plain. If God is the cause of order, belief in him
does not facilitate belief in miracles. On the contrary, pure
theism, thus explained, really introduces a difficulty in the
belief in miracles which is not apparent in Hume's theory
of the arbitrary conjunction of cause and effect. The God
required by Paley's hypothesis is really the anthropomorphic
deity, whose existence is established by Paley's argument
from design. If that argument survive Hume's objections, it
undoubtedly removes the a priori difficulty of belief in
miracles. But the difficulty still remains, whether their occur-
rence can be proved by testimony. Hume's dilemma remains
in full force. We must always ask, for no other test can be
suggested, whether it is more incredible that men should make
false statements, wilfully or otherwise, or that an event should
have occurred which is opposed to a complete induction. To
know that an event is miraculous is to know that it is opposed
to such an induction ; and, in that case, Hume's argument,
as applied to any such evidence as can ever be contemplated,
is conclusive. If the event be not known to be miraculous, then
the evidence does not prove a miracle, but proves the exist-
ence of a previously unknown law of nature.
35. And here comes in the second mode of evasion. It is
denied substantially that the events are miraculous. There is,
in a sense, much force in this argument. Undoubtedly, we
are continually convinced by evidence, and rightly convinced,
of the occurrence of phenomena which we had once supposed
to be miraculous. Evidence might convince us that sickness
may be cured by methods apparently inadequate to the effect.
And it is precisely by such observations that we are led to
suspect the soundness of Hume's reasoning. It must be ad-
mitted, too, that his favourite theory, that any cause might be
joined to any effect, tends to obscure his argument and to
perplex his statement. But the answer is obvious. Evidence
may certainly prove strange events, but it cannot prove strictly
miraculous effects. Now the supposed evidential force of the
events in question depends upon their being really miraculous.
DAVID HUME. 341
If it is not contrary to the laws of nature that the dead should
be raised or one loaf feed a thousand men, the occurrence of the
fact does not prove that an Almighty Being has suspended
the laws of nature. If such a phenomenon is contrary to
the laws of nature, then a proof that the events had occurred
would establish the interference ; but, on the other hand, it
must always be simpler to believe that the evidence is mis-
taken ; for such a belief is obviously consistent with a belief
in the uniformity of nature, which is the sole guarantee (what-
ever its origin) of our reasoning.
36. Really to evade Hume's reasoning is thus impossible.
Its application to popular arguments of the day was, in any
case, unanswerable. Theologians who rested not merely the
proof of revealed theology, but the proof of all theology, upon
miracles, could not even make a show of answering. In any
other case, the statement that a man had been raised from the
dead would admittedly prove that its author was a liar. The
statement thus could not by any logical trick be made valid
in the particular case of a religious theory. And this was,
more or less avowedly, the position of many orthodox writers.
Nor, in the next place, was any escape open to theologians
who meant by God the supreme cause of the order of the
universe. Their belief increased instead of diminishing the
difficulty of the case. The only logical escape is for those
who hold that the external intervention of invisible beings of
greater strength than human, but not strictly divine, is part
of the normal order of the universe. On such an hypothesis
a belief in miracles might be tenable, because, strictly speaking,
the miracles ceased to be miraculous. The conception, though
disavowed by philosophers, was undoubtedly embodied in
one form or other in the popular creeds of the day ; and,
therefore, the believers in the miraculous might evade Hume's
dilemma. But since his time philosophical rcasoners have
been more and more driven either to pitiable evasions, or to
take refuge in intellectual suicide.
37. It may still be asked, what was Hume's real belief ?
Did his theoretical scepticism follow him into actual life ? That
is a question for a biographer rather than for the historian of
thought. There is a famous saying which has been attributed
to the first Lord Shaftesbury, to Garth, to Humboldt, and
342 DAVID HUME.
probably to others. What is your religion ? The religion of
all sensible men. And what is the religion of all sensible
men ? Sensible men never tell. Hume quotes a similar say-
ing of Bacon's. Atheists, says the philosopher, have now-a-
days a double share of folly ; for, not content with saying in
their hearts that there is no God, they utter it with their
lips, and are ' thereby guilty of multiplied indiscretion and
imprudence.' l Hume so far adopted these precepts of
worldly wisdom that he left his most outspoken writings for
posthumous publication. 2 Yet Hume said enough to incur
the vehement indignation both of the truly devout and of the
believers in the supreme value of respectability. It is impos-
sible to suppose that the acutest reasoner of his time would
have considered his most finished work as a mere logical play,
or that he should have encountered obloquy without the
justification of sincerity. I have, therefore, no doubt that
Hume was a sceptic in theology, that he fully recognised the
impossibility of divining the great secret, and that he antici-
pated this part of what is now called the positive philosophy.
Yet, as a true sceptic, he probably did not expect that the bulk
of mankind would ever follow him in his conclusions. He
felt that, although a rational system of theology capable of
affecting men's lives be an impossibility, his own denial of
its validity did not quite destroy the underlying sentiment.
Though the old bonds were worthless, some mode of contem-
plating the universe as an organised whole was still requisite.
A vague belief, too impalpable to be imprisoned in formulae or
condensed into demonstrations, still survived in his mind,
suggesting that there must be something behind the veil, and
something, perhaps, bearing a remote analogy to human in-
telligence. How far such a belief can be justified, or, if justi-
fied, made the groundwork of an effective religion, is a question
not precisely considered by Hume nor to be here discussed.
We may be content to respect in Hume the most powerful
assailant of the pretentious dogmatism and the timid avoid-
ance of ultimate difficulties characteristic of his time.
1 Hume, 'Dialogues,' ii. 388.
2 The reluctance of Adam Smith to publish the papers committed to him by
his friend, though not unnatural, is surely discreditable.
DAVID HUME. 343
DAVID HUME.
1711. April 26, O.S., born at Edinburgh.
1734. Goes to France (Rheims and La Fleche in Anjou).
1737. Returns to Scotland.
!739- 'Treatise of Human Nature,' vols. i. and ii.
1740. vol. iii.
1741. ' Essays Moral and Political,' vol. i.
1742. vol. ii.
1745. Tutor to Lord Annandale.
1746. Accompanies expedition to French coast with General St. Clair.
1748. Accompanies General St. Clair on a military embassy to Vienna
and Turin.
' Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding.'
1751. ' Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals.'
' Dialogues concerning Natural Religion ' (composed at this time,
but not published till 1779).
1752. ' Political Discourses.'
Keeper of the Advocate's Library.
1754. ' History of England,' vol. i. (James I. and Charles I.)
1756. vol. ii. (Charles II. and James II.)
1757. 'Four Dissertations' (containing the 'Natural History of Reli-
gion' ; the Essays on ' Suicide ' and the ' Immortality of the
Soul' originally prepared for this volume were suppressed
until 1777).
1758. 'Essays Moral and Political ' (collection of pieces already pub-
lished ; other editions, with some omissions and additions, in
1760, 1768, 1770, and 1777).
1760. ' History of England,' vol. iii. (House of Tudor).
1762. vol. iv. (from Julius Caesar to Henry VII.)
1763. Accompanies Lord Hertford to France ; becomes Secretary to
Embassy.
1766. Returns to England and becomes Under Secretary of State.
1769. Returns to Edinburgh.
1776. Aug. 25. Dies at Edinburgh.
A full account of the various editions of Hume's works during his life-
time is given in the third volume of his philosophical works (vol. i. of
Essays), edited by Messrs. Green and Grose. London, 1874-5. References
to this edition.
344
CHAPTER VII.
WILLIAM WARBURTON.
I. IN the course of the once celebrated controversy be-
tween Warburton and Lowth, Lowth made one hit which
must have told forcibly upon his opponent. He quoted the
following passage from Clarendon's History : 'Colonel Harrison
was the son of a butcher near Nantwich, in Cheshire, and had
been bred up in the place of a clerk, under a lawyer of good
account in those parts ; which kind of education introduces
men into the language and practice of business, and, if it be
not resisted by the great ingenuity of the person, inclines
young men to more pride than any other kind of breeding,
and disposes them to be pragmatical and insolent.' ' Now,
my Lord,' says Lowth, ' as you have in your whole behaviour
and in all your writings remarkably distinguished yourself by
your humility, lenity, meekness, forbearance, candour, hu-
manity, civility, decency, good manners, good temper, mode-
ration with regard to the opinions of others, and a modest
diffidence of your owri, this unpromising circumstance of your
early education ' (Warburton had, like Harrison, been articled
to an attorney) ' is so far from being a disgrace to you, that
it highly redounds to your praise.' l Which piece of irony,
pardonable, perhaps, as a retort to Warburton's sneers at
Lowth's Oxford training, expresses the most conspicuous
feature of Warburton's character namely, that he was as
'proud, pragmatical, and insolent' as a man who brought to
theological controversies the habits of mind acquired in an
attorney's office might naturally be expected to show him-
self. Warburton, in fact, is the most perfect specimen of a
type not unfrequent among clergymen. We may still, though
less often than was once the case, observe a man in the pulpit
who ought to be at the bar ; and though the legal habits of
1 Lowth's 'Letter to Warburton' (2nd edition), p. 64.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 345
mind may be an admirable corrective to certain theological
tendencies, a frequent result of thus putting the round man in
the square hole is to produce that incongruity which in
another profession has given rise to the opprobrious term,
sea-lawyer. Warburton, as we shall presently see, was a law-
yer to the backbone in more senses than one ; but his most
prominent and least amiable characteristic v/as the amazing
litigiousness which suggested Lowth's sarcasm.
2. For many years together Warburton led the life of a
terrier in a rat-pit, worrying all theological vermin. His life,
as he himself observed in more dignified language, was ' a
warfare upon earth ; that is to say, with bigots and libertines,
against whom I have denounced eternal war, like Hannibal
against Rome, at the altar.' l Amongst bigots and libertines
we must reckon everyone, Christian or infidel, whose faith
differed by excess or defect from that of Warburton, and add
that Warburton's form of faith was almost peculiar to himself.
To entertain a different opinion, or to maintain the same
opinion upon different grounds, gave an equal title to his
hostility. He regrets, in one place, the necessity of assailing
his friends. ' I have often asked myself,' he says, and nobody
has ever answered the question, ' what I had to do to invent
new arguments for religion, when the old ones had outlived
so many generations of this mortal race of infidels and free-
thinkers ? Why did I not rather choose the high road of
literary honours, and pick out some poor critic or small philo-
sopher of this school, to offer up at the shrine of violated
sense and virtue ? ' In that case he thinks that he might
' have flourished in the favour of his superiors and the good-
will of all his brethren.' z According to himself, it was the love
of TRUTH which carried him away. His creed had that unique
merit which he ascribes to the Jewish religion namely, that it
' condemned every other religion for an imposture.' 3 To dis-
agree with him was to be not merely a fool, but a rogue. So
universal, indeed, was his intolerance of any difference of
opinion, that bigot and libertine, wide as is the sweep of those
damnatory epithets, can by no means include all the objects
of his aversion. He makes frequent incursions into regions
1 Letters to Kurd, p. 346. ' Ib. iv. 74.
Warburton's Works, iv. 79.
346 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
where abuse is not sanctified by theology. The argument set
forth in the ' Divine Legation ' wanders through all know-
ledge, sacred and profane, and every step brings him into
collision with a fresh antagonist. Glancing at his table of
contents, we find a series of such summaries as these : ' Sir
Isaac Newton's chronology of the Egyptian empire confuted
and shown to contradict all sacred and profane antiquity, and
even the nature of things ;' ' Herman Witsius' arguments ex-
amined and confuted ; ' a prophecy ' vindicated against the
absurd interpretations of the Rabbins and Dr. Shuckford ;'
the Jews ' vindicated from the calumnious falsehoods of the
poet Voltaire ; ' ' an objection of Mr. Collins examined and
confuted ;' ' the Bishop of London's discourse examined and
confuted ; ' l and, in short, his course is marked, if we will take
his word for it, by the corpses of his opponents. Deists,
atheists, and pantheists are, of course, his natural prey.
Hobbes, 'the infamous Spinoza,' 2 and Bayle, Shaftesbury,
Collins, Toland, Tindal, Chubb, Morgan, and Mandeville, and,
above all, his detested enemy Bolingbroke, are 'examined
and confuted ' till we are weary of the slaughter. But
believers do not escape much better. If, as he elegantly
expresses it, he 'trims Hume's jacket' 3 for not believing in
the miracles, he belabours Wesley still more vigorously
for believing that miracles are not extinct. From Conyers
Middleton, who, indeed, escaped for some years as a personal
friend, up to Sherlock and Lowth, he spared neither dignity
nor orthodoxy. The rank and file of the controversial clergy,
Sykes, and Stebbing, and Webster, fell before his ' desperate
hook ' like corn before the sickle. And when the boundless
field of theological controversy was insufficient for his ener-
gies, he would fall foul of the poet Akenside for differing from
him as to the proper use of ridicule, or of Crousaz for mis-
interpreting Pope's ' Essay on Man,' or of Bolingbroke for
attacking the memory of Pope, or of a whole swarm of adver-
saries who gathered to defend Shakespeare from his audacious
mangling. The innumerable hostilities which did not find a
vent in any of these multitudinous conflicts struggled to light
in notes on the ' Dunciad.' Probably no man who has lived
1 See table of contents to fourth and fifth books, vol. iv.
2 Warburton, v. 124. ' Letters to Kurd, p. 239.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 347
n recent times has ever told so many of his fellow-creatures
that they were unmitigated fools and liars. He stalks
through the literary history of the eighteenth century, trailing
behind him a whole series of ostentatious paradoxes, and
bringing down his controversial shillelagh on the head of any
luckless mortal who ventures to hint a modest dissent. There
is, it cannot be denied, a certain charm about this overflowing
and illimitable pugnacity. We have learnt to be so polite
that it occasionally suggests itself that the creeds which excite
our languid sympathy or antipathy are not very firmly held.
It is at least amusing in this milder epoch to meet a gentle-
man who proposes to cudgel his opponents into Christianity
and to thrust the Gospel down their throats at the point of the
bludgeon.
3. Even Warburton, complex and many-sided as were his
hostilities, was not above the necessity of finding allies. No
man, though gifted with the most perverse ingenuity, can
stand quite alone. Warburton formed two remarkable con-
nections. As is not uncommon with men of boisterous tem-
perament, both these friends were remarkable for qualities
in which he was deficient. An alliance of two Warburtons
would have formed a combination more explosive and un-
stable than any hitherto known to psychological chemistry.
Pope and Hurd, his two friends, were suited to him by force
of contrast. Warburton was well fitted to be Pope's bully,
and Hurd to serve as the more decorous assistant of War-
burton's vengeance. Pope seems to have been really touched
by Warburton's blustering championship. It doubtless pleased
him to discover that he had been in reality talking sound
religious philosophy, when he had been too plausibly accused
of versifying second-hand infidelity. The thin-skinned poet
welcomed with infantile joy the alliance of his pachydermatous
defender, and naturally inferred that the man who had dis-
covered him to be an orthodox philosopher must be himself a
profound divine. Warburton took a natural pride in having
cut out so rich a prize from under the guns of the infidel
Bolingbroke; and raised himself in general esteem by ac-
quiring a right of spiritual proprietorship in the literary ruler
of the age.
4. The friendship with Hurd is more curious and cha-
348 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
racteristic. Kurd is a man for whom, though he has attracted
a recent biographer, 1 animated by the ordinaiy biographer's
enthusiasm, it is difficult to find a good word. He was a
typical specimen of the offensive variety of University don ;
narrow-minded, formal, peevish, cold-blooded, and intolerably
conceited. As Johnson said of ' Hermes ' Harris, he was ' a
prig, and a bad prig.' Even Warburton, it is said, could
never talk to him freely. In his country vicarage he saw
nobody, kept his curate at arm's length, and never gave an
entertainment except on one occasion, when Warburton, who
was staying with him, rebelled against the intolerable soli-
tude. 2 As a bishop, he never drove a quarter of a mile
without his episcopal coach and his servants in full liveries.
His elevation to the bench was justified by his fame for
which there are, perhaps, some grounds as an elegant writer
of Addisonian English and a good critic of Horace. The
virtue which he particularly affected was filial piety. After
five years' acquaintance, his Christian humility led him to
confide to Warburton, the son of a country attorney, that his
own father was a farmer. 3 He was sufficiently amiable to
speak in endearing terms of his mother ; and, in a letter to
Warburton, after touching upon certain presentation copies of
one of his books, and on Sir John Dalrymple's newly-pub-
lished Memoirs, observes quite pathetically that the good
woman ' almost literally fell asleep ' about a fortnight before. 4
Warburton, though not a very lofty character, had, at least, a
little more human nature in his composition.
5. The relations between the pair recall, in some degree,
those between Johnson and Boswell. Warburton, however,
is but a feeble-jointed and knock-kneed giant in comparison
with the great lexicographer, and Hurd but a dry and barren
counterpart to Boswell. The flattery in this case was re-
ciprocal ; and perhaps the great man pours out more mouth-
filling compliments than his satellite. If Hurd thinks that
Warburton's memory will be endeared to the wise and the
good for ever, Warburton takes Hurd to be one of the first
1 See Kilvert's ' Life of Hurd.'
2 See Cradock's 'Memoirs,' i. 180. It is fair to say that Cradock, who saw
a good deal of him, considered him to be ' intrinsically good.'
* Letters, p. 161. 4 Ib. p. 473.
WILLIAM WARBURTON, 349
men of the day, and holds him to be Addison's equal in 'correct-
ness/ whilst far superior to him in strength of reasoning. 1 The
two looked out with condescension upon Warburton's humbler
jackals, and with superb contempt upon the rest of mankind.
The general principle of their common creed is neatly ex-
pressed by Hurd, who observes that one ' hardly meets with
anything else ' than coxcombs in this world. 2 To which
Warburton adds the comment, that 'nature never yet put
one grain of gratitude or generosity into the composition of
a coxcomb.' 3 The application of this maxim to particular
cases shows that Horace Walpole is an insufferable cox-
comb ; 4 Johnson full of malignity, folly, and insolence ; 5
Garrick, a writer below Gibber, whose ' sense, whenever he
deviates into it, is more like nonsense ; ' 6 Young, ' the finest
writer of nonsense of any of this age ; ' 7 Smollett, a ' vagabond
Scot,' who 'writes nonsense 10,000 strong;' 8 Priestley, 'a
wretched fellow ; ' 9 and Voltaire ' a scoundrel.' 10 Hurd care-
fully preserved this correspondence, and left it for publication
after his death, hoping that the reader would forgive the
' playfulness of his (Warburton's) wit,' in consideration of the
faithful portraiture of character.
6. The mode in which these congenial spirits co-operated
during their lives may be sufficiently illustrated by their
quarrel with Jortin. Jortin, who had been on excellent terms
with Warburton, mildly observed, in a ' Dissertation on the
State of the Dead,' as described by Homer and Virgil, that
Warburton's ' elegant conjecture ' as to the meaning of the
sixth book of the '^Eneid' (a conjecture chiefly remarkable
as affording the occasion of one of Gibbon's first literary
efforts) was not satisfactorily established. Hereupon Hurd
published a pamphlet bitterly assailing Jortin for his audacity.
Hurd's elaborate irony, as translated by a contemporary
writer, amounted to presenting the following rules by which
the conduct of all men should be regulated in presence of the
great master :
' You must not write on the same subject that he does.
1 Letters, p. 458. Ib. p. 378. 5 Ib. p. 367. ' Ib. p. 285.
2 Ib. p. 377. < Ib. p. 387. Ib. p. 439.
8 Ib. p. 278. This means that 10,000 copies of Smollett's History were said to
have been sold.
8 Ib. p. 442. 10 Ib. p. 466.
350 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
You must not write against him. You must not glance at
his arguments even without naming him, or so much as
referring to him. You must not oppose his principles, though
you let his arguments quite alone. If you find his reasonings
ever so faulty, you must not presume to furnish him with
better of your own, even though you approve and are desirous
to support his conclusions. You must not pretend to help
forward any of his arguments that happen to fall lame, and
may seem to require your needful support. When you design
him a compliment, you must express it in full form, and with
all the circumstances of panegyrical approbation, without
impertinently qualifying your civilities by assigning a reason
why you think he deserves them ; as this might possibly be
taken for a hint that you know something of the matter he is
writing about as well as himself. You must never call any
of his discoveries by the name of conjectures, though you
allow them their full proportion of elegance, learning, &c. ;
for you ought to know that this great genius never pro-
posed anything to the judgment of the public (though
ever so new and uncommon) with diffidence in his life.' l
7. The infringement of such rules as these was, in fact,
all that Hurd could lay to Jortin's charge. Warburton
welcomed the assistance of his jackal with a shout of delight.
He knew of but one man from whose heart or whose pen so
fine a piece of irony could come. Next to his pleasure in
seeing himself so ' finely praised,' was his truly Christian
pleasure 'in seeing Jortin mortified.' 2 And in a following
letter he remarks that 'they must be dirty fellows indeed,
who can think I have no reason to complain of Jortin's
mean, low, and ungrateful conduct towards me ' 3 that is to
say, the conduct of openly expressing a difference of opinion
as to a critical question. Jortin afterwards revenged himself
upon Hurd's master by pointing out a blunder in the trans-
lation of a Latin phrase. Warburton, unable openly to deny
the error, made a surly overture to Jortin, which was coldly
accepted ; but no real reconciliation followed. The two
1 See Watson's 'Life of Warburton,' pp. 440, 441. Hurd's pamphlet is re-
published in Parr's 'Tracts by a Warburtonian,' and fully justifies the above
description.
* Letters, p. 207. * Ib. p. 210.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. . 351
conspirators abused Jortin in private, 1 but did not continue
open hostilities.
8. The almost incredible arrogance of which this is a
specimen breathes in every page of Warburton's serious
writings. His style is too cumbrous to be effective ; he
has not the acuteness or the temper to aim at the joints
in his opponent's armour ; he is content to belabour them
with huge clumsy blows, which make a noise, but do little
mischief in proportion. 2 His epithets are mere random
substitutes for profane oaths. When, for example, he calls
the Moravian hymn-book ' a heap of blasphemous and
beastly nonsense,' 3 or says of Grey's Commentary upon
' Hudibras,' that he hardly thinks that ' there ever appeared
in any language so execrable a heap of nonsense/ 4 we do not
feel that ' blasphemous and beastly ' in the one case, and
' execrable ' in the other, give a distinct definition of these
rival 'heaps of nonsense.' He, therefore, hardly does as
much mischief as he could have wished to ' the pestilent herd
of libertine scribblers with which the island is overrun, whom
I would hunt down as good King Edgar did his wolves, from
the mighty author of " Christianity as Old as the Creation,"
to the drunken blaspheming cobbler who wrote against " Jesus
and the Resurrection ; " ' 5 or to those ' agents of public mischief,
who not only accelerate our ruin, but accumulate our dis-
graces wretches, the most contemptible for their facts, the
most infernal for their manners.' 6 Amongst the contemptible,
pestilent, and infernal wretches, were men whose shoe-latchet
he was not worthy to unloose ; and it is difficult not to feel
a foolish desire that Warburton could have had revealed
to him the true relations between himself and his antagonists.
Of Hume, for example, he says, in what is probably the
feeblest of his works, for it is that which takes him furthest
out of his depth, that he merely runs ' his usual philosophic
1 Letters, pp. 270, 271.
2 The same might be said of Churchill's abuse of Warburton in the third book
the ' Duellist,' which is about worthy of its victim. Churchill is to Pope what
Warburton was to Swift.
* Warburton's Works, viii. 343. 4 Preface to Shakspeare.
' Ib. xii. 59. The last reference is to a pamphlet attributed to Morgan, the
Moral Philosopher, but really by Annet. See above, ch. iv. sec. 60.
Ib. iv. 12.
352 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
course from knavery to nonsense ; ' l and he adds that
Hume's 'great philosophic assertion of one of the master-
wheels of superstition, labours with immoveable nonsense.'
Of a statement of Voltaire's about the Jewish hostility to
the human race, he observes : ' I think it will not be easy to
find, even in the dirtiest sink of freethinking, so much false-
hood, absurdity, and malice heaped together in so few
words.' 2 Hume and Voltaire have survived Warburton's at-
tacks, and we may allow our natural resentment to drop. Time
has avenged them sufficiently. I add, though with some
reluctance, a couple of illustrations of the lengths to which
Warburton's ' playfulness of wit ' could sometimes carry him.
' Even this choice piece of the first philosophy, his lordship's
(Bolingbroke's) sacred pages, is ready,' he says, ' to be put to
very different uses, according to the tempers in which they
have found his few admirers on the one side, and the public
on the other ; like the china utensil in the Dunciad, which
one hero used for a - pot, and another carried home for
his headpiece.' 3 And here is his retort to poor Dr. Stebbing,
who conceived himself to have shown that a prophecy was
.equally relevant, whether Warburton's interpretation were or
were not admitted. ' He hath shown it indeed,' snorts his
antagonist, ' as the Irishman showed his .' 4
9. Warburton's confidence in his own invincibility was
unsurpassable. Every now and then he pledges himself that
some argument shall never again be regarded in the ' learned
world ' as anything but an ignorant prejudice ; whilst a similar
boast from an antagonist is declared to be worthy only of
some 'wild conventicle of Methodists or Hutchinsonians.'
His confidence is so great that he ventures to take the dan-
gerous line of insisting upon the strength of the enemy's case.
1 Ib. xii. 352. One specimen of Warburton's remarks upon Hume may be
noticed ; as it seems to imply that he could not have read the essay which he is
attacking with ordinary attention. Hume ' confesses, ' says Warburton, ' that there
are popular religions in which it is expressly declared that nothing but morality can
gain the divine favour ' (xii. 373). Hume's words are : ' Nay, if I should suppose,
what never happens, that a popular religion were found, in which it was expressly
declared,' &c. (Works, iv. 357). Hume wisely maintained silence.
2 Warburton's Works, v. 9.
* Ib. ii. 263. This passage, in an appendix to the ' Divine Legation,' is a
polished version of a coarser form in the Letters on Bolingbroke (xii. 185).
4 Ib. xi. 404. * Ib. iv. 347.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 353
Nobody had thoroughly confuted Collins, until Warburton
searched the matter to the bottom. Nay, it might be doubted
whether the weight of argument was not, on the whole, against
Christianity, till he turned the scale. For want of the master-
key by which he unlocked all puzzles, ' the Mosaic dispensa-
tion had lain for some ages involved in obscurities, and the
Christian had become subject to insuperable difficulties.' l
The very conception of such an expedient, concealed from the
eyes of all theologians till the middle of the eighteenth century,
and now for the first time to provide an immovable basis for
the superstructure of revealed religion, is a sufficient index of
its inventor's religious insight. It confirms the natural inference
from the characteristics hitherto noted that Warburton is a
worthless writer. And it is true that his writings are in sub-
stantive value below even the low level of the later theology of
his age. He never seems to understand that the great question
is one of facts, not of words. He is worth study solely as the
most striking example of certain tendencies embodied in con-
temporary thought, and exhibited by him upon an abnormal
scale. Yet he flourished for a time. ' He is, perhaps, the last
man,' says Johnson, 'who has written with a mind full of
reading and reflection.' He succeeded in impressing his con-
temporaries by sheer bulk ; and few cared to recognise the
obvious fact that this colossus was built up of rubbish. He
resembles, in the width and indiscriminate application of his
learning, some of the great writers of the preceding century.
From an external glance he might be taken to be the last of
that great brotherhood. Many men have spoken more to the
purpose in a page than he has done in many volumes ; but it
is worth while to consider what were the conditions under
which a man possessed of huge brute force, though of no real
acuteness, could blunder on so gigantic a scale.
10. Warburton's strange passion fora paradox is admitted
by himself with a quaint complacency. After stating, for ex-
ample, that ' if the Scriptures have,' as Middleton had said,
every possible fault which can deform a language, ' this is so
far from proving such language not divinely inspired, that it
is one certain mark of its original ; ' 2 he winds up his demon-
1 Warburton's Works, vi. 256. See also Letters, p. 31, as to Collins, and
a similar remark about Tindal, p. 267. * Ib. viii. 281.
VOL. I. A A
354 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
stration by asserting that the Koran became to true believers
' as real and substantial a pattern of eloquence as any what-
soever ; ' and adds that this is a paradox, ' which, like many
others that I have had the odd fortune to advance, will
presently be seen to be only another name for truth.' l He is
never so proud as when he has hit upon some proposition so
ingeniously offensive to all parties, that, as he puts it, 'be-
lievers and unbelievers have concurred, by some blind chance
or other ' in objecting to it. 2 The Warburtonian paradox is
one of a class unfortunately too common. It is not the para-
dox produced by the excessive acuteness which, seizing upon
some new aspect of a subject, fails properly to correlate its
conclusions with established principles. Warburton is some-
times paradoxical, as a deaf man writing upon music might
be paradoxical. He blunders into the strangest criticisms
upon Shakspeare or the Bible, from sheer absence of poetical
or spiritual insight. More often his paradoxes resemble those
of a pettifogging lawyer, content to strain the words of a
statute into any meaning that may serve his turn, without the
slightest regard to its spirit. The Bible is his Act of Parlia-
ment, and to him one argument is as good as another if it can
be twisted into a syllogism with a text of Scripture for its
premiss. He is fond of quoting Hobbes's inimitable maxim
that words are the counters of wise men and the money of
fools. It is unfortunately applicable to his own practice. The
fundamental though unconscious assumption of many people
is, that reasoning is not a process of discovering, but of in-
venting, truth. Logic, they seem, to think, is a process by
which new conclusions may be manufactured. Given a certain
set of assumptions, there can be only one right conclusion,
and that conclusion may be that no certainty is obtainable.
But many people fancy that a sufficiently skilful logician
might distil truth out of the most unsatisfactory materials.
They measure his skill by the length of the chain of reasoning ;
and fail to see that the best logician is often the man who
pronounces the materials to be insufficient. Reasoning thus
becomes a mere game of skill. A proper manipulation of the
' counters ' will enable a good player to win a victory, where a
bad one would suffer defeat. The sentiments, proper enough
1 Warburton's Works, viii. 289. - 2 lb. iii. 315.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 355
in a mere game of scholastic fence, are transferred to matters
of scientific research. The clever dialectician who can puzzle
his adversary is assumed to show the same qualities as the
profound and accurate reasoner.
11. Such qualities become prominent only in a time when
the desire for truth has grown weak ; and the anxiety to attain
a knowledge of facts is superseded by the curiosity excited
by a display of dialectical fencing. At such a time, however,
the writings of a Warburton have a certain incidental interest.
He brings into startling relief the current opinions of the day.
A man of genius is guided by an unconscious instinct which
prevents him from obtruding the more offensive side of his
doctrine. A Warburton, utterly wanting in logical tact, blurts
out the absurdities which the judicious keep in the back-
ground. He splashes indiscriminately through thick and thin,
and unintentionally reveals the errors of his allies. Indeed,
we may find in Warburton, in all their native absurdity, some
arguments which still pass muster by the help of a little
philosophical varnish.
12. The 'Divine Legation ' is an attempt to support one
gigantic paradox by a whole system of affiliated paradoxes.
Warburton, as Bentley shrewdly said, was a man of ' mon-
strous appetite and bad digestion.' Johnson applied to him
a couplet from Savage :
Here learning, blended lirst and then beguiled,
Looks dark as Ignorance, as Frenzy wild.
He has tumbled out his intellectual spoils into his ponderous
pages with boundless prodigality. Starting with the pro-
fessed intention of vindicating Moses, he diverges into all
manner of subsidiary enquiries. He discourses upon the
origin and nature of morality ; he gives the true theory of the
alliance of Church and State ; he devotes many pages to an
elucidation of the ancient mysteries ; he discusses the origin
of writing and the meaning of hieroglyphics ; he investigates
the chronology of Egypt ; he indulges in an elaborate argu-
ment to determine the date of the book of Job ; he assails all
freethinkers, orthodox divines, Jews, Turks, Socinians, classi-
cal scholars, antiquarians, and historians, who may happen to
differ from any of his opinions. At every stage in the argu-
A A 2
356 WILLIAM WARBVRTON.
ment new vistas of controversy present themselves ; and as
every phenomenon in the universe is more or less connected
with every other, Warburton finds abundant excuses for
rambling from end to end of the whole field of human know-
ledge when an adversary is to be encountered, or a bit of
reading to be illustrated, or, in short, any caprice to be
gratified. It is not wonderful that a man pursuing so vast a
plan, and stirring so many prejudices at every step, should
have wearied of his task before it was completed, and have
sunk into episcopal repose before the edifice received its
crowning ornaments.
13. The position, as Warburton conceived it, was this.
The deists had been pressing on with overweening confidence
from their reliance upon a certain argument. They had
made, so he assures us, 1 a great point of the supposed absence
from the Old Testament of any distinct reference to a future
state of rewards and punishments. Apologists of Christianity
had been put to awkward shifts, and had endeavoured by
strained interpretations to relieve the Jewish creed from this
imputation. Warburton proposes to discover a new move in
the game (he maintains, in a characteristic passage, that there
is as much room for new discoveries in religion, as for new
discoveries in science) 2 by which the deists, with victory just
in their grasp, may be stale-mated. He resolves to admit
the very proposition for which they had contended, and to
convert the admission into what his title characteristically
describes as a ' demonstration ' of the truth of the Mosaic
religion. The demonstration one, as he informs us, which
falls ' very little short of mathematical certainty, and to which
nothing but a mere physical possibility of the contrary can
be opposed ' 3 is comprised in three very clear and simple
propositions. The first is, that the doctrine of a future state
of rewards and punishments is necessary to the well-being of
society ; the second, that ths utility of this doctrine has been
admitted by all mankind, and especially by the wisest and
most learned nations of antiquity ; the third, that this doctrine
1 I must confess that I do not even know to what particular writings War-
burton alludes in this main assumption. Certainly the point is not commonly
urged by the deists whom he chiefly assails.
2 Warburton's Works, vi. 228. * Ib. i. 199,
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 357
is not to be found in the Mosaic dispensation. The state-
ment bears insincerity upon the very face of it. The reasoning
is intended to be startling, and asserted to be obvious. War-
burton boldly says that one would have thought that 'we
might proceed directly to our conclusion that therefore the
law of Moses is of divine original.' 1 Yet, as some persons
may be stupid enough to miss the force of his argument, he-
draws it out more fully in elaborate syllogisms. Substantially
they amount to the assertion that Moses would not have
omitted a sanction which he knew to be essential had he not
had a certainty of miraculous interference. The statement
that he ventured into the desert without an adequate pro-
vision of food, might be urged as a proof that he reckoned
upon a supply of quails and manna ; and, similarly, the state-
ment that he started as a legislator without so essential a
spiritual provision as a belief in hell, is taken by Warburton
to show that he reckoned upon a supernatural substitute for
the terrors of the next world. We shall see directly what it
was. Grotesque as the argument appears, and must have
been intended to appear when thus bluntly stated, it is
scarcely more than a caricature of a favourite method of
arguing. Some apologists still venture to maintain that the
Christian doctrine was revolting to the ordinary mind in order
to prove that its success was miraculous. An admission that
it suited the wants of the time may suggest that its growth
w r as spontaneous. They, therefore, urge that human nature is
revolted by a teaching of humility and purity, as Warburton
declared it to be so corrupt that nothing but the fear of hell
could check the progress of decay.
14. It will be enough to notice briefly the critical points
of the strange system erected upon this doubtful foundation.
The whole argument obviously rests upon the assumption that
nothing but a belief in a future world can sustain the moral
law. The facts, as stated by Warburton, would seem to con-
fute the theory. If the Jewish economy, as he said, prospered,
and the Jews, as he says, knew nothing of a future state, the
obvious inference is that the belief is unnecessary to national
prosperity. No, says Warburton, in substance ; the facts
contradict my theory ; therefore, the facts were miraculous.
1 Warburton's Works, i. 200.
358 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
This reliance upon the infallibility of an a priori argument, or
rather of a round assertion, gives at once the key to his whole
book. He attempts, indeed, to prove the doctrine one
sufficiently familiar to his contemporaries though his proofs
are as feeble as most of his speculative flights. He asserts in
a great many words that men will not be virtuous unless they
are paid for it. Neither a moral sense, nor a perception of
the fitness of things, will be sufficient motives without the ob-
ligation of a superior will. Nothing else can ' make actions
moral, i.e. such as deserve reward and punishment.' This, of
course, is the familiar theory of Waterland or Paley. But
nobody can dispute the originality of Warburton's applica-
tion. That Moses, being well acquainted with the import-
ance of the belief, for the Moses of Warburton is a highly
intelligent politician of the eighteenth century, should have
omitted to preach it, is strange enough. But the paradox,
pretty enough as it stands, is heightened by an appendix.
The ancient philosophers, as Warburton tells us, generally
disbelieved the doctrine, and yet preached it for its utility.
And thus we have the curious phenomenon that the one in-
spired teacher in the world neglected to preach, whilst all
the false teachers systematically preached, the one vital doc-
trine of all morality, and in both cases acted in opposition to
their real belief.
15. In seeking to account for the singular fact that a man
of true, though coarse, intellectual vigour should have cheated
himself into a state of mind so far resembling belief in this
grotesque doctrine as to stake his reputation upon main-
taining it, we come to the heart of Warburton's position.
The best test of the civilisation of a race, it has been said, is
the conception which it has formed of the Deity. The remark
is applicable to others than savages. In one of his fierce
assaults upon Bolingbroke, Warburton says, ' I should choose
to have the clergy's God, though made of no better stuff than
artificial theology (because this gives him both justice and
goodness) rather than his Lordship's God, who has neither,
although composed of the most refined materials of the first
philosophy. In the meantime, I will not deny that he may be
right in what he says, that men conceive of the Deity more
humano, and that his Lordship's God and the clergy's God are
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 359
equally faithful copies of themselves.' 1 Warburton's view of
the Mosaic dispensation will enable us to form a tolerably
adequate portrait of this Deity, formed of artificial theology,
who was a ' faithful copy ' of the Bishop of Gloucester. What
logical grounds Warburton would have assigned for his belief
is a question which matters very little ; because the plain fact
is that the conception in his mind did not really repose upon
any philosophical argument whatever.
1 6. The God of Warburton, then, is, in the first place, the
omnipotent legislator and chief justice. It is his function
to sentence to condign punishment the Bolingbrokes,
Spinozas, Tindals, and other offenders against morality ; and
to enact and to promulgate, from time to time, the laws by
which his creatures, or any part of them, were to be bound.
Now Warburton's hypothesis seems to imply a capriciousness
in God's behaviour to the Jews for which it is difficult to
account. A full explanation was to have been given in
the last book of the ' Divine Legation ; ' but Warburton
became too weary to finish up his argument. Archdeacon
Towne, one of Warburton's humble friends, was grieved at
the omission, and could only make the rather lame apology
that a system might be true and well founded, though objec-
tions to it never had been nor could be answered. 2 He admitted
that adversaries would triumph, and even urge that the
bishop was unable to answer the difficulties he had raised.
We need not lament the absence of one more verbal distor-
tion of logic. For some reason, unexplained or inexplicable,
God had chosen to manage the Jews on a peculiar system, or,
as Warburton calls it, by an extraordinary providence. The
ordinary human being is punished or rewarded in the next
world according to his deserts in this. But in the case of the
Jew, each man received his full reward in the present life.
The necessity of any belief in a future life, nay, it would
seem, of a future life at all, was thus obviated. The proof of
this strange proposition is everywhere. ' It would be absurd
to quote particular texts when the whole Bible is one con-
tinued proof of it.' We can, indeed, dispense with any
historical proof. It must have been so, ' for a people in
1 Warburton's Works, 11.254. - 'Literary Remains,' p. 179.
360 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
society, without both a future state and an equal Providence '
(that is, a Providence equally working in this world) ' could
have no belief in the moral government of God,' and would
have relapsed into a savage state. Therefore, to prove that
the Jews did not believe in a future state, is to prove that
they had an ' equal Providence.' The ordinary argument for
a future state would break down if all crimes were sufficiently
punished, and all virtues sufficiently rewarded, in this world.
As the Jews did not believe, they cannot have been in pre-
sence of the facts which convince us. This is the superlative
expression of the assumption that the Jewish hsitory refers to
a state of things outside of our ordinary experience. As War-
burton says, in attacking Plutarch, 'we know (though he did
not) that all things (in the Jewish history) were extraordinary,
and nothing to be brought to example any more than to imi-
tation.' l A singular sentiment, surely, for a sound divine ! and
yet a characteristic result of the tacit compromise by which
the miraculous element was retained in the past and banished
from the present.
17. The doctrine of an equal Providence required some
corollaries to make it fit notorious facts. Thus, for example,
it scarcely accounts at first sight for the punishment of
children for their father's sins. But Warburton can always
stop a gap by a new hypothesis. Though evildoers amongst
the Jews met with temporal punishment, there are 'men of
stronger complexions, superior to all fear of personal tem-
poral evil.' The knowledge that an Almighty power would
punish them a knowledge which, according to Warburton,
rested on the immediate testimony of their senses would
not. restrain these desperate ruffians. They were, therefore,
to be reached through the ' instinctive fondness of parents to
their offspring.' 2 This punishment supplied, for such persons,
the absent terrors of hell. That a man who would not be
restrained by dread of Almighty vengeance should be con-
trolled by fear of the consequences to his great-grandchildren,
is a queer doctrine in Warburton's mouth ; but the justice
of the proceeding is still more questionable than its efficiency.
Warburton defends it characteristically. God, he says, was
here acting, not as the Almighty Governor of the universe,
1 Warburton's Works, iii. 243. - Ib. v. 164.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 361
but as the civil governor of the Jews. In a theocracy sin must
be treasonable. ' Now we know it to be the practice of all
states to punish the sin of leze majesty in this manner. And
to render it just, no more is required than that it was in the
compact (as it certainly was here) on men's free entrance into
society.' l He proceeds to defend the system more fully by
appealing to the English laws of forfeiture for high treason.
Warburton caps the worst absurdities of his fellows ; but he
is only expressing more articulately and systematically an
argument familiar to them in some shape. God was often
justified by showing that his conduct was conformable to the
provisions of the British Constitution.
1 8. Other difficulties, of course, abound. What, for ex-
ample, was to become in the next world of the Jews to whom
a full recompense had been meted out in this ? Bolingbroke
made a great point of this objection, and Warburton blusters
more than usual in the attempt to evade it. As to future
punishments, he retreats under the usual subterfuge of admit-
ting the fact to be mysterious, and then boasting of his
admission as though it were a solution of the difficulty. As to
rewards, he says that he does not grudge the Jews the advan-
tage of a double payment. To meet the case of men of the
pre-Mosaic age, he invents a ' secret reprieve ' (kept ' hid,
indeed, from the early world,' and, it may be added, from all
the predecessors of Warburton) ' passed along with the sen-
tence of condemnation. So that they who never received their
due in this world, would still be kept in existence till they
had received it in the next ; such being in no other sense
sufferers by the administration of an unequal Providence,
than in being ignorant of the reparation which attended them.'
God, like some kings of previous ages, could agree to a treaty
in public, and make a private reservation to break it when he
thought fit.
19. This singular confusion between the attributes of
the Deity and those of a constitutional monarch underlies
all Warburton's argumentation. There is but one God,
and Warburton is his attorney-general. Like other persons
standing in that relation to earthly potentates, he finds the
obligation to defend the policy of his government at all
' Warburton's Works, v. 167.
362 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
hazards not a little burdensome. Once, after a long argu-
ment destined to indicate the wisdom, purity, and justice of
the Almighty, he asks pathetically : ' How can I hope to be
heard in the defence of this conduct of the God of Israel,
when even the believing part of those whom I oppose seem
to pay so little attention to the reasoning of Jesus himself?' 1
The difficulty is increased by the complexity and variability
of the system adopted in the government of the universe. The
Almighty generally acts as a constitutional ruler, with a
scrupulous regard for the exigencies of his position ; he
refrains from miracles, as such a king would refrain from
bringing his personal influence to bear upon politics ; but, in
certain cases, for which it is difficult to assign any principle,
he chose to govern as well as to reign, and produced a variety
of complex relations, which it tasks all Warburton's skill to
unravel. The Law of Nature, so often cited by the deists and
their opponents, is the Common Law of the Universe, and like
that of England, supposed to embody the perfection of human
wisdom. The details were capable of being defined with
mathematical accuracy, and Warburton has drawn out some
of its provisions with a startling minuteness. We are a little
surprised, for example, to discover that ' an ESTABLISHED
RELIGION with a TEST LAW is the universal voice of
Nature.' 2 But we must leave Warburton's politics for the
moment, to illustrate his religious application of the doctrine.
The essence of all religion, as he frequently says, is a belief
in the divine system of rewards and punishments a propo-
sition which he illustrates by St. Paul's words, containing the
most concise statement of natural religion. God is a rewarder
of those who seek him. He may reward here or hereafter ;
but ' piety and morality spring only from the belief that God
is, and is a rewarder.' 3 The voice of nature, however, does
not tell us that these rewards should be eternal. He boldly
asserts that the notion of eternal penalties, instead of being
discoverable by, is absolutely revolting to the unassisted
intellect ; and that 'fancy, even when full plumed by vanity,' 4
could scarcely rise to the idea of infinite rewards. The law of
nature may be enforced by some future penalties, but cannot
1 Warburton's Works, iv. 323. * Ib. iii. 323.
2 Ib. ii. 292. * Ib. vi. 251.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 363
define their amount ; and the specifically Christian doctrine
of immortality is rather repulsive than probable. When,
therefore, the Almighty interferes by direct personal action,
there arises a distinction between the law of nature and the
statutes promulgated by the Divine Legislator.
20. The results are exceedingly complex. Mankind, for
example, occupied a different legal position towards their
Maker, in the periods before the Fall, and in the interval
between the Fall and the appearance of Moses ; and the
divine prerogatives differed as they affected Jews and
Gentiles. The great change took place when the Almighty
' took upon himself the office of supreme magistrate of the
Jewish people.' Having resolved for some inscrutable reason
to govern them by temporal instead of eternal punishments,
there arose the difficulty as to their proper position in the
world to come. God, says Warburton, ' proceeded on the most
equitable grounds of civil government ; ' he became King of
the Jews ' by free choice ; ' and he thus acquired certain
privileges, as, for example, that of prosecuting idolaters as
traitors. But as direct punishment, though supplemented
by the sufferings of posterity, became inadequate, he enacted
a cumbrous ceremonial, destined to distract popular attention
from the claims of pretenders, that is, of false gods. One Her-
man Witsius l had protested against attributing to God the
' tricks of crafty politicians ; ' 2 and Warburton admits that the
wisdom displayed was identical in kind with 'what we call
human policy,' though it differed in degree. He excuses it on
the convenient theological ground, that God used his miracu-
lous power as little as possible, though he is arguing that all
Jewish history was one stupendous miracle.
21. Difficulties thicken. After a time, God appointed an
' under-agent or instrument ; ' the Jewish kings became his
viceroys ; and Warburton has to prove that the change did
alter the essence of the form of government. David, he says,
was called the man after God's own heart, because he ' seconded
God's views in support of the theocracy.' 3 He was, in fact,
like Lord Bute, a thoroughgoing king's friend. The Jews,
1 A learned Dutch theologian (1636-1708), who, amongst other writings,
maintained against Spenser that the Egyptians had borrowed from the Jews.
2 Warburton's Works, iv. 324. * Ib. iv. 312.
364 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
badly as they behaved, could not withdraw from the covenant
which occupied the place of the original compact in the
theocracy ; for it is against all principles of equity that one
party to a contract should repudiate it at pleasure. God,
therefore, retained his rights ; but, in consequence of the mis-
behaviour of his subjects, declined to exercise them. Thus
we have the curious result, that, whilst the theocracy existed
de jure, it ceased to operate de facto. Penalties and rewards
were no longer exacted in this world, and though no revela-
tion had hitherto been made of a future life, prophets began
to discover its existence. From this fact, amongst other
things, we may determine the precise date of the book of Job.
The purpose of that book is to discuss the difficult problem
suggested by the prosperity of the wicked and the adversity
of the virtuous ; and, as Warburton says, no satisfactory
conclusion is reached. It must therefore have been written at
the critical period when rewards and punishments ceased to
be administered in this world, and the next had not been dis-
covered. Gradually, however, the new doctrine became clear,
until the theocracy was finally abrogated, and the Almighty
ceasing to be the ' family God of the race of Abraham,' or
the ' tutelary Deity, gentilitial and local,' became the constitu-
tional governor of the universe, governing only through second
causes, and directly interfering only upon critical occasions.
22. Man thus stands in the most varying relations to his
Maker. Some of his claims depend upon positive law ; others
upon equity ; sometimes he must stick to the terms of a
particular bargain ; sometimes he may go upon the general
principles of the law of nature ; immortality is a free gift
(sometimes, it must be confessed, of very questionable benefit),
and may therefore be granted subject to any regulations
arbitrarily imposed by the giver. Some kind of future
reward is a strict legal right, and must necessarily be
granted on condition of repentance ; persecution is lawful
under a theocracy, and becomes intolerable under any other
circumstances, where the law of nature imperatively demands
a test law, but forbids any more stringent discouragement of
dissent ; eternal punishment is detestably cruel if judged by
ordinary principles of reason, but quite justifiable if it has
been made the subject of a revelation ; and the Jews were
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 365
governed by the Almighty on principles which to the human
intellect appear to be simply eccentric, and which varied ma-
terially at different stages of their history, and were totally
different from anything that has prevailed before or since.
The lawyer's clerk had not forgotten his early training when
he excogitated this amazing theory of the legislative organi-
sation of the universe. The ' infamous ' Spinoza warns his
readers to be specially on their guard against confounding the
power of God with that of human rulers or with human law. 1
Warburton illustrates the results of systematically disregarding
this warning.
23. One other side of Warburton's teaching must be
noticed. One of the most vehement of his polemical writings
was directed against Wesley. In the course of it, he remarks
that ' the power of working miracles, and not the conformity
of Scripture doctrines to the truth, is the great criterion of a
divine mission.' 2 Accordingly, we find that he has an intense
affection for a miracle, tempered by a strong desire to show
that any particular miracle has been misunderstood. Defend-
ing, for example, the miracle supposed to have been wrought
to defeat Julian's reconstruction of the Temple at Jerusalem,
he argues valiantly for the truth of the main incident ; but he
is almost equally anxious to prove that some of the subsidiary
incidents were not miraculous. It is stated that crosses
appeared in the sky and on the garments of the spectators.
Warburton produces some curious parallel instances, in which
such crosses are said to have actually appeared in consequence
of a thunderstorm, and of an eruption of Vesuvius. These he
attributes to natural causes. ' The fathers,' he says, ' are so
impatient to be at their favourite miracles, the crosses in the
sky and on the garments, that they slip negligently over what
ought principally to have been insisted on, the fiery eruption ;
and leave what was truly miraculous to run after an imaginary
prodigy.' 3 The fathers who believe too much, and the infidels
who believe too little, are equally censured, though it seems
hard upon the fathers to condemn them for want of familiarity
with events in the seventeenth century. Warburton's credulity
is as capricious as his logic. He seems actually to have
1 See 'Ethics,' part ii. prop. iii. Ib. viii. 138.
2 Warburton's Works, viii. 39-
366 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
believed in an absurd prophecy uttered by one Arise Evans
during the Commonwealth, though he admits Evans to have
been a notorious rogue ; and he inserted an interpretation of
the prophecy in one of Jortin's works. But when poor Wesley
was rash enough to publish those accounts of modern miracles
with which his journals are so curiously stuffed, the episcopal
wrath knew no bounds. That a man living in his own time,
and that man an ecclesiastical rebel, should produce miracles
to confirm his foolish fancies was intolerable. Some of War-
burton's ridicule of the great religious leader might have been
pardonable in a man who had not exaggerated the sphere of
the miraculous beyond all other writers ; but his arguments
are curiously characteristic. Miracles, he says, are no longer
required. The martyrs, in the dismal days of yore, might have
wanted such a support; ' but now the profession of the Chris-
tian faith is attended with ease and honour ; and the conviction
which the weight of human testimony and the conclusions of
human reason afford us of its truth is abundantly sufficient
to support us in our religious perseverance.' l It is easy
enough to be a Christian when a defence of Christianity is the
direct road to a bishopric ; but Wesleyans might smile at
the quiet assumption that Warburton, rather than the Metho-
dists, presented the closest analogy to the early martyrs of
the faith.
24. The very plan of the treatise is significant. The
treatise on the Doctrine of Grace is, like his other writings,
ambidextrous. He is not happy unless he can be slaying the
freethinker with one hand, and the enthusiast with the other.
He therefore begins by assailing Middleton for his assertion
that the gift of tongues was temporary. He maintains that,
far from disappearing after its first manifestation, it lasted
through the apostolic age. But, having overthrown this an-
tagonist, he is equally vigorous against the other who goes
upon diametrically opposite principles. He clutches at a text
and tortures it after his own fashion. The decisive passage is
the celebrated saying of St. Paul : ' Charity never failcth ; but
whether there be prophecies, they shall fail ; whether there be
tongues, they shall cease ; whether there shall be knowledge,
it shall vanish away.' After due manipulation, the meaning
1 Warburton's Works, viii. 319.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 367
of this clause in the statute-book comes out as follows : ' The
virtue of Charity is to accompany the Christian Church through
all its stages here on earth ; whereas the gifts of prophecy,' of
strange tongues, of supernatural knowledge, are only transi-
tory graces bestowed upon the Church in its infirm and infant
state, to manifest its divine birth, and to support it against the
delusions of the powers of darkness.' ! He explains in the
same spirit the statement that ' when that which is perfect is
come, that which is in part shall be done away ; ' perfection, it
seems, having been attained at the end of the apostolic age ;
and he has thus the pleasure of administering a blow at one
additional enemy, the Church of Rome, in whose pretences
' the blunder seems to be as glaring as the imposture.' 2 On
such grounds, the man who held that the whole Jewish history
was one continued miracle for many centuries, and who was
willing to put faith in Arise Evans, denounced Wesley for his
folly and impiety in believing that God might do in the
eighteenth century what he had done in the first. Wesley
succeeded where Warburton failed, just because his God
whether the true God or not was at least a living God ;
whereas Warburton's had sunk into a mere heap of verbal
formulas.
25. Was Warburton an honest man ? Did he believe in
the theories thus coarsely and ostentatiously maintained ?
That any man could ' believe ' in them, in the sense in which
belief means a force capable of governing action, may be
pronounced impossible. We have not the right to say that
Warburton did not believe that he believed, or, in other words,
that he had not cheated himself before he cheated his fol-
lowers. Disraeli maintains, in the ' Quarrels of Authors,'
that Warburton was throughout guided by ' a secret prin-
ciple ; ' this secret principle was ' invention ; ' in other words,
apparently, a morbid love of paradoxical novelty. He points
to Warburton's curious admiration for Bayle, a writer who,
in Warburton's own language, ' struck into the province of
paradox as an exercise for the restless vigour of his mind,'
and was unable to overcome that ' last foible of superior
geniuses, the temptation of honour, which the academic exer-
cise of wit is conceived to bring to its professors.' 3 Certainly,
1 Warburton's Works, viii. 309. 2 Ib. viii. 315. * Ib. i. 230.
368 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
Warburton is describing his own practice. The ' academic ex-
ercise of wit ' employed upon the most important of all human
enquiries, forms the staple of his books. But Warburton had
not Bayle's acuteness. His paradoxes imply verbal dex-
terity, instead of logical power. We admire his impudence
more than his intellectual audacity. Lowth speaks of
Towne as shrinking behind Warburton's ' mighty Telamonian
shield,'
With seven thick folds o'ercast
Of tough bull-hide ; of solid brass the last.
That brazen defence sheltered Warburton in his life, and even
enabled him to impose upon posterity. An admiring reviewer 1
did not shrink from declaring that, whilst Hooker, Stilling-
fleet, Chillingworth, Locke, Jeremy Taylor, and Swift, might
have contributed the erudition, acuteness, imaginative power,
and sarcastic wit of the ' Divine Legation,' Warburton alone
could have amassed the materials into a comprehensive, con-
sistent, and harmonious whole. We fairly stand aghast at
such a saying, and are tempted to bow down before the colos-
sal impudence which could thus find defenders beyond the
grave. Indeed, Warburton's fame loomed so vast in the eyes
of the ordinary reader, that his name is still at times quoted
with respect, as though his alliance with any cause could be
aught but an encumbrance.
26. Some insinuations have been thrown out that War-
burton was really as unbelieving as he was certainly lax
in his religious observances. 2 To us it matters little what
degree of consciousness of the natural tendency of his argu-
ments may have penetrated to the inner depths of his mind.
The fact which, for my purpose, is alone interesting, is the
bare circumstance that such a book as the ' Divine Legation '
could ever have passed for a serious defence of Christianity.
To explain, we must revert once more to the real problem
which was vexing men's minds. How, it may be stated,
could the God of the universe be also the Jehovah of the
Jews, and the three persons of the Christian Trinity ? How
can we reconcile philosophy with the traditional creeds?
1 Dr. Whitaker, in the ' Quarterly Review,' vol. vii.
1 See Disraeli's 'Quarrels of Authors,' in the 'Miscellanies' (edition 1840),
p. 158.
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 369
Hume's answer is decisive. God is a name for our ignorance.
The Jews were a semi-savage race, who invented a corre-
sponding deity to account for unintelligible phenomena. The
Christian Trinity is the creation of later philosophical specu-
lation, strangely combined with an earlier traditional element.
We have grown wiser, and know that we know nothing.
Nature means the aggregate of sensible phenomena, and
we cannot pierce behind them. Butler's answer is more
hesitating in tone, but still rests upon an intelligible principle.
We know little, indeed ; we are lost in mysteries, if once we
dare to enquire, and it is safer not to push enquiries too far.
But, in the midst of the darkness, we may find a sufficient
guide in the conscience, which bears with it evidence of
divine origin. Natural religion describes the general order
of the world as detected by reason acting under their guid-
ance upon the materials supplied by experience. Revealed
religion professes to describe the same general order on the
direct authority of the Almighty. The coincidence of the
two doctrines affords a strong presumption of the authenticity
of the claims of revelation ; and, therefore, of the identity of
the God of revelation with the God of nature. The external
evidences confirm the presumption thus based upon inde-
pendent grounds. The dealings of Jehovah with the Jews,
and of the Christian God with believers, are such as we
might anticipate from a fair observation of nature, and are
not such as we should anticipate from the God of the deist.
Nature, that is, rightly interrogated, confirms revelation and
destroys Deism. We cannot find God either in nature or
revelation, said Hume ; we can dimly see God in both, said
Butler, and the features are alike. The God of nature is
unlike the God of revelation, said Warburton ; but they are
the same, because both are called God.
27. Warburton thus leaves the two conceptions as different
as he found them. He does not seriously attempt to consider
the reasons which should lead us to accept either, or prefer
one to the other. He is content simply to bring them into
contact, and welds them together by the help of words. Jeho-
vah is as different as possible from the God of reason or from
the God of Christianity. Certainly, says Warburton, God acts
on different principles at different Jimes. We cannot believe
VOL. i. B B
370 WILLIAM WARBURTON.
in miracles, said the deist ; they are produced by ' enthusiasm '
or imposture, as in the case of Wesley and Mahomet. War-
burton fully agrees that there have been no miracles for the
last sixteen centuries ; but miracles were as abundant as you
please in the preceding ages of the world. The Jewish history,
said the deists, was incredible because it contradicted all that
we know of human nature, and often offends our belief in the
moral attributes of God. Warburton accepts the facts, but he
explains them by assuming that God has changed in the course
of centuries. He argues as if an orthodox advocate should
now maintain against positivists that the world was once ruled
by fetishes, afterwards by a number of gods, and finally by
one Supreme God. It is a fundamental canon of all historical
enquiry, and, indeed, of all science, that the laws now opera-
tive in the world have operated throughout the period under
observation. A slow realisation of this doctrine was trans-
forming our conceptions of past history. Warburton uses his
human and capricious deity to evade it, and being perfectly
satisfied with a verbal answer to any difficulty, imagines that,
by accepting the worst consequences attributed to his creed,
he is really answering them.
28. The phenomenon represented by the Warburtonians
would be scarcely worth notice were it not for the imposing
bulk of their leader, and for the fact that his errors are but
magnified reproductions of confusions common enough
amongst less sophistical reasoners. They have their source
in the same weakness the unwillingness, characteristic of all
the controversialists from Butler downwards, to face the final
questions. Even the bare external plausibility of War-
burton's logomachy vanishes when he is asked what he
means by God, and why he believed in such a God as his
theory demands. That was just the question which no
writer, except Hume, dared to ask openly. It was, therefore,
impossible to apply a real test to the various theories which
justified God by lowering him to the level of humanity, or
which filled a gap in the optimist's creed by an abstract
phrase. The controversy had to go deeper, and to arouse
stronger passions, before it could be cleared of the unreality
which must beset every controversy in which both sides
shrink from probing the dispute to the bottom. Meanwhile,
WILLIAM WARBURTON. 371
such a braggart as Warburton could, for a time, impose
upon the world, though keen thinkers sneered, and pious
souls were revolted, at speculations as perplexed in logic as
irreverent in temper.
WILLIAM WARBURTON.
Dec. 24, 1698. Born at Newark.
1714. Articled to an attorney.
1723. Ordained deacon.
1727. Ordained priest and presented to Greaseley.
' Critical and Philosophical Enquiry.'
1728. Presented to Brant- Broughton, by Sir R. Button.
1730. Presented to Frisby.
1736. 'Alliance between Church and State.'
1737. ' Divine Legation,' books i., ii., iii.
1738. Chaplain to Prince of Wales.
1738-9. Defends Pope against Crousaz.
1740. Acquaintance with Pope, who died in 1744.
1741. ' Divine Legation,' books iv., v., vi.
1745. Marriage to Gertrude Tucker, niece of Ralph Allen.
1746. Preacher at Lincoln's Inn.
1747. Edition of Shakspere.
1750. 'Julian.'
1751. Edition of Pope.
1752-4. Sixty-seven Sermons.
1753. Prebend of Gloucester.'
1754-5. ' View of Bolingbroke's Philosophy.'
1754. King's Chaplain and D.D.
1755. Prebend of Durham.
1757. Dean of Bristol.
' Remarks on Hume.'
1760. Bishop of Gloucester.
1762. ' Doctrine of Grace.'
1768. Founds the Lectureship at Lincoln's Inn.
June 7, 1779. Dies.
1788. Fragments, including ' Divine Legation,' book ix.
1809. Correspondence with Hurd. Second edition : 1809.
1841. Literary Remains.
1863. Life by J. T. Watson.
References to Warburton's Works. London: 1811.
372
CHAPTER VIII.,
THE LATER THEOLOGY.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
1. THE most conspicuous literary phenomenon in the latter
half of the eighteenth century in England is the strange de-
cline of speculative energy. Theology was paralysed. The
deists railed no longer; and the orthodox were lapped in
drowsy indifference. They boasted of the victory won by their
predecessors ; but were content on occasion to recapitulate
the cut and dried formula of refutation, or to summarise the
labours of the earlier enquirers. The one divine of brilliant
ability was Paley ; and Paley's theology escapes, if indeed it
escapes, from decay, only because it is frozen. His writing is
as clear and as cold as ice. In traversing this parched and
barren district, we shall scarcely meet with one fresh spring
of original thought ; and our journey must be a weary one.
What were the causes of this sudden failure of energy ?
An answer which professed to be exhaustive would be self-
condemned. We have not yet learnt the secret of the period-
icity of intellectual effort. We can but imperfectly explain
why at one moment, theology, poetry, or science, burst forth
with the fulness of spring, and afterwards subside into the
saddened calm of winter. Yet some of the main causes are
sufficiently obvious ; and a brief consideration of the external
circumstances and of the logical position of the thinkers
of the time m,ay throw light upon the characteristics of their
theology.
2. The English deists, silenced in their own country, were
still preaching through the mouth of Voltaire ; and their
example had, in some measure, contributed to the awakening
of German thought. 1 But England, the land of philosophers
1 Upon this subject sec Ledilcr's ' Geschichte cles Englischen Deismus,' pp.
4H-45 2 -
7. INTRODUCTORY. 373
and freethinkers, no longer gave birth to iconoclasts or to
serious investigators. Another set of topics was coming to
the front in contemporary literature. Political discussions
absorbed the energy of the keenest intellects. The first half
of the eighteenth century had been a period of political
stagnation. The classes who had won power in 1688 held
their own with little trouble against the reactionists whose
last feeble effort was suppressed in 1745. The Jacobites once
crushed, there ensued a period of absolute peace, where the
reformation of the Calendar figures as the most exciting event
of a parliamentary session. But new and more dangerous
questions were making their appearance. The groundswell of
an approaching revolution became ever more perceptible.
Amidst Wilkite agitations and American troubles, and con-
tests between the king's friends and the great revolution
families, parties were slowly developing themselves, divided
by deep political differences instead of mere personal alliances,
and half consciously preparing for the advent of those vital
struggles of which we can distinguish the importance, though
it is not yet given us to foretell the end. England, in common
with the whole European community, was being slowly sucked
into the vortex of the great whirlpool, and already waves
were running high, and dim forebodings clouding the more
thoughtful minds. It was natural that, under such conditions,
the keenest intellects should be turning from speculative to
practical discussions. The literary landmarks of the period
are political, not theological. For Hume's Essays and Butler's
' Analogy,' we have Burke's Speeches and Adam Smith's
'Wealth of Nations.' Junius's Letters and a countless host of
political pamphlets evoke the passions which in the previous
generation had been called forth by Tindal, Collins, Woolston,
and their opponents. In the first half-century, Bolingbroke
naturally sought refuge from the hopeless game of politics in
philosophical enquiries ; in the last half, Priestley as naturally
left his laboratory and his library to plunge into the more
exciting world of political strife.
3. The political movement naturally replaced the theo-
logical in England as on the Continent. But in England, the
conditions of the struggle rendered it more exclusively poli-
tical. English constitutionalism, English Protestantism, and
374 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
that peculiarity, whatever its origin, which predisposes the
English mind to compromises, all tended in this direction. In
France, an absolute secular and an absolute ecclesiastical
authority were intimately united. Between Catholics and
atheists, absolutists and revolutionists, there was no available
standing-ground. Blows aimed at the State or the Church
had an immediate and palpable reaction upon the Church or
the State. The philosophers were in deadly hostility with the
supporters of the established order ; and the gulf yawned wide,
deep, and impassable along the whole line of division. In
England, doubtless, the real tendencies of the rival schools
were at bottom the same. Here, as elsewhere, the faith and
the framework of the old order were inseparably united. The
freethinkers of an earlier generation had naturally allied
themselves with the Whigs in their common warfare against
the claims of the clergy. The inevitable connection, however,
between the religious and the political movements was by no
means so evident ; nor did the true bearings of the new ideas
reveal themselves to all men till Paine and Godwin brought
back the revolutionary impulse from France. Both in specu-
lation and in practice, the natural result of the spirit of com-
promise was to confuse the plain issues. Under Protestant
influences, theology had become penetrated and honeycombed
by rationalism ; and under the parliamentary system the sepa-
ration between Church and State had already made consider-
able progress. Thus hybrid forms of opinion were easily
generated. Believers in dogmatic theology might assail the
state without attacking religion ; and sceptics might support
the established order without committing themselves to the
defence of the ecclesiastical theory.
4. Thus the political movement in England took place
along the old constitutional lines, and presented itself rather as
a return to older principles, than as a fiercely subversive
impulse. The English agitators claimed a descent from the
old Puritans rather than from modern freethinkers. Wilkes
and Home Tooke might have sat at the feet of Voltaire, but
their chief supporters were solid dissenting tradesmen. In
their political agitations they were careful to avoid expressions
of opinions which would have shocked the good aldermen who
talked about the Bill of Rights, at least as much as they
7. INTRODUCTORY. 375
would have shocked the judges and the bench of bishops.
Dissenters, then as now, were the backbone of the popular
party, and dissenters represented the staunchest religious
prejudices of the nation. If the bishops were attacked, the
implied contrast was not in favour of Voltaire, but of Wesley.
The sceptical element was latent, and when at length it came
to the surface, it alienated the great bulk of the party.
5. Meanwhile, the rationalist tendencies of the Church
rendered it little obnoxious to sceptics. The more intel-
lectual infidels would have had little pleasure in destroying
an establishment which, whilst it did them little mischief,
was a useful barrier against enthusiasm. Interpreted by
men like Paley, Hey, and Watson, there was nothing very
burthensome in its tenets. Hume and Paley are curiously
agreed in recommending young men of freethinking tendencies
to take orders. 1 The rationalism of the English Church was
so marked, that an unwillingness to conform to its laws
could only result from an unusual sensitiveness to the duty
of intellectual candour. The ablest sceptics of the last half of
the century were either conservatives or, at any rate, opposed
to the revolutionary movement. Pure scepticism, indeed,
naturally implies an unwillingness to disturb any established
order ; and Voltaire, except when guided by his righteous
hatred of persecution, was little more of a revolutionist at
heart than Hume. But Voltaire could not utter sceptical
opinions without becoming, however unintentionally, the
accomplice of the revolutionary party ; whereas, Hume and
Gibbon, the ablest of the English sceptics, were by taste and
sympathy emphatically on the side of order. The scepticism
widely diffused through the upper classes was of the indolent
variety, implying a perfect willingness that churches should
survive, though faith might perish.
6. Hence, the English political movement showed no
distinct ecclesiastical character. The dissenters occasionally
attacked the test laws, and the rationalising part of the
clergy were anxious for a relaxation of the Articles. But
the existence of the Church was not seriously threatened, or
not threatened in the interests of unbelief. A smothered
1 Burton's Life ; Hume, ii. 187. Paley's Works, i. xvii. Hume's view is, of
course, far more lax than Paley's.
376 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
discontent at purple-clad prelates, and at rich sinecurists, or
even a passionate assertion that the corruptions of Chris-
tianity were due to the principle of an establishment, were
very different things from denunciations of the Church as the
embodiment of Christianity. Thus the agitation did not stir
the depths of men's minds. When the foundations of society
are breaking up, men are forced to recognise the truth that
a complete division between religion and politics is chimerical.
The true principles on which society should be organised
can only be determined by answering the questions which
lie at the base of all religious theory. Political speculations
involve ethical assumptions, and these again rest upon re-
ligious dogma. But the English controversies, though they
implicitly involved, failed to bring distinctly before the na-
tional mind, the deepest of all divergencies. Reformers, for
the moment, proposed to redistribute power more equitably
not to reconstruct society. Arguments about the relations
of the Crown to the House of Commons did not obviously
lead to disputes as to human nature and the origin of society.
Discussions as to the right of juries to judge of the law as
well as the facts, had no obvious connection with the Christian
religion. Before the questions could be settled, indeed,
they branched out into endless disputes, opening always
wider and more dangerous controversies. Litigation about
a point of law may kindle a war for the conquest of an
empire. But such consequences were, as yet, visible 'only
to a man of unusual insight here and there. And thus the
first effect of a reviving interest in politics was to lead men's
minds away from the deepest problems of philosophy to
mere superficial enquiries. No passionate atheist proposed
to dissolve the bonds of society, and no orthodox defender
of the established order asserted the divine right of kings.
The period was one of vehement, but not of profound, excite-
ment. Theology was not concerned, except so far as it
was involved in the general interests of respectability, and
everybody wished to be respectable. A keen interest in
politics using the word, not in the philosophical sense,
but in the sense of election agents and parliamentary
manceuverers does not prepare the atmosphere for deep
theological speculations.
I. INTRODUCTORY. 377
7. Whilst external circumstances were thus favourable
to a shallow view of the everlasting problem, the logical
development of the deistical disputes told in the same
direction. Theologians are, as we shall see, almost exclu-
sively occupied in discussing the historical value of the
Christian records. The claims of Christian theology are
avowedly based upon the authenticity and fidelity of ancient
records. If certain facts could be proved to have happened
1,700 years ago, then was Christianity true ; otherwise false.
Such a phase of mind naturally followed, as I have already
endeavoured to show, upon the extinction of the old deistical
impulse. The attempt at forming an independent ' religion
of nature' had culminated with Tindal ; that is, about the
year 1730. After that date, the issue had gradually come
to rest more and more distinctly upon the historical question.
Hume and Middleton, in attacking the truth of miraculous
narratives, had stated the problems with which their suc-
cessors chiefly occupied themselves. The religion of nature
had expired of inanition. Hume's keen scepticism had
pierced its vitals, and it had no intrinsic vitality. Tired with
its frigid mathematical axioms, men fell back upon an
examination of the facts. The historical method was the
natural result ; but potent as that method has since appeared
to be, it gave birth in its infancy to a singularly crude and
barren form of enquiry. The ideas to which it owes its force
had not yet been assimilated ; and, indeed, had scarcely
dawned upon the world. What passed for historical enquiry
was, for the most part, as meagre as what generally passed for
political discussion. The historical method, in fact, must
repose upon a distinct realisation of the theory of evolution.
The slow development of complex social forms and of phases
of human thought from the primitive forms of life, is the
dominant idea which is gradually remoulding our religious
and scientific conceptions. But, at present, the world pre-
sented itself to most observers in the light of the old meta-
physical enquirers. It was an inorganic collection of facts,
from which the divine illumination had died away, and which
was bound together by the classifications of a priori thinkers.
Social contracts and arbitrary theories about ' the scale of
beings' supplied hypotheses for reasoning about society or the
378 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
universe, but were, at best, chilling, and unreal. Some im-
perfect glimpses of a more scientific synthesis gave rise to
the crude theories of progress and of human perfectibility
which became fashionable towards the end of the century.
In another direction we may recognise the first crude attempts
at that bastard offspring of historical enquiry which is em-
bodied in modern romanticism, and the revivalism of dead
creeds and arts. But the historical impulse, though strongly
marked, is not yet under the guidance of a truly scientific
impulse. Hume, the keenest intellect of the century, is a
representative example of the change which was taking place.
It was in 1752 that he deserted metaphysics for history.
The barrenness of ontology being demonstrated, he turned
to methods more promising of fertile results. Unluckily he
was far less qualified for the field of observation than for
speculation. His History, as modern critics assure us, is, at
best, a graceful summary of superficial knowledge. Even if
his researches had been more satisfactory from an antiquarian
point of view, he had not the sympathy with alien modes of
thought necessary to turn his knowledge to account. But
Hume was certainly not less in sympathy with the mediae-
val spirit than Paley with the early Christian spirit. Hume,
in fact, is to Carte what Paley is to Lardner. Each writer
is content with a lucid summary of the external facts al-
ready collected, though collected in confused masses. Their
aim, and for the time it was doubtless a useful aim, was to
reduce these confused aggregates into some kind of order.
The order, unfortunately, was of the mechanical, not of the
vital, kind. Past events are regarded exclusively from the
outside ; and Jews, Romans, and ancient Englishmen were
names in a book, not human beings who once moved and
lived on this tangible earth. It was only by a slow process
of education that historians were to arise to a vivid realisation
of the extinct social phases. For the present, the theologians
who argued most strenuously for the truth of the Gospel
narratives realised most imperfectly what such events could
be. The imagination lagged behind the reason. The shadow
of the supernatural lingered over the ancient histories, and
rendered them still unreal, though not preserving their
ancient symbolical beauty. The increased attention to
I. INTRODUCTORY. 379
history is a marked and most important characteristic of
the time ; but the history was still colourless, and mechanical
in spirit.
8. Another influence was beginning to exert itself with
marked effect. Gilbert Wakefield complains that the learned
are ' mostly engaged in political disquisitions, or in pushing
their researches into the unexplored regions of natural philo-
sophy.' 1 In fact, we have reached the period where the
conflict between science and theology begins to put on some-
thing of its modern form. Franklin had snatched the sceptre
from kings and the lightning from the hands of a supernatural
ruler. New provinces were being brought beneath the sway
of science. The triumph of the Newtonian philosophy had
exercised a potent influence over the preceding generation.
A fresh outburst of scientific discovery was producing effects
still more important, though marked by no such dramatic
catastrophe. Chemistry was beginning to reveal its wonders.
Geology was coming to life ; and, though in an earlier period
its conclusions had been applied to the confutation of sneers
at the Flood, people were now beginning to feel seriously that
the first chapter of Genesis was in danger. The tendency to
appeal to the observation of facts was slowly spreading beyond
the limits of natural science. Sir W. Jones was beginning
the studies which have led to the formation of comparative
mythology, and Adam Smith was endeavouring to apply
scientific methods to the explanation of social phenomena.
New prospects were opening themselves in every direction ;
and the mental horizon beginning to expand. It was still, in-
deed, a day of small things and of crude theories. Men's minds
were only awakening to the vast possibilities arising from the
systematic application of scientific method. A lively curiosity
was being excited rather than a genuine spirit of enquiry.
The superficial knowledge obtainable did not suggest how
deeply our whole conceptions of the universe would be modi-
fied by the ideas still in their infancy. Natural science in the
earlier part of the century had been regarded with good-
humoured contempt as a pursuit of bugs, beetles, and mum-
mies ; and the ' virtuoso ' was one of the established topics
for the delicate ridicule and coarse satire of Addison, Pope,
1 Preface to ' Essay on Inspiration.'
380 THE LATER THEOLOGY,
Swift, and Shaftesbury. Now it was beginning to be re-
cognised that such pursuits might be a creditable investment
of human energy, though, as yet, it was hardly suspected that
an examination of bugs or of mummies might lead to results
in which theology, history, and politics might be profoundly
concerned. A deeper knowledge of science and of history has
led to a reopening of the most noted questions with which the
human mind can be conversant. The first glimmerings of the
new light tended rather to withdraw men's minds from such
questions for the moment and amuse without thoroughly
awakening them. In Germany, partly it may be from the
absence of political counter-irritants, partly from the social
organisation of the country, partly from the national character,
or from causes not here definable, the intellect was more
rapidly aroused to a sense of the vast interests at stake. In
France, the conditions which determined the approach of a
tremendous catastrophe produced a more uncompromising
and internecine warfare upon first principles. In England,
the national intellect seemed for the time to have abandoned
all serious philosophical enquiry, and occupied itself exclu-
sively with party politics, with superficial history, and with
popular science. Neglecting, for the present, certain excep-
tions to these conclusions, we may say that the general re-
sult upon theology was to produce a literature more meagre
and superficial than any which had flourished since the days
of Hooker. The giants of those days were but dwarfs com-
pared to their predecessors or their successors ; and the chief
interest is in exhibiting the rare germs of future develop-
ments of thought.
77. THE COMMON- SENSE SCHOOL.
9. Using the phaseology of the time, we may say that the
first effect of the conditions thus described was the disappear-
ance of the controversy upon internal evidence. We hear no
more of the attempts to adjust the rival claims of Christianity
and the religion of nature. Occasionally, however, we come
upon an argument dealing rather with the theory than with
the external history of religion. One or two instances may
be briefly noticed before proceeding to describe the main
II. THE COMMON -SENSE SCHOOL. 381
stream of discussion if that can be called a stream which
seems rather to stagnate idly in the ancient channels. What
speculative power existed in English literature seemed to have
been banished to the North of the Tweed. Reid and his
followers were there giving such answer as they could to
Hume's scepticism. The attitude assumed by these writers is
defined in Beattie's ' Essay on Truth ' and Oswald's ' Appeal
to Common Sense.' Beattie, a most exemplary, warm-hearted,
though hot-headed, or ' perfervid ' Scot, no mean poet, and an
excellent writer of prose, was held by such a man as Johnson
to have ' confuted ' Hume. Another, and for such purposes
not much inferior, critic, George III., showed his appreciation
of Beattie by always keeping one copy of the Essay at Kew,
and another in London. His approval was implied by the
more tangible compliment of a pension of 2OO/. a year con-
ferred upon the defender of true philosophy. The Essay
passed rapidly through several editions, was translated into
Dutch, French, and German ; and obtained degrees for its
author from Oxford and foreign Universities. Beattie, in short,
became a man of mark ; and his success seems to have given
some annoyance to Hume. 1 And yet it is now universally
acknowledged that Beattie proved simply that he was unable
to understand either Hume, Berkeley, or their predecessors.
Reid's philosophy, though of doubtful value, is at least the
serious attempt of a man of genuine intellectual power to
refute Hume's scepticism. Beattie's Essay is simply an appeal
to the populace on the most refined metaphysical questions,
backed up by passages of angry scolding. Nothing, as he says
in a ' postscript,' added to defend himself against the charge
of indecent warmth, is ' more perfectly contemptible than the
speculative metaphysics of the moderns/ that is, as appears
from the general argument, of Descartes, Malebranche, Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume. ' I know no end,' he says, ' that the
study of such jargon can answer, except to harden and
stupify the heart, bewilder the understanding, sour the temper,
and habituate the mind to irresolution, captiousness, and
1 Beattie, in his preface, takes to himself part, at least, of the curious adver-
tisement in which Hume, withdrawing his early philosophical treatise, says that
'several writers' had affected to triumph over him by unfair attacks upon his
juvenile work, instead of confining themselves to the later exposition of his
theories.
382 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
falsehood. For studies of this sort I have neither time nor
inclination, head nor heart.' l He excuses himself, however,
for railing with the utmost bitterness against the reasoning
which he thus admits himself to be incapable of understanding.
Scepticism may be allowable in regard to points of mere
curiosity ; but scepticism is utterly hateful when it makes men
doubt whether the ' human soul is a real and permanent
substance,' whether God exists, or whether ' virtue and vice
are distinctly and essentially different.' 2 Such scepticism, he
says, is ' totally subversive of science, morality, and religion,'
and therefore deserves no quarter.
10. The argument which commends itself to such a writer
is naturally the argument from consequences a method which
he explicitly defends. 3 It is easy to imagine what form it
takes in his hands. Berkeley is challenged to walk over a
precipice. A doctrine which would lead to such results must
be the most ' scandalously absurd ' ever heard of. ' There is
not a fiction in the Persian tales that I could not as easily
believe ; the silliest conceit of the most contemptible super-
stition that ever disgraced human nature is not more shocking
to common sense, nor more repugnant to every principle of
human nature.' 4 If it were seriously adopted, and if (which
is taken to be an identical proposition) men were ' divested
of all belief, and consequently of all principle, would not the
dissolution of society and the destruction of mankind ne-
cessarily ensue ? ' 5 If we were all to walk over precipices !
When Berkeley is thus confuted, Hume comes in for equally
hard measure. It logically follows, according to Beattie's in-
terpretation of Hume, that the idea of an inch is an inch long.
' Now mark the consequence ; ' if I am in a room of 1000 cubical
feet content, I may introduce into it an idea of St. Paul's, say,
which may contain a million cubical feet in content, or I
can transport a mountain as big as the Peak of Teneriffe in a
postchaise. 6 Hume, therefore, is absurd.
11. Some such consequences have been alleged by abler
critics than Hume to follow logically from the theories of
Berkeley and Hume ; but Beattie does not trouble himself to
prove his interpretation. This is what he supposes to be the
1 Essay, p. 388. * Ib. p. 292. s Ib. p. 215.
- Ib. p. 391. 4 Ib. p. 205. * Ib. p. 182.
77. THE COMMON -SENSE SCHOOL. 383
conscious teaching of his antagonists ; and he has little
trouble in alarming the common sense of persons who, like
the worthy George III., would take his word for it. If Reid
appeals to common sense, using the phrase with a philo-
sophical meaning, Beattie appeals to it in its vulgar accepta-
tion. Whatever people generally believe must be therefore
true. The soul must be distinct from the body, because he
never heard of a nation that denied it. 1 The will must be
free, because Mr. Macaulay asked the people of St. Kilda
what they thought about the matter ; and, though they
generally believed in destiny, they also believed, when the
terms were explained to them, that they were free agents. 2
The Scotch school may have done real service in calling at-
tention to the value of those instinctive judgments which
precede a conscious reasoning process. This crude interpre-
tation shows the ugly side of their creed ; and does not, in
any other respect, deserve a serious examination. Beattie is
a really good writer, but he is simply the mouthpiece of the
vague cry of alarm which went up from the ordinary mass of
mankind as they became aware that acute thinkers were in
some sense sapping the foundations of their creed. His book
is an angry refusal even to listen to philosophical doubts, lest
true religion should suffer. We must, he urges in one place,
believe in testimony, for 'testimony is the grand external
evidence of Christianity.' 3 Unluckily the argument was
capable of inversion. An appeal to common sense was dan-
gerous when common sense was the tribunal equally invoked
by Tom Paine.
12. Beattie, in the ' Essay on Truth,' says that he wishes to
defend the belief in God and in immutable morality. But he
did not in this book apply his denunciations of philosophical
scepticism to this purpose. The application had been made
two years previously, in the first volume of Oswald's ' Appeal
to Common Sense ' a book which it seems that Beattie had
not seen. 4 Oswald is not a bad writer. His logical position
illustrates the difficulty already noticed as pressing upon the
Christian apologists. He sees very clearly that even the
most victorious demonstrations of theological truth are dan-
1 Essay, p. 43. 2 Ib. p. 87.
* Ib. p. 246. * See preface to later editions.
384 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
gerous, by the very fact that they are demonstrations. To
make faith depend upon an elaborate structure of reasoning,
however well constructed may be the syllogisms, is to make
faith impossible for the bulk of mankind. Can subtle
reasoning, he asks, satisfy men of sense on such points ? And
if the higher minds be satisfied, what is to become of the
' multitude who have neither leisure, nor capacity, nor in-
clination to pursue the same course ? ' l Clarke's ' demonstra-
tion ' is a ' standing monument of great powers misapplied,' 2
and indeed an ' intemperate love of reasoning ' is ' the epide-
mical distemper of the human mind.' 3 The admission that
God's existence requires a proof, inflicts an injury which can-
not be remedied by any apparent completeness in satisfying
the demand.
13. Oswald would meet the difficulty by declaring that
the existence of God is self-evident. The human mind is
distinguished from the animal mind (although for a meta-
physician he is singularly liberal to animal powers of reason-
ing 4 ) by its capacity for intuitively recognising certain
' primary truths.' Oswald falls into hopeless confusion when
attempting to put this doctrine into precise philosophical
form. He, like Beattie, is one of the reasoners who thinks
that Berkeley is refuted by the statement that ' corn, cattle,
and linen ' are ' realities ; ' and imagines that the good bishop
first took up his theories ' in the purity of his heart and with a
view to burlesque the refinement of infidels,' but was unluckily
'caught in his own trap.' 5 To this common confusion he
adds a special power of confounding perception with inference
and abstract with concrete truths. It is, he says, a ' primary
truth ' that ' fire has a power to consume combustibles,' and a
' secondary truth ' that this piece of paper will be burnt if put
into the fire. 6 The faculties which we share with the animals
enable us to ' pronounce dogmatically that ink is black and
milk white.' The faculty called common sense, by which
rational beings are distinguished from animals and idiots,
enables us to be equally certain about 'laws of nature.' 7 If
Mr. Hume himself felt an electric shock, he would believe in
electricity, even if other intelligent people may be 'void
1 Oswald's Appeal, p. 6. * Ib. p. 58. * Ib. p. 96. T Ib. p. 239.
* Ib. p. 150. * Ib. p. 176. Ib. p. 370.
II. T.HE COMMON-SENSE SCHOOL. 38$
o f all ideas of electricity.' And on precisely the same grounds
a savage would infer the perfections of the Deity from the
wonders of creation, as soon as the argument was suggested
to him. 1 The obvious difficulty, that the very existence of
unbelief proves that the argument cannot be so palpably
evident, is met by the usual remarks about the ' sloth and
habitual indulgence ' of human beings, 2 and by denunciations
of the intemperate love of reasoning ; and Oswald also at-
tempts, parenthetically, to point out the difference between
mathematical axioms and truths about concrete facts. 3
14. The argument, which it is unnecessary to examine
further, simply amounts to indorsing the popular platitude,
that an atheist must be a madman. 4 Whatever its weight,
therefore, it could not be expected to have much influence
with atheists. It is very natural to say, If you differ from
me you must be a fool ; and to evade the awkward neces-
sity of proving a disputed point by declaring that doubt
is simply impossible. The doctrine that we recognise the
Deity as distinctly as we feel an electric shock should have
landed Oswald in mysticism ; but, in fact, he is a calm,
practical Scotchman attacking a supposed assailant of
morality and religion, by the readiest weapons at hand. As
such, he probably represents pretty accurately the average
state of mind of his contemporaries. They have simply
resolved to disregard a philosophy which landed them in a
mere quagmire of scepticism ; and are labouring to give to a
purely practical reply the airs of a metaphysical confutation.
Perhaps, in the absence of any deeper solution, they took the
best line open to them. The attempt to cast a bridge across
the vast abyss of doubt had broken down, at once from its
inherent weakness, and from the assaults of an undermining
scepticism. Let us then declare that there is no abyss, and
try whether absolutely ignoring the evil will not cure it.
15. A writer of a very different stamp resembles, but dis-
tances, Oswald in the audacity with which he plunges beyond
his depth. Soame Jenyns appears to have been an amiable
country gentleman, rather bigoted in his political tendencies, but
not without acuteness and elegance of style. He could write
. ' Oswald's 'Appeal,' i. 222. * Ib. i. 382.
2 Ib. i. 229. * IK i. 352.
VOL. I. C C
386 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
pretty verses after the model of Prior ; that he ' gave his days
and nights to the study of Addison ' was inferred from two
or three papers contributed to the 'World ; ' and he is said to
have been the charm of every social circle which he entered.
He had been a deist in early life, but gave to the world the
arguments to which he had owed his conversion in the same
year (1776) as that in which Gibbon published his attack upon
Christianity. This little treatise, called ' A View of the In-
ternal Evidence of the Christian Religion,' is noticed with
high praise by Paley, in his chapter ' on the Morality of the
Gospel.' 1 In fact, it is an elegant statement of the familiar
argument. The divine origin of Christianity is inferred from
the purity and originality of its ethics. He accepts, and
even exaggerates, the contrast often put forward by the
deist between the pagan and the Christian morality. The
characteristic virtues of the pagan world, such as valour,
patriotism, and friendship, are declared to be ' false virtues ; ' 2
valour is an ambiguous quality, and patriotism and friendship
but partial applications of universal love. Forgiveness,
charity, repentance, faith, and humility are the characteristic
virtues of Christianity; and Jenyns'does not scruple to con-
clude that the most celebrated pagan virtues are more opposite
to the spirit and more inconsistent with the creed of Christian
morality than even ' their most infamous vices.' The tyran-
nicide of Brutus, and the suicide of Cato, did the world
more harm than the profligacy of a 'Messalina or an Helio-
gabalus.' 3 The Christian doctrines, he admits, are not suited
to the world, though they improve the world so far as they
are accepted. Christianity is so superior to considerations of
' conquest, government and commerce, that it takes no more
notice of them than of the battles of gamecocks, the policy
of bees, or the industry of ants.' 4 Its ' incompatibility with
the little wretched and iniquitous business of the world ' is a
proof of its divine origin. It is meant to purify the morals
of mankind in general, and ' to select the most meritorious
of them to be successively transplanted into the kingdom
of heaven.' 5
1 6. Relying upon this argument, Jenyns can afford to
1 Paley's Works, iii. 213. * Ib. p. 59. s Ib. p. 90.
2 Jenyns's Works, iv. 41. 4 Ib. p. 88.
II. THE COMMON-SENSE SCHOOL. 387
make light of the external evidences, and recognises the exis-
tence of a human element- in the inspired writings with a
freedom which gave rise to some suspicions of his sincerity.
Some vagaries, such as a belief in the pre-existence of souls,
which he avowed in some later ' disquisitions,' made his ortho-
doxy doubtful ; but the suspicions seem to have been un-
founded. Jenyns, in fact, is a rather curious example of
the way in which cynicism may sometimes approximate to
asceticism. A man of the world in the eighteenth century, he
was little likely to be in real sympathy with the doctrines of
a Kempis, or the early hermits. But, as a sound Tory, he was
profoundly convinced of the general baseness of mankind, and
uses language about the necessity in politics of ' violence,
fraud, and corruption,' l which occasionally reminds us of
Mandeville. Christianity, he sees, gives a code of morality
different from that of the Walpoles, the Grenvilles, or the
Wilkeses, and though it could not be well carried into prac-
tice, a belief in its authority proved at last a useful basis for
the assault of the current maxims of his adversaries. In fact,
his ascetic tendencies are sufficiently pronounced, not to sug-
gest a retreat from the world or a systematic assault upon its
evils, but to give an edge to the gentle social satire, popular
in the ' Spectator ' and its successors.
17. The argument, thus constructed, was well expressed,
and called attention to an important side of the truth. At an
earlier period, Jenyns had ventured further out of his depth,
and never forgave the criticism to which his escapade had
exposed him. In fact, the graceful essayist undertook to ex-
plain the origin of evil with such success as may be imagined.
' The true solution of this incomprehensible paradox,' he says,
' must be that all evils owe their existence solely to the
necessity of their own natures ; by which I mean they could
not possibly have been prevented, without the loss of some
superior good or the formation of some greater evil than
themselves.' 2 God Almighty does his best ; but he can only
do what is possible. ' Our difficulties arise from our wrong
notions of omnipotence, and forgetting how many difficulties
it has to contend with.' 3 God's existence and supreme good-
ness are so evident, that they may be taken for granted, and
1 Jenyns' s Works, iii. 162. 2 Ib. iii. 37. * Ib. p. 99.
CC 2
3 88 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
therefore all evil is somehow good. This simple-minded
argument is expanded through six letters by the help of an
adaptation of Pope's ' scale of beings,' to which are added the
reflection that things which are imperfect could not be made
perfect without being changed, and a few observations about
evil frequently leading to good. That this trifling should
ever have been taken for an argument is rather surprising ; and,
in fact, it is chiefly memorable now for having given occasion
to Johnson's celebrated review. Johnson was no great meta-
physician ; but he was a moralist of too great depth and force
to be imposed upon by such flimsy optimism. Whilst giving
higher praise than can easily be justified to some of Jenyns's
occasional remarks, he has little trouble in crushing the
suggested consolations. His brief review is a weighty ex-
pression of the disgust with which a man of strong nature and
sad experience of life rejects the pretentious consolation of
sham philosophy. How comfort a soul, weary with unappre-
ciated labour, and saddened by the loss of those nearest and
dearest, by assuring him in verse or prose that
There must be somewhere such a rank as man.
What to a man who has really known poverty, instead of
looking at it from the windows of a family mansion, is the
advantage of disguising its grim name under the alias ' want
of riches,' and declaring that it ' gives more hopes and fewer
fears ' than wealth ? ' There is yet another poverty,' answers
Johnson, ' which is want of necessaries a species of poverty
which no care of the public, no charity of particulars, can
preserve many from feeling openly and many secretly.' l The
poor are insensible to some evils which torment the rich, ' but
this happiness is like that of a malefactor who ceases to feel
the cords that bind him when the pincers are tearing his flesh.' 2
With more generous indignation he rejects the argument,
learnt by Jenyns from Mandeville, that those born to poverty
should not be deprived by an improper education of the
' opiate of ignorance.' Johnson, though as stout a Tory as
Jenyns, will not ' entail poverty upon generation after gener-
ation,' and hopes that the happiness of those whom education
elevates may ' turn the balance against the exacerbation which
1 Johnson's Works (edition 1806), vol. viii. 32. * Ib. p. 33.
II. THE COMMON-SENSE SCHOOL. 389
the others suffer.' l ' I am always afraid,' as he nobly adds,
' of determining on the side of envy or cruelty ; ' he fears lest,
under the appearance of salutary restraints, he may ' be
indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which
delights in seeing others depressed.' l The roughest stroke
of Johnson's satire is suggested by a whimsical speculation of
Jenyns, to the effect that our sufferings may possibly provide
for the pleasure of superior beings. Johnson suggests that
such beings may perhaps ' catch a mortal proud of his parts,'
and spoilt by flattery. They easily fill his head with idle
notions, till they ' make their plaything an author ; their first
diversion commonly begins with an ode or an epistle, then
rises perhaps to political irony, and is at last brought to its
height by a treatise on philosophy. Then begins the poor
animal to entangle himself in sophisms, and flounder in
absurdity, to talk confidently of the scale of being, and give
solutions which himself confesses impossible to be understood.' 2
Indeed, poor Jenyns's fantastic tricks might well make the
angels smile.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
1 8. Whilst speculation was thus avowedly rejected in the
name of common sense, or took forms adapted to amuse the
leisure hours of a fine gentlemen, historical theology showed
little vitality. At such periods, the whimsical writers, in whom
a lawless fancy supplies the place of sound reasoning and en-
quiry, come into the foreground ; and a word or two may be
spent in passing upon the school which, at the middle of
century, represented the influence upon theology of the great
University of Oxford, the source of so many theological move-
ments. The ' Hutchinsonians,' to whom I refer, have a certain
interest from their spiritual genealogy. John Hutchinson, the
founder of the sect, had been an assistant of Woodward, one
of the earliest enquirers into geology, and founder of the
Cambridge professorship. A disagreement had arisen as to
their claims to discovery, and Hutchinson, during the last
years of his life (he died in 1737), had published his own
system of philosophy. His chief work is called ' Moses's
1 Johnson, viii. 36. 2 Ib. viii. 47.
390 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
Principia,' the name indicating that the authority of Moses is
opposed to that of Newton. The ' scripture philosophy ' so it
was called fell into the hands of some young men at Oxford
about the middle of the century, who thought that they had
discovered in its dogmas a weapon for the confutation of ra-
tionalism. The sect, indeed, was not confined to Oxford. One
of the earliest converts, as it seems, was Duncan Forbes, an
eminent Scotch lawyer, whose thoughts on ' Religion ' (pub-
lished posthumously in 1750) are not without a certain impres-
sive earnestness, though embodying many of Hutchinson's
foolish fancies. Other Hutchinsonians were Julius Bate
(1711-1/71), and John Parkhurst (1728-1797), both of them
Cambridge men, and both of them authors of Hebrew dic-
tionaries of reputation l their studies taking, as will be seen,
the course naturally suggested by their philosophy. The chiefs
of the sect at Oxford were George Home, afterwards Bishop
of Norwich ; and William Jones, curate of Nayland in Suffolk.
They were fast friends, and Jones commemorated his old
companion in a biography, touching from the simple loyalty
with which he cherishes the Bishop's reputation. The leading
principles of the Hutchinsonian 'scripture philosophy' are
summarised by Jones in a preface to the second edition of
Home's life. They deserve a moment's attention, only in so
far as the crotchets of weak minds may indicate the general
current of speculation.
19. The Hutchinsonians were combined in an extreme dis-
like for rationalism ; in a fanatical respect for the letter of the
Bible ; and in an attempt to enlist the rising powers of scientific
enquiry upon the side of orthodoxy. The founder of the sect
appears to have shared the early forebodings generated in
some minds by the Newtonian philosophy, and by the pri-
mitive teaching of geologists. The guesses of Woodward,
Thomas Burnet, and Whiston, though far removed indeed
from the conclusions of modern geologists, had suggested a
risk to the authority of the book of Genesis, and Burnet had
given scandal by an inclination to allegorise the first chapters.
Newton's discovery of gravitation, again, had seemed in some
1 Bate's ' Critica Hebra ; or Hebrew-English Dictionary without Points,' ap-
peared in 1767; Parkhurst's 'Hebrew and English Lexicon, without Points,'
in 1762. It went through many editions.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 391
degree to make the hypothesis of divine intervention super-
fluous. The Hutchinsonians, as Jones tells us, were much
given to forming 'diligent collections of fossil bodies,' in
order to prove the Flood. They were frightened by the doc-
trine of a vacuum, and would not allow that ' inert matter '
could be capable of active qualities. Home, in a pamphlet
called ' A Fair, Candid, and Impartial State of the Case
between Newton and Hutchinson,' declares a vacuum to be
the ' absurdest of all doctrines ; ' l some ' ingenious divine,' it
appears, had called a vacuum ' the sponge of all Atheism ; ' 2
whereas Hutchinson had expunged Atheism by demon-
strating that gravitation was caused by a ' universal fluid,'
pervading the ethereal spaces. These theories, inherited from
an extinct metaphysical school, 3 were supplemented by a
strange system of symbolism. By getting rid of the points,
it was somehow possible to make the Hebrew Scriptures mean
a great deal, which had occurred to nobody before the days
of Hutchinson. Everything in nature and in the Bible could
be made to testify to the truth of the Christian dogmas. The
doctrine of the Trinity was proved by the analogy of fire, light,
and air, which, it seems, are component parts of every concrete
phenomenon ; by Ezekiel's reference to the lion, the bull,
and the eagle ; 4 and by a variety of texts ingeniously com-
bined in a 'hundred short arguments,' put together by Jones.
All heathen mythology presented strange analogies to the
mysteries of Christianity ; Cerberus, for example, being a
cherub in disguise ; and the heathen systems generally had
been constructed by ' purloining ' fragments from ' the people
of God,' though the true doctrine having been mixed by the
stealers of ' Atheistical principles,' little is to be found now
in the heathen teaching but ' their own filthy sediment.' *
Jones's writings are chiefly a series of fanciful analogies for
the confutation of infidels and the instruction of infants.
20. Armed with such weapons as these, Jones, who was a
bitter high-churchman, went out to do battle against the
open infidel and the still more dangerous and hateful race
of disguised freethinkers, who, from Arianism, were rapidly
1 Home's Works, vi. 151. 2 Ib. vi. 153.
' * See the same style of argument in Price's ' Dissertation on Providence,' sec. ii.
* Duncan Forbes, p. 148. 5 Jones's Works, i. 384.
392 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
developing into Unitarians. He cannot find words enough to
express his contempt for the religion of nature, and he and
his school generally represent an extreme and childish form
of that dislike to the rationalist theology which was becoming
the characteristic of the orthodox party. They had not yet
learnt to appeal to the authority of the Church after the
fashion of modern high-churchmen, and therefore endeavoured
to shelter behind their queer mixture of crude science and
strained allegorisation of scripture and nature. They had,
however, as full a success as their descendants in opposing
themselves to reason.
21. Home, in his ' Letters on Infidelity,' ventured to attack
the scepticism of Hume. His arguments, wherever they
deviate into originality, are of course childish ; and his most
marked peculiarity is a tendency to personality and to petty
facetiousness. He is very angry with Adam Smith's account
of Hume's last moments ; for the calmness with which the
great philosopher met his end was contrary to all proper
rules. His best witticism I know not whether he was the
first writer to give it currency was the ironical proposal to
omit the ' not ' from the Commandments and place it in the
Creed. That, he thinks, is a fair summary of Hume's philo-
sophy. 1 The ' Letters on Infidelity' were published in 1784.
His services to the Church, or his friendship with Jenkinson,
first Earl of Liverpool, led to his elevation to the bench in
1788 ; but he died in 1791, leaving behind him a reputation
for orthodoxy and amiability, but scarcely for intellectual
vigour.
22. Leaving this little eddy of thought, we may return to
the discussion upon miracles, which, since Hume and Middle-
ton, occupied the ablest writers of the period. A few words
may be first devoted to one curious episode in the controversy,
Hugh Farmer, a popular dissenting preacher, brought up at
Doddridge's celebrated academy, had published in 1761 an
enquiry intended to show that the story of Christ's Tempta-
tion in the wilderness referred to a divine vision, not to an
objective reality. This tolerably harmless theory produced
some of the scandal generally attendant upon the devices by
which the difficulties of a literal adherence to the Bible are
1 Home's Works, vi. 441.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 393
ostensibly obviated with the practical result of making them
more conspicuous. His argument led him to deny that the
Devil could have performed a feat which would have been
rightfully reckoned amongst the 'greatest miracles.' 1 Fol-
lowing out this line of speculation, he produced in 1771 a
' Dissertation upon Miracles.' His reasoning touches a gap
in the ordinary controversies upon the subject, which neither
party was much interested in discussing. Granting, in fact,
that miracles could be proved, how did it follow that they
were of divine origin ? The intervention of superhuman
power being admitted, it does not follow that the power must
be infinite. Sceptics occasionally suggested this difficulty by
way of throwing discredit on the general principle of an his-
torical proof; but were more anxious to assert the absolute
uniformity of the order of nature, whilst divines cared little for
so fanciful a problem. To admit the truth of Christ's resur-
rection, and to deny the truth of his mission, implied a state
of mind too exceptional to justify much examination. The
question, however, turns up occasionally. 2 Bishop Fleetwood,
in a quaint little treatise published in 1701, had maintained
the thesis that God alone works miracles. He did not, in-
deed, deny the reality even of the heathen miracles, but put
them in a lower class, as 'providential,' not 'evidential,' mira-
cles ; that is, as worked by God for some sufficient purpose,
such as the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, but not to authenti-
cate a previous claim to authority. Thus, without restricting
the sphere of the miraculous, he tried to diminish its proving
force ; and, more recently, Chapman had ventured to define the
limits of diabolic power. A devil, in his opinion, was certainly
unable to raise the dead, nor was it likely that he could make
a leg or an arm, or interfere with the motions of the heavenly
bodies. 3 The acquaintance implied with the specific powers
of devils seems to be excessive ; and Farmer's solution was
perhaps more satisfactory.
23. Farmer, like Middleton, illustrates the process by which
1 'Enquiry,' &c., p. 22.
* See, for example, Shaftesbury's 'Moralists,' part il. sec. v, ; Chubb's 'Dis-
course on Miracles;' Clarke's 'Evidences,' c., ii. 698; Chandler, 'Discourse
on Miracles,' pp. 18, 29; Sherlock's Works, i. 181; Prideaux's ' Letter to the
Deists,' p. 113, &c.
* Chapman's ' Eusebius/ p. 844.
394 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
Protestant rationalism gradually developed into a wider scep-
ticism. Middleton, as I have said, has been accused of stealing
from a Protestant controversialist of the seventeenth century,
and Farmer was charged with plagiarism from Le Moine, a
French professor of theology at Leyden, who died in 1689.
Middleton pushes back the date of miraculous intervention ;
Farmer, distinguishing by an adequate test the genuine from
the spurious miracles, tries to narrow as much as possible
the demands upon our faith. A genuine belief in miraculous
agency is always accompanied by a belief in the frequency of
its manifestations so vivid that the later sense of the word
' miracle ' is almost unintelligible. The exceptions become the
law. In the early ages of Christianity the natural world was
supposed to be everywhere in contact with the supernatural ;
and to the popular mind there was no presumption against
phenomena due to the interference of the two orders of exist-
ence. Diseases were explained by the action of evil spirits,
and the only question about miracles was whether they were
of divine or magical origin. During the ages of Catholicism a
whole hierarchy of created beings, angelic, saintly, or dia-
bolical, was a regular and acknowledged part of the machinery
by which the world was administered. Farmer, who was
apparently a man of considerable reading, saw, like Middleton,
that the former prevalence of a belief in miraculous agency
was not an argument for the objective reality of the alleged
.facts, but an explanation of the facility with which the stories
obtained currency. Unwilling, however, to cut away the
foundations of his own faith, by a sweeping application of
this principle, he endeavoured to discover some means of
limiting its operation. The result is a curious compromise,
in which he alternately adopts the arguments of Hume and
of his opponents. ' The visible world,' he says, ' is governed
-by stated general rules, commonly called the laws of nature.' 1
None but the lawgiver can dispense with the laws. Created
beings, however superior to men, must be restrained within
an appropriate sphere ; and experience proves that the
sphere is external to this world. Alleged cases to the
'Contrary are met by Hume's argument. ' None,' he says,
' have ever yet attempted to show that any of the miracles in
1 'Dissertation on Miracles,' p. 2.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 395
question are supported by an evidence superior to the natural
improbability or absurdity of the facts themselves.' J This
dangerous reasoning is, indeed, supported by some a priori
observations on the inconveniences which would result if
beings of less than divine nature were allowed to go about
working miracles. If, for example, the Egyptian magicians
had worked real miracles, the legitimate inference would
have been that Moses was, at most, a stronger magician.
This argument enables him to insist upon the vast importance
of genuine miracles. Men, he urges, would be, and, indeed,
ought to be, convinced by a miracle, even though it were
worked on behalf of an apparently immoral doctrine. For
if a miracle be an unequivocal proof of divine power,
there can be no danger in exalting to the utmost its per-
suasive efficacy. The proof from miracles is thus made out
to be ' decisive and absolute.' 2 Farmer, like the whole
evidential school, imagines that, by isolating and removing
to a distance the manifestations of divine power, he is really
strengthening the evidence.
24. The old difficulty, however, of drawing the line affected
Farmer as much as Middleton. His argument involved him
in long disquisitions intended to meet supposed instances
of diabolic agency. 3 The demoniacs of the New Testament
were merely madmen or epileptics ; and the heathen gods
were not devils, as the fathers suppose, but deified spirits of
dead men. Each of these theorems necessitated a fresh
treatise to meet the assaults of opponents. In the dis-
cussion about the demoniacs, he followed the high medical
authority of Mead, and had little trouble in proving the
belief in bond fide devils as causes of disease to be a popular
superstition. The task of showing that Christ and his
apostles did not share the popular view, and that, for ex-
ample, the devils of Gadara were a mere figure of speech,
was a harder one, and brought him into conflict with various
writers, including the universal champion, Warburton. 4 It
is needless to follow the controversy, and equally needless
1 ' Dissertation on Miracles,' p. 75. z Ib. p. 522.
8 This discussion had been carried on at intervals, (.g. by Church, the opponent
jof Middleton. See his ' Vindication.' Lardner took the same view as Farmer,.
4 Warburton, x. sermon 27.
396 THE LATER THEOLOGY,
to set forth Farmer's views as to the origin of the heathen
gods, and the manner in which they were regarded by St.
Paul and the Hebrews. The discussion belongs to the
antediluvian period of mythology, when a writer could
seriously refer to the ' golden age ' to explain an historical
statement, 1 and speak of the humanity of ' Jupiter, Bel,
and Osiris ' as ' universally known.' 2 Fanner's arguments
.were answered by Fell, a dissenter, and Dr. Worthington, an
Anglican clergyman ; but I shall not attempt to remove
the dust which has settled upon their pages. If here and
there some pulpit orator cherishes a verbal belief in devils,
the mode of thought which could give living interest to such
discussions has utterly disappeared.
25. The difficulties in which Farmer's semi-rationalism
landed him are exemplified by the main current of the
controversy with Hume. Three treatises devoted to his
refutation obtained a certain celebrity. Their authors were
William Adams, afterwards master of Pembroke College,
Oxford ; John Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury ;
and George Campbell, afterwards Principal of Marischal
College. Adams is introduced to us by Boswell as one
whose intimacy with Johnson dated from the old college
days, and seems to have been an amiable and cultivated
man, whose literary efforts were chiefly confined to his
assault upon the great sceptic. Douglas and Campbell were
writers of greater eminence. Douglas exposed Lauder's
attack upon Milton, and Bower's ' History of the Popes ;' he
wielded a serviceable pen in various political disputes ; and,
having witnessed the battle of Fontenoy as an army chaplain,
was sufficiently qualified as a military critic to defend Lord
George Sackville for his failure at Minden. He was a culti-
vated scholar, and is specially commended for the religious
zeal which induced him, when ' not employed in the pulpit,'
always to ' countenance public worship by his presence.'
Campbell was one of the moderate divines in the Scotch
Church, who substituted common-sense philosophy for the
Calvinism of their fathers ; and his claims to be a man of
taste, as well as a theologian, are proved by his ' Philosophy
of Rhetoric.' He endeavoured, moreover, to persuade the
1 Farmer, p. 204. 2 Ib. p. i8o.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 397
Americans that they had no right to throw off their alle-
giance ; but though 6,000 copies of a sermon for that purpose
were distributed in the Colonies, they did not quiet the agita-
tion. All three apologists were sound, solid, and respectable
men, and had every right to be shocked at Hume's audacious
attack upon the foundations of respectable beliefs. Though
none of them were well qualified for metaphysical disputes, their
arguments are interesting illustrations of the attitude taken
up by the apologists imbued with the spirit of semi-rationalist
theology. Equally averse to any belief in the continuous
manifestation of supernatural agency, and to a denial of its
former manifestation, they were exposed to two fires. They
had at once to oppose Wesley and Hume ; though Hume,
of course, was for the time the most prominent in their
thoughts ; and the real problem was that which troubled
Farmer the discovery of a critical canon capable of being
turned against enemies of either class.
26. Adams's ' Essay on Mr. Hume's Essay on Miracles '
is, on the whole, a temperate and able statement of the
ordinary and obvious reply. His arguments are substan-
tially the same as those of Campbell, though more briefly
and modestly expressed. Setting aside the common confu-
sion about evidence and testimony, they come substantially
to this, that an Almighty God can do what he pleases. Hume
has shown that we cannot believe in an effect disproportionate
to its cause ; it is incredible that a physician should raise a
dead man ; for ' a force equal to two cannot produce an effect
equal to two hundred.' l Hume, he supposes, took this for an
argument against miracles ; but the cause supposed in the case
of miracles namely, the divine power is adequate to any
effect ; and, as there is no reason for doubting the probability
of a divine interference for worthy purposes, there is no pre-
sumption against the Christian miracles. Adams argues, in
short, as most apologists have argued before and since his
time, upon the single issue of the credibility of miracles, con-
sidered apart from any general theory of the universe. Grant
that there is no reason for disputing the existence of an in-
visible Supernatural Being, inclined to interfere in the world,
and, of course, the argument against miracles becomes futile.
1 Adams, p. 33. .
393 777.5: LATER THEOLOGY.
But arguments, confined within these narrow limits, are con-
vincing to those alone who are already at the w r riter's stand-
point. The same weakness is inherent in all the answers to
Hume, with the exception of Paley's, whose theory, as we
shall see, really reposed upon a definite theology.
27. Campbell's book, which appeared in 1763, was long
considered to be the ablest reply to Hume ; and derives an
additional interest from the fact that it led to a correspond-
ence with Hume himself. Hume had early laid down the
excellent principle that he would never answer an opponent ;
excellent, not only as a general rule of mental health, but
from the want of any antagonists sufficiently on a par with
him for profitable discussion. In this case, however, he so
far deviated from his rule, as to write a letter to Campbell,
marked by an admirable courtesy, and briefly stating his
position. 1 In a few words he exposed the fallacy which
runs through the most original parts of Campbell's argu-
mentation. Campbell, in fact, rests his case chiefly upon a
distinction which is palpably unphilosophical. He regards
testimony and experience as independent sources of infor-
mation. That ' testimony has a natural and original influ-
ence on belief antecedent to experience will,' he imagines,
' be easily conceded ; ' 2 his reason being that children believe
before they have had any experience as to the value of
testimony. It is, indeed, sufficiently obvious that the belief
conceded to testimony is generally different from the belief
which experience proves to be logically due to testimony.
Hume, of course, admits that children believe their elders
as naturally as a hammer makes ' an impression on clay.' 3
But the logical test of the true value of testimony must, as he
further points out, be derived from experience, and experience
alone. Testimony should be received just so far as we know
by experience that witnesses speak the truth. Campbell,
without explicitly denying this, infers a kind of vague logical
test from the natural credulity of children. Testimony has
a specific virtue, not to be resolved into, and therefore (as he
tacitly assumes) not to be measured by experience. He
meets Hume with the ordinary challenge, to assign grounds
1 The letter is published in the preface to Campbell's book.
2 Campbell, p. 29. 3 Ib. p. 12.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 399
for our belief in the uniformity of nature. If Hume is unable
to deny thai: this belief rests upon a primitive intuition, he
must also (so the rather confused argument seems to run)
admit that a belief in the truthfulness of mankind is a primi-
tive intuition of co-ordinate authority. Such a vague doctrine
disqualifies Campbell from discovering any general test of
the value of evidence. How, in fact, can any testimony be
confuted, if a belief in testimony be an elementary constituent
of our logic ? ' Principally,' replies Campbell, ' in one of two
ways ; by contradictory evidence, or by evidence discredit-
ing the character of the witnesses. 1 This amounts to saying,
except so far as the vague term ' principally ' provides a
loophole for evasion, that, in considering the probability of
any statement, we are to discard from consideration the
contents of the statement. We are bound to believe Livy
equally, whether he asserts that an ox spoke, or that Hannibal
crossed the Alps. We are, in fact, deprived of any inde-
pendent criterion whatever of the value of historical evidence;
and have thus opened a door wide enough to admit any pro-
digies whatever.
28. The most ingenious argument in defence of this para-
dox is one which Campbell borrowed from Butler, and
which has since not unfrequently made its appearance. 2
The chances that a comet will not appear at a given instant in
a given place are, as he says, infinite. The presumption against
the statement is, therefore, as strong as experience can afford ;
and yet, when an astronomer announces the appearance of the
comet, you unhesitatingly believe him. From this he infers
that the evidence resulting from experience, ' even in the
clearest cases, is acknowledged to be so weak, compared with
that which results from testimony, that the strongest con-
viction built merely on the former may be overturned by
the slightest proof exhibited by the latter.' 3 Hume would,
of course, have replied that experience, and nothing but
experience, justifies our belief in the astronomer's statement.
The whole fallacy depends on a confused impression that the
1 Campbell, p. 32. 2 See Butler's Works, i. 211.
8 Ib. i. 43. This argument is the substance of Whately's ingenious sophistry
embodied in the ' Historic Doubts.' It is fully discussed in Mr. Venn's admir-
able ' Logic of Chance ' (second edition), pp. 283, 360.
400 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
phrase ' there are infinite chances against an event ' means
here something more than this : ' We can conceive of an inde-
finite number of other events before the occurrence, and have
no more reason for anticipating one than any other of such
events.' So soon as we have any such reason, the anterior im-
probability disappears. Butler and Campbell have a confused
notion that the improbability is an actual thing, which still
exists, and is overcome by experience. It is merely a state-
ment of our own ignorance ; and the whole wonder is that
knowledge begins when ignorance vanishes. Indeed, the
argument would either prove that we should never believe
anything for the chances against any particular occurrence
are infinite so long as we are in absolute ignorance ; or
else that we should believe everything for no improbability
is allowed any weight against any evidence. Neither con-
clusion would really suit Campbell. The same argument,
expanded at greater length, forms the chief part of the
fourth of Price's ' Dissertations.' Price decides 1 that the same
evidence should be equally decisive in favour of the cure of a
disease by medical or by miraculous agency a logical result
and a reductio ad absurdum of the argument.
29. Leaving this sophistry, however, Campbell is really
blundering round a serious problem, to which Hume himself
had given no satisfactory answer. Why, it is the great
logical problem, does a single experience entitle us in some
cases to predict the occurrence of some phenomena with
absolute certainty, when, in other cases, multiplied experi-
ences leave us in absolute uncertainty ? What, to approach
the problem from another side, is the difference between an
event which is ' contrary to experience,' and an event which
is not ' conformable to experience ? ' The distinction had
been noticed, or, as Campbell puts it, ' artfully suggested,' *
by Hume, and is obviously the very kernel of the argument.
Campbell summarily meets it by the assertion that it is a
distinction without a difference. He says that, on Hume's
logic, no one ought to believe in the existence of a negro
without having seen one ; 3 and that, in fact, the private
experience of each individual, unsupplemented by testimony,
should be the measure of this belief. Laws of nature being
1 Price's ' Dissertations,' p. 425. * Campbell, p. 54. * Jb. p. 49.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 401
only revealed by experience, we have no more reason to
believe that events will obey them, than that any other series
of facts will be established by the same evidence. On Hume's
showing, says Campbell, the new phenomena revealed by
electrical investigations should be as incredible as the raising
of the dead, to a man who has never witnessed either event.
As it would be manifestly absurd to disbelieve in one of
these cases, Campbell assumes that we ought to believe both,
if established by the same evidence ; and, therefore, to evade
incredulity as to miracles, substantially destroys the founda-
tion of all inductive reasoning.
30. Hume's reply is remarkable. He says, ' I find no
difficulty in explaining my meaning, and yet shall not probably
do it in any future edition. The proof against a miracle, as
it is founded on universal experience, is of that species or kind
of proof which is full and certain when taken alone, because it
implies no doubt, as is the case with all other probabilities ; but
there are degrees of this species, and when a weaker proof is
opposed to a stronger, it is overcome.' ! Hume, for once, is
not very clear ; but he is obviously pointing to a distinction,
which is equally important whatever the metaphysical ex-
planation of its nature. Campbell has been driven to accept-
ing a hopeless branch of the dilemma. He has reduced the
world to a mere jumble of incoherent phenomena, in which
any event is as likely to happen as any other, and laws of
nature have been abolished to prove that they may be trans-
gressed. Some keener logic was required to meet the difficulty.
The believer in supernatural interference must show not only
that the interference takes place, but that it is supernatural,
and is therefore as much concerned as his opponent in ex-
hibiting the grounds of distinction between true and false
miracles. Campbell, to ruin his enemy, cuts off the branch on
which he is himself resting.
3 1. The remainder of Campbell's essay consists of the ordi-
nary arguments in favour of miracles worked for religious pur-
poses, and especially of miracles worked in opposition to the
prevalent creed of the time, and therefore in face of prejudiced
spectators. He still speaks of the Pagan, Mahommedan, and
Romanist as the only religions in the world besides the
1 Campbell, p. 12,
VOL. I. D D
402 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
' religion of the Bible ' ; l and urges that the miracle of the
Creation must at least be admitted, whilst the Deluge is proved
by shells dug from the bowels of the earth. 2
32. The apologists thus assume the position that the truth
of miraculous stories must depend exclusively upon the
evidence alleged in each case. Having rejected the criterion
suggested by Hume, which would have involved a denial of
all miracles, they were still bound to find some means for dis-
posing of the miracles alleged by their Catholic and ' enthu-
siastic ' opponents. They could attack the evidence itself by
discrediting or confronting the witnesses ; and any gaps in the
argument could be filled by the convenient, though unphilo-
sophical, assumption, that we ought to believe in miraculous
agency as little as possible. Philosophically speaking, their
canons of evidence would seem to imply that there was really
no meaning in the distinction between miraculous and unusual ;
an earthquake was no more miraculous than the standing still
of the sun ; but their practical unwillingness to accept the su-
pernatural found expression in the rough popular application
of the maxim, Nee deus intersit. God interferes occasionally ;
but it is reasonable to suppose, without troubling oneself too
much about the logical grounds for the hypothesis, that he
interferes as little as can be helped. And thus was constructed
the sufficiently useful canon of historical evidence, that we
are not to believe in a miracle when any other hypothesis
will tolerably account for the facts. The application of this
common-sense scepticism is best given in Douglas's ' Criterion,'
which appeared in 1755. It is addressed to an unnamed
correspondent, said to have been Adam Smith, who was
Douglas's contemporary at Balliol. Douglas deals very briefly
and feebly with the speculative part of the question. Proving
or asserting that we may believe in a conjunction of effects
and causes of which we have no actual experience, and re-
marking that an omnipotent God can do what he pleases, he
conceives himself to have confuted his adversary. The his-
torical part of his essay, however, is curious and well writ-
ten ; and illustrates the mode in which the orthodox writers
sometimes changed swords with their opponents in the scuffle.
Hume, agreeing with Middleton, had stated the evidence in
favour of Vespasian's miracle and the Jansenist miracles as
1 Campbell, p. 142. 2 Ib. p. 206.
///. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 403
strongly as possible, with the view, of course, of showing that
no evidence could persuade us of the truth of such narratives.
Dpuglas accepts the implied challenge by attacking the evi-
dence for the most prominent pseudo-miracles. He condemns
the miracles attributed to Loyola and Xavier as not having
been published till long after the assigned date, in a distant
country, without due examination, and as being incompatible
with contemporary statements. The Jansenist miracles, again,
were, for the most part, such cases of healing as could be
explained by natural causes. He illustrates the singular
influence of an excited imagination over physical processes by
many curious cases. Such are the apparently well-authenti-
cated stories of cures by the royal touch. Douglas had him-
self known one of the patients restored by Queen Anne ; l and
says that her sergeant-surgeon, Mr. Dicken, could testify to
many others. It is indeed a rather curious illustration of the
change in the general sentiment that, whilst Queen Anne still
touched patients for the evil, Dr. Johnson amongst the num-
ber, poor Carte's history was ruined in 1747 by his avowal of
a belief in the reality of the royal virtue ; though it is true
that his superstition was complicated with Jacobitism. Douglas
further cites the cures effected by the stroker, Greatrakes,
about 1662 ; the miracles of the French prophets ; and similar
cases recorded by medical authorities where no miraculous
power was in question. Add the probability of imposture, as
in the case of Januarius' blood, and we have abundant reason
for rejecting all modern miracles.
33. How was it, we may ask, that Douglas was blind to
the sceptical tendency of this argument ? How could he fail
to see that, in proving the Roman Catholic belief in the reality
of miracles worked less than twenty-five years before 2 to be
utterly without a foundation in fact, he was raising a strong
presumption against the validity of the Christian miracles,
worked under circumstances and resting upon evidence far less
favourable to detection ? The answer is partly that he was
answering an infidel the inference had indeed been expressly
made by Bolingbroke 3 and partly that his estimate of the
1 Douglas, p. 203.
2 The miracles were prohibited in 1731. Douglas's book appeared in I75S
8 Bolingbroke, ii. 323.
D D 2
404 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
Christian evidence shows an almost infantile simplicity. He
calmly observes, for example, that it would be ' extremely
impertinent' in him to prove that the books of the New
Testament are of the date assigned to them, and that 'what
was never disputed by the enemies of Christianity in its
earliest age, when opportunities and means of enquiry were
to be had, would be denied with a very ill grace and with very
little probability of success after 1700 years have elapsed.' l
After which calm transference of the burden of proof, he gives
the usual arguments for the competence and integrity of the
witnesses to the Gospel miracles. Had Hume intentionally
laid a trap for the orthodox, he might have congratulated
himself on his success. Douglas's reasoning illustrates most
completely the illusion under which the semi-rationalists at-
tempted to banish from the world all supernatural agency
but that which they favoured in absolute confidence in the
impregnability of their case. After much hesitation, Douglas
inclines to reckon Middleton amongst the imprudent defenders
rather than amongst the lowest assailants of the Church. 2
That a similar imputation might be directed against himself
obviously never entered his head.
34. It must be added, however, that another tacit assump-
tion really blinded these apologists to the tendency of their
arguments. The whole dispute about miracles really resolves
itself into a dispute as to the nature of the universe. With-
out some coherent groundwork of theory the whole argument
becomes hopeless. A simple investigation of logical methods
cannot lead to any satisfactory canons of historical criticism.
Before we can finally judge of the probabilities of a divine
interference in any given case, or series of cases, we must
show what independent reasons we have for believing in a
being likely to interfere with the established order. The
theory which men like Douglas and Campbell tacitly assumed
met with a full exponent in the last great theological writer
of the century. His writings belong to a considerably later
period ; but the general stagnation of speculative thought
allows us to take him as the fullest representative of that form
of theology which was dominant in England during the fifty
years preceding the Revolution.
1 Douglas, p. 282. 2 Ib. p. 413.
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 405
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL.
35. Three men of marked ability, and with a strong family
likeness, were nearly contemporary at Cambridge. John Hey
was eighth wrangler in 1755 ; Richard Watson was second
wrangler in 1759, and William Paley was senior wrangler in
1763. Hey became Norrisian Professor in 1780, and Watson
became Regius Professor of Divinity, succeeding Rutherforth,
in 1771. Though Paley never obtained a similar position, he
lectured on ethics, metaphysics, and divinity, in Christ College,
from 1767 to 1775. The names thus connected give a suffi-
cient indication of the theological tendencies prevalent at the
centre of English theological opinion, for Oxford was then at
the very nadir of intellectual activity. Other indications of the
spirit prevalent at Cambridge will meet us as we proceed.
The system of education then pursued at the University had
some merits, which have, perhaps, disappeared under more
recent changes. Paley, we are told, and can believe, was an
admirable lecturer. 1 He encouraged his pupils to discuss the
principles which he laid down ; and the subjects of instruc-
tion were wide, though the spirit in which they were studied
was sufficiently narrow. Locke, followed by Clarke and
Butler, was the chief authority in metaphysics ; and Locke's
'Reasonableness of Christianity' and 'Paraphrase of the
Epistles ' were the main text-books in divinity. Public disputes
on points of theology and metaphysics formed part of the
exercises for a degree. Paley, for example, under the mode-
ratorship of Watson, argued upon the possibility of reconciling
the divine benevolence with the eternity of punishment, and
appears to have been equally ready to take either side of the
question. In 1762, as Watson tells us, there were disputations
as to the foundation of the right of God over his creatures ; as
to fate and free-will ; and as to the propriety of tolerating
duelling and the liberty of the press. 2 Such arguments,
amongst many other questions, however inadequately treated,
might doubtless afford an excellent variety of mental gym-
nastics ; though we may smile at Watson's prediction that
learning would be ruined at Cambridge when the dinner hour
1 See Life prefixed to Works, p. xi. 2 Watson's ' Anecdotes,' i. 37.
406 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
was later than twelve, and the attendance on the two o'clock
disputations diminished in consequence.
36. The starting-point of the Cambridge school may be
illustrated by Bishop Law's ' Considerations on the Theory of
Religion,' which was published in 1745, and reached a seventh
edition in 1784. Law, who seems to have been an amiable and
learned man, was the father of the first Lord Ellenborough j 1
he was the patron of Paley, and the intimate friend of Black-
burne. During many years he occupied a prominent place at
Cambridge, being Master of Peterhouse and Professor of
Casuistry. He may thus be reckoned as one of the leaders
of that Cambridge school of which Paley was the chief pro-
duct A thoroughgoing disciple of Locke both in politics
and theology, he was certainly not qualified to supply the
defects of his master, and blunders when he tries to be
original. His style, moreover, is heavy and confused, and, in
the later editions at least of his book, long trailers of argu-
ment escape from the text and drag themselves through many
ponderous notes. The book is, for the most part, a reproduc-
tion of the well-worn arguments in defence of the partiality
of revelation. Law, however, gives to it a peculiar turn which
deserves a moment's notice. He is a believer in the continu-
ous progress of the race. He argues that the knowledge of
natural and revealed religion has ' held pace in general with
all other knowledge.' 2 Locke having swept away all innate
ideas, and left to man nothing but a desire for happiness, it
follows (so Law imagines) that all the beliefs which have since
grown up in the human race have been the result of a gra-
dual education. Mankind have been left at liberty to ' form
and dispose of each other,** the wisdom of the arrangement
being obvious from the consideration that the possession of
innate ideas would have made them in some sense necessary
agents. It is, of course, easy to prove that in each stage of
the world, the antediluvian, the patriarchal, the Jewish, and the
Christian, they have had such communications made to them
as they were fitted to receive at the time. The metaphysical
feebleness implied in such an argument is connected with a
1 This relationship led to a curious scene in the well-known trial of Hone by
Ellenborough.
z Law's ' Considerations,' p. 237. * Ib. p. II.
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 407
childlike acceptance of the literal truth of the Scripture nar-
rative. He holds, for example, with Cumberland, that Adam
could always have proved to his descendants that he was the
first man from the absence of a navel. 1 But, feeble as was
Law's speculative ability, and narrow as his critical knowledge,
he is attempting in a crude fashion to strike out that theory
of education of the race which, in abler hands, has played a
conspicuous part in later theology. He sought, in fact, to
reconcile theology with science, by admitting that beliefs
might be developed by a gradual process, instead of springing
full-blown and perfect into the world. The primitive man
is with him so far from being the man of the metaphysi-
cal writers with the law of nature nobly marked upon his
consciousness, that he regards savages as incapable of receiving
Christianity with any good effect. 2 He thus escapes from
Dodwell's dilemma by admitting that Christianity is founded
on argument, but denying that Christianity is universally
necessary, and allowing some good in other forms of religion. 3
Law's desire to reconcile Christianity to scientific views led
him to adopt another tenet, which caused some scandal. He
revived the old theory as to the ' sleep of the soul ' after death.
The meaning of this odd crotchet was, that he absolutely
rejected the value of ' ontological disquisitions,' 4 and refused
to believe that the existence of an immaterial substance
distinct from the body could be demonstrated by the natural
reason. He was anxious to make this doctrine, like all others,
depend upon the evidence of miracles, not upon a priori
reasoning ; and the tendency, as we shall see, was charac-
teristic of the whole school to which he belonged.
37. Watson, like Law, came from the North country, and
was a typical specimen of the sturdy breed which has often
shown its intellectual prowess at Cambridge examinations.
Paley, though born at Peterborough, was brought up from in-
fancy at Giggleswick, in the wild hill district of Craven. Ma-
thematical studies have long been cultivated in that part of
the country, and Paley shows everywhere that masculine, but
rigid, intellect which finds its natural element in mathematical
study. He is the very type of the clear and receptive, rather
1 Law, p. 62. 3 Ib. p. 34.
* Ib. p. 29. 4 Ib. p. 438.
403 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
than originative, reasoners who are predestined to success in
competitive examinations. His admirable lucidity and his
shrewd sense extort our admiration, even whilst we perceive
his blindness to the loftier aspects of religious thought. His
deficiencies fitted him to be the exponent of the frigid
theology of his time ; and we, children of the twilight, are too
often unjust to the man who loves the broad prosaic daylight
and resolutely clears his mind of fog.
38. Of Paley's chief works, the 'Moral and Political
Philosophy ' was published in 1785 ; the ' Horse Paulinae,' his
most acute and original book, in 1790; his 'Evidences of
Christianity' in 1794; and his ' Natural Theology ' in 1802.
Paley died in 1805. Though his last work falls beyond the
limits of this book, I shall speak of it as the best expression
of the theological theory which underlies all the teaching of
the previous period, and as essential to a due estimate of
Paley's position. Paley himself claims to have formed his
works into a system. He has given ' the evidences of natural
religion, the evidences of revealed religion, and an account of
the duties that result from both.' l The ' Natural Theology '
thus lays the basis of the whole structure. The book, what-
ever its philosophical shortcomings, is a marvel of skilful
statement. It states, with admirable clearness and in a most
attractive form, the argument which has the greatest popular
force and which, duly etherialised, still passes muster with
metaphysicians. Considered as the work of a man who had
to cram himself for the purpose, it would be difficult to praise
its literary merits too highly. The only fault in the book,
considered as an instrument of persuasion, is that it is too
conclusive. If there were no hidden flaw in the reasoning, it
would be impossible to understand, not only how any should
resist, but how anyone should ever have overlooked the
demonstration.
39. The argument is familiar, and probably has been
familiar since the first days when it occurred to anyone to
provide a logical basis for theology. Paley himself calls it
' not only popular but vulgar.' 2 The most popular version at
the time was probably Derham's ' Physico-Theology.' 3 The
1 Works, iv. vii. ." 2 Ib. iv. 280.
1 It is the substance of the Boyle Lectures for 1711-2, and anticipates some
IV. PA LEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 409
illustration with which Paley's book opens gives the whole
reasoning. From a watch we infer a watchmaker. 1 From
natural contrivances we should, by the same reasoning, infer
a divine artisan. The whole treatise is an accumulation of
instances illustrative of this theorem. In summing up his
argument, he notices, as the most impressive cases, ' the pivot
upon which the head turns, the ligament within the socket of
the hip joint, the pulley or trochlear muscles of the eye ; the
epiglottis, the bandages which tie down the tendons of the
wrist and instep, the slit or perforated muscles at the hands
and feet, the knitting of the intestines to the mesentery, the
course of the chyle into the blood, and the constitution of the
sexes as extended throughoutthe whole of theanimal creation.' 2
Each of these cases is decisive by itself; the cumulative
effect should make doubt impossible ; and no other solution
can be offered than that which he accepts.
40. Paley's reasoning shows a complete unconsciousness
of the metaphysical difficulties which might be suggested.
Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason ' had appeared in 1781, and
straggling notices of his works were already penetrating into
England. 3 Coleridge, the interpreter of Germany to England,
was thirty years old ; but Paley was beyond the pale. To
Hume's arguments on the same topic he makes no allusion ;
and Spinoza, it may be assumed, was for him the traditional
atheist. To all such matters, the commonplace English
mind, which he so faithfully represented, was profoundly in-
different. We see, however, symptoms of a nervousness as
to the germs of the scientific theory of evolution, which, in our
of Paley's illustrations, though with greatly inferior knowledge. Ray's ' Wisdom
of God manifested in the Works of Creation' (1691) was a similar book of great
popularity.
1 This illustration of the watch had become a commonplace long before Paley
made it his own. He probably adopted it from Tucker, ' Light of Nature,' i. 523,
ii. 83. It may be found in many previous writers ; e.g. Bolingbroke, Works, iii.
188 ; Blackmore's 'Creation' in Chalmers's 'English Poets,' x. 353 ; in Clarke's
Works, i. 6 ; and in Buniet's ' Sacred Theory of the Earth,' book i. ch. iv.
Hal lam, in the ' Literature of Europe,' ii. 385, gives references to Herbert's ' De
Religione Gentilium,' cap. xiii. ; Nieuentyt's 'Religious Philosopher ' (English
translation, 1730), preface, p. xlvi. ; Hales's 'Primitive Origination of Mankind,'
and traces it to a curious passage in Cicero, ' De Natura Deorum,' ii. 34.
2 Ib. p. 352-
* The first publication about Kant is said to have been ' A General Introduc-
tory View,' by Nitsch ; London, 1796. Other books appeared in 1798.
4io THE LATER THEOLOGY.
day, opposes the greatest difficulty to the argument. Part of
the book is levelled against Buffon's ' organic molecules ; ' l and
against the new Lamarckian theory of appetencies, 2 whilst we
already find the name of Darwin connected with a supposed
contrivance for the growth of seeds. 3 He finds it necessary,
moreover, to meet the explanation ' sometimes attempted to
be given," ' that the parts were not intended for the use, but
that the use arose out of the parts.' 4 Already, in fact, there
was dawning the conception of the influence of conditions of
existence to supplant that of supernatural contrivance ; and
biology, like geology, was dimly threatening to break the old
alliance with theology ; yet the danger was hardly perceived.
Paley, for example, can still insist upon the curious coincidence
that animals require sleep, whilst night brings about a periodi-
cal silence. 5 That the night should be the condition which
produced the periodical rest has obviously never occurred to
him. Thus, unsuspicious of possible assaults, Paley is content
to rest his whole case upon the argument from contrivance.
The old ontological argument, so popular in the preceding
generation, is not even mentioned. Clarke, as we have seen,
was still discussed in the schools ; but his weapon rests in the
armoury, and is not produced for practical warfare. That
method of reasoning had fallen into utter desuetude. The
acuteness of Hume had scarcely been appreciated by his
English contemporaries ; and thus the argument for natural
religion, like the argument for revealed religion, is exclusively
the argument from facts.
41. Let us enquire, then, what was the natural comple-
ment to reasoning of this kind. The doctrine of final causes
implies a more or less refined anthropomorphism. It assumes
that we may attribute to the Divine Being purposes and
thoughts more or less resembling our own. According to
Hume's profound remark, the savage infers God from the
apparent interruptions of order, and the philosopher from
order itself. The savage hears God's voice in thunder,
and traces his handiwork in prodigies ; the philosopher
1 Taley, iv. 280.
* Ib. p. 283. Lamarck's ' Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebres,' in which
the doctrine was first mentioned, appeared in 1801.
3 Ib. p. 236. * Ib. p. 44, and ch. v. s Ib. p. 195.
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 411
becomes conscious of a divine power in the force which
whirls the planets in their orbits and determines the fall of
an apple. Paley's theology is intermediate between these
poles. God the thunderer is too childish, God the wielder
of all forces too abstract, a conception for him. He cannot
believe in a deity whose interference is capricious, nor in a
deity of whom nature is the living raiment. But, as a com-
promise, he can accept God the contriver, sufficiently human
to interfere, and yet sufficiently divine to interfere upon
fixed principles. It is in the borderland where we can detect
specific action upon the world, but yet action of a regulated
intelligence, that we can detect the divine workman. God
has been civilised like man ; he has become scientific and
ingenious ; he is superior to Watt or Priestley in devising
mechanical and chemical contrivances, and is, therefore,
made in the image of that generation of which Watt and
Priestley were conspicuous lights.
42. This anthropomorphism comes out curiously in inci-
dental expressions. The arrangement of the 446 known mus-
cles, crossing, perforating, and enveloping each other, must have
required ' meditation and counsel.' l God must have been
decidedly more ingenious than Watt. The problem of making
reptiles, he says, may be thus stated : ' Muscular action and
reciprocal contraction and relaxation being given, to describe
how such animal might be constructed, capable of voluntarily
changing place. Something, perhaps, like the organisation
of reptiles might have been hit upon by the ingenuity of an
artist, or might have been exhibited in an automaton by the
combination of springs, spiral wires, and weights ; but to the
solution of the problem would not be denied, surely, the
praise of invention and successful thought ; least of all would
it ever have been questioned whether intelligence had been
employed about it or not.' 2 Had there been a competitive
examination for the construction of the best form of reptile, the
Almighty artisan would have had every chance of carrying
off the prize.
43. Ingenuity implies limitation. To state a problem
is to impose conditions upon the power of the artist ; and
contrivance is most clearly displayed where the greatest
1 Paley, iv. 84. 2 Ib. p. 191.
412 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
effect is produced with the worst materials. And hence
arises a difficulty which Paley recognises, and endeavours
to meet ; even at the price of apparently admitting that the
God, whose infinite skill he demonstrates, is not the supreme
ruler, but a God working under conditions imposed by a
superior. 1 The problem of creation had been stated by some-
body, ' attraction and matter being given, to make a world
out of them,' 2 and Paley is willing to accept the statement.
It follows from such a mode of approaching the question
that the argument not merely imposes limitations upon God,
but is strongest where the limitations are most narrow. We
have not, Paley says, a knowledge of the chemical parts
of our framework, similar in kind or degree to our know-
ledge of the mechanical part ; and thus the evidence drawn
from the gastric juice, though still capable of supplying ' an
argument in a high degree satisfactory,' 3 is inferior to the
evidence drawn from the construction of an arm. The
instincts, again, are more conclusive than the reason. He
remarks, for example, that he never sees a bird confined to
her nest 'as close as if her limbs were tied down by pins and
wires,' and yet confined only by an internal sensation, without
recognising ' an invisible hand detaining the contented
prisoner from her fields and groves, for the purpose, as the
event proves, the most worthy of the sacrifice, the most
important, the most beneficial.' 4 If, by some mechanical
arrangement, ' pins and wires ' of living flesh had fastened the
incubating bird, the case would have been more decisive as
approximating to the ingenious arrangement which enables
fowls to roost by closing their claws when they bend their
legs. 5 It is the ' undesigned coincidence ' which startles him.
The absence of design in the bird proves its presence in the
creator. It is that quality in the animal world which re-
sembles a self-acting apparatus in human contrivances, upon
which Paley dwells exclusively, and which, indeed, forms his
sole proof of creative energy. Thus the argument collapses
where we might expect it to be strongest ; the existence of
reason is a slighter proof of the Creator than the existence
of instinct ; and a chemical operation less striking than a
Paley, iv. 27. 8 Ib. p. 55.. * Ib. p. 137.
* Ib. p. 28. * Ib. pp. 209, 210.
IV. PA LEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 413
mechanical contrivance. One other remark may be made
in passing. The argument involves the ignoring of the trans-
mission of hereditary influences, and here, as in very similar
moral questions, involves also the fallacies which result from
considering the individual apart from the race. The scep-
ticism which had destroyed the old theological synthesis left
individuals as independent fractions instead of parts of an
organic whole. Thus the question of origins, unsolved in
the scientific sense, left a field for the display of mysterious
energies, which were no longer recognised as operative in the
normal conduct of affairs.
44. The deity thus conceived is obviously a part, almost
a material part, of the universe. He has to make the world
out of the materials provided for him, though, verbally, he
may be supposed to have provided them for himself. Paley
almost seems to think that, if we had more senses, we might
perceive him directly, and thus escape the great difficulty,
which is that ' no man hath seen God at any time.' l Kant
remarks that the argument from final causes involves a
logical leap. Looking back along the series of phenomena
as far as we please, we come to nothing but phenomena ; and
must, therefore, make a sudden spring from the phenomenal
to the transcendental, or limit ourselves to an anthropo-
morphic deity. Paley declines to make the spring. His
God exists in time and space. A scientific induction, as he
seems to imagine, would prove that at some time or other, a
being of indefinite power took rude lumps of matter in his hands,
rolled them into balls, and sent them spinning through space.
So tremendous a catastrophe requires to be moved to as great
a distance as possible ; but it is not to be removed altogether
out of time. Place your creative impulse at any distance you
please, at six thousand or sixty million years, and Paley's God
stands for the aggregate of the preceding forces. Since that
date, the field is open as widely as possible to the researches
of science ; before it everything is hid in a mystery, which we
call God. Paley is content, so long as we admit that it
happened some time or other ; and would allow men of
science to push it as far off as possible. This curious com-
promise, therefore, admits for a brief period of reconciliation
1 Paley, iv. 269.
414 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
between science and theology. God, indeed, has all but be-
come an object of scientific investigation ; had we but a sixth
sense, we might expect actually to detect him in the act of
creating ; and yet science may investigate the working of the
machinery, instead of its original construction, without risk of
meeting the supernatural. The man of science may examine
the functions, though he cannot enquire into the origin of the
organs ; and, similarly, the historian may trace the drama of
history, conscious that Providence will not interfere in the
piece, though it may originally have distributed the parts.
45. I shall speak elsewhere of Paley's moral philosophy.
His ' Evidences of Christianity ' gives the application of his
doctrines to the problem which had been now so long under
discussion. Like his other books, it is a model of clear and
coherent statement. To originality he makes no pretences ;
and yet he gives so able a summary of the apologetic argu-
ment, that his book has almost the force of novelty. His
main authority is the excellent Nathaniel Lardner, a writer
always mentioned respectfully by the orthodox divines,
though he stammered a little over their shibboleth. The
result of many years' painful research was given in Lardner's
' Credibility of the Gospel History,' the five volumes of which
appeared at intervals from 1727-1743. The general design
of the book is to corroborate the New Testament from inde-
pendent sources. Paley had but to select and polish the
weapons provided in this antiquarian armoury. He is per-
fectly candid in avowing his obligations, which suggest one
curious fact. Lardner was substantially arguing against
Collins and Woolston ; and Paley's summary of his results
is still the text-book at Cambridge ; so that the students of
that ancient University are still carefully prepared to meet
the assaults of the deists so often pronounced to have been
extinguished a century ago. In Lardner, the argument,
doubtless, produced genuine conviction ; to Paley they, at
least, afforded a sufficient excuse for accepting the established
creed of the time. We need not enquire what is their effect
upon modern readers.
46. Paley is of course an advocate, and not above an
advocate's arts. He proves, with superfluous energy, what
nobody disputes ; glides gently over weak places ; and gives
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 415
to admissions the air of confident assertions. The argument,
however, if his fundamental assumptions be granted, is sound
enough. His reply to Hume may be compressed into a
sentence ; and embodies the essential consideration, without
those superfluous refinements in which Campbell and Adams
had lost themselves. ' Once believe that there is a God,' says
Paley, ' and miracles are not incredible.' l Amend the state-
ment by saying ' such a God as is asserted in the natural
theology,' and the argument is invincible. Experience the
only test admitted by Hume and by Paley might conceivably
inform us that this world was constructed and regulated
by such an invisible agent as Paley postulates. Hume had
really based his argument on the further statement, that we
have no reason for believing in such a God. Paley assumes
as a fundamental proposition the very theorem which Hume
denies namely, that we have good grounds for belief in an
' intelligent Being,' who may conceivably wish to inform us of
certain facts. The contriver who at one period put together
an arm of flesh and blood, at another period contrived an
ingenious means of communication with his creatures ; the
watchmaker shows his continued skill and activity by making
his clock strike in an unprecedented manner. As the ' bene-
ficent provision' of rain proves a divine contriver, though
many regions are left barren, so the beneficent provision of a
revelation proves the divine lawgiver, though many nations
are left in heathen darkness. 2 The contrivance once put
together, and the religion once revealed, God interferes no
more. ' The seed being sown was left to vegetate ; the leaven
being inserted was left to ferment, and both according to the
laws of nature ; laws, nevertheless, disposed and controlled
by the Providence which conducts the affairs of the universe,
though by an influence altogether inscrutable and generally
undistinguishable by us. And in this Christianity is analogous
to most other provisions for happiness. The provision (is)
made, and being made, is left to act according to laws which,
forming part of a more general system, regulate this par-
ticular subject in common with many others.' 3 Once, in
short, ' fix upon our minds the belief of a God ' (of this sort)
' and after that all is easy.' 3
1 Paley, iii. 6. 2 Ib. p. 384. Ib. p. 408.
4i 6 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
47. The process is easy and coherent. From the ingenuity
displayed in the watch we first infer the maker, and then
when any unexpected movement takes place, we may assume
that the maker is at work, He alone can possess the key
which governs its motions. As, again, Paley finds God in
nature by help rather of small contrivances than of the
general order, so he finds God in religion less from the in-
trinsic excellence of the doctrine than from the disturbance
due to a sudden shock in the working of the machinery. The
end to be gained is in his mind sufficient namely, the revela-
tion of the dogma which with him is the keystone of all
morality. The purpose of the Christian religion, he tells us,
is to establish ' the proof of a future state of rewards and
punishments.' l It was meant to supply ' motives and not
rules, sanctions and not precepts.' J Other articles of the
Christian faith are ' only the adjuncts and circumstances of
this.' 2 The Christian morality, indeed, receives the con-
ventional tribute of praise, partly borrowed from Soame
Jenyns ; but he points out that here there can be no novelty.
Morality being simply a system of rules for the promotion
of public happiness, the effect of actions may be calculated
and rules framed by experience ; and hence a divine revela-
tion would be, strictly speaking, superfluous. 3 The essence
of Christianity is simply the assertion of a fact. Christ
came to tell us that we should go to hell if our actions did
not tend to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest
number ; and the Almighty has contrived a means for giving
him satisfactory credentials. The man at whose order the
clock strikes thirteen must be in the secret of the artificer,
and we may trust his account of a hidden part of the
machinery. Paley's argument is, therefore, exclusively di-
rected to the proof of certain facts. ' The truth of Christ-
ianity depends upon its leading facts, and upon them alone.' 4
The miracles were for the original converts the convincing,
and indeed the sole, arguments ; ' they who acted and suffered
in the cause acted and suffered for the miracles ; for there
was no anterior persuasion to induce them, no prior reverence
or partiality to take hold of. Jesus had not one follower
1 Paley, iii. 211. s Ib. p. 212.
8 Ib. p. 407. * Ib. p. 400.
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 417
when he set up his claim. His miracles gave birth to his
sect.' 1 To prove then that a catastrophe interrupted for a
moment the order of nature is the essence of Paley's argu-
ment ; and admitting, as on his view we must admit, that
there is no a priori incredibility in such an event, we must
further grant that Paley states his case forcibly, and with a
breadth of view not common in apologists.
48. Adopting from the ordinary stock-in-trade of Christian
advocates the theory that the early preachers died in attes-
tation of a certain story, and condensing from Lardner a
considerable mass of testimony to the authenticity of the
original documents, Paley succeeds in proving what no one
would now dispute. He proves, that is, that the early preachers
told a story involving a miraculous element, and substantially
identical with that which we now possess. To the ordinary
arguments in defence of his position he had already added
one of singular elegance and originality in the ' Horae Pau-
linae.' That book may be quoted as the best proof of his
sincerity ; for its reasoning, though defective in places, is so
skilfully arranged that we can hardly doubt its effect upon
the reasoner. It leaves, indeed, like the 'Evidences,' one im-
portant step before his conclusion can be reached ; unluckily
this was just the step which, from his point of view, was the
easiest, whilst from ours it is the most insurmountable. Paley,
in fact, assumes that the belief in the miraculous was not the
result, but the efficient cause, of the disciples' zeal. Had they
not believed, as he says with a certain namett, they might
have lived quietly and comfortably by simply not bearing
witness to a falsehood. Could men, he asks, 'go about
lying to teach virtue ; and, though not only convinced of
Christ's being an impostor, but having seen the success of
his imposture in his crucifixion, yet persist in carrying it on,
and so persist as to bring upon themselves for nothing, and
with a full knowledge of the consequences, enmity and hatred,
danger and death ? ' 2 Obviously, the hypothesis is absurd.
Though an allusion or two is made to the old alternative of
' enthusiasm,' Paley scarcely contemplates any serious answer
except the suggestion of forgery. 3 If, we may say, the
Apostles told the same story which we now have, they must
1 Paley, iii. 180. 2 Ib. p. 169. 8 E.g. pp. 258 and 267.
VOL. I. E E
4 i 8 THE LATER THEOLOGY. .
either have believed it or lied enormously. If they believed,
their belief must have been founded on actual evidence, or
determined by some strong predisposition to the doctrine.
Paley scarcely takes this last hypothesis into account, because
he naturally attributes to the Apostles his own view, that the
miraculous interference, and not the doctrine, was the essence
of their teaching. Granting this, and excluding all presump-
tion against the miraculous, we may assume his conclusion
to be reasonable. He just touches, indeed, an argument
which might have led him further. He accounts for the
incredulity of the Jews by the remark that the belief in
demons was then so common as to afford an easy explanation
of unusual phenomena. 1 He fails, however, to notice the
bearing of this remark upon his own argument, and it must
be admitted that the failure is suspicious.
49. The most curious passage as an illustration of his
point of view is perhaps that in which he accounts for the
failure of later missionaries. ' They have piety and zeal ; '
they have greater learning and education relatively to their
disciples ; their religion is equally superior to those by which
it is confronted ; why do they not succeed ? The only dif-
ference is that Christ and his Apostles had ' means of con-
viction which we have not ; that they had proof to appeal to
which we want.' 2 The assumption that conversions are
effected by argument, and that the only satisfactory argument
is a power of working miracles, is characteristic of Paley's
theory of the genesis of religion. Meagre as it appears to
modern thinkers, it is more or less involved in every concep-
tion of a supernatural revelation.
50. Finally, I may notice that Paley's omissions are as
significant as his assertions. With the instinct of a dialecti-
cian, he masses his forces upon crucial facts, and refuses to be
drawn into the detached fights where victory is to be won
only at the price of complex combinations. He is content
to give up much as irrelevant, and without disavowing the
orthodox assumptions, tacitly regards them as superfluous.
He all along assumes, for example, that the books of the New
Testament are to be treated by the ordinary canons of his-
torical evidence. He makes assumptions quite incompatible
1 Paley, iii. 358 to 363. 2 Ib. p. 331.
IV. PALEY AND HIS SCHOOL. 419
with a belief in verbal inspiration. When, for example, he
argues that a discrepancy amongst the Evangelists no more
affects their credibility than a discrepancy between Clarendon
and Burnet as to the date of Argyle's execution is a reason
for doubting the facts, 1 he assumes that the Evangelists may
contradict each other on details, and implicitly gives up the
concordance-writers. He explicitly asserts again that the
Apostles confirmed the doctrines received by revelation by
arguments and illustrations drawn from their own minds. 2
This remark, insignificant in itself, leads to an important
peculiarity of Paley arid his school.
51. Was Paley, it has sometimes been asked, perfectly sin-
cere ? I venture to believe that he was. So far as one
human being can speak with any approach to confidence of
the thoughts not open to his direct inspection, and, it may
be, not very distinct in the consciousness of the thinker, I
believe that Paley was honestly convinced by his own reason-
ings. I can believe it the more easily because the acceptance
of his conclusions involved so slight a strain upon his imagin-
ation. Paley's natural theology does not imply the acceptance
of a principle which is to meet us at every turn and modify
all our conceptions, but simply an admission that certain
events occurred a long time ago. The series of phenomena
seen by the light of his dogma do not receive a new organic
unity ; it is only that the first terms of the series are modi-
fied. The existence of God becomes, as it were, a ques-
tion for antiquarians, but the problem may be disregarded
when we are investigating the actual government of the world.
Contemporary lawyers settled the British Constitution without
enquiring into the history of Hengist and Horsa ; and Paley's
theology had little more reference to the interests of the day
than the early legends of British history to the relations of
George III. to his Parliament. There is therefore no difficulty
in giving Paley credit for a belief that the death and resur-
rection of Christ were as well proved .as the main facts about
Julius Caesar. One set of statements might be accepted as
easily as the other, for the acceptance or rejection of either
would involve no serious modification in his conceptions of the
universe.
1 Paley, Hi. 347. 2 Ib. p. 353.
EE2
420 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
52. If, however, Paley was so far sincere, some of the
dogmas of his professed creed must certainly have sat very
loosely upon him. His methods of reasoning lead naturally
to the Unitarianism which presents the nearest approach to
a systematic evolution of opinion in the latter half of the
eighteenth century. Controversies about the Trinity pre-
ceeded and accompanied the controversy with the deists.
The passage from Christianity to Deism involves the attempt
to banish mystery from theology, and to replace the God of
revelation by the God of mathematical demonstration. ' Where
mystery begins religion ends ' is the phrase attributed by
Bolingbroke to Foster ; and the sentiment is at least cha-
racteristic of the school. The Arianism of Clarke, Whiston,
and their followers was the result of an attempt to reconcile
Christian dogma to the a priori mode of reasoning ; for it
was manifestly impossible to demonstrate the Supreme Three
in One by pure reasoning. In the later half of the century
a similar difficulty presented itself to the writers who ap-
proached the question from a different side. The truth of
religion rested on the proof of certain facts. Now historical
evidence might be admitted to bear the weight of a series of
events brought about by supernatural agency ; but could it
bear so tremendous a burden as the Incarnation of God ?
Evidence might prove that Christ suffered and rose again ; it
could hardly prove that Christ was God Almighty. The more
the historical view became prevalent, in however crude a shape,
the more impossible it became for the imagination to inter-
polate so tremendous a term into an otherwise natural series
of events. The more it was attempted to place the Gospels
in the same rank with the histories of Tacitus and Thucy-
dides, the more difficult it became to conceive of Christ as
differing in nature from the heroes of Greek and Roman
history. In the earlier period metaphysicians invented Arian-
ism by rejecting the theory that God could possibly be man ;
in the later period evidence-writers invented Unitarianism by
destroying the fancy that man could be God. The discussion
in both cases led to much fencing with texts, now utterly
uninteresting to all reasoning beings ; but the general tendency
is sufficiently clear.
V. THE SUBSCRIPTION CONTROVERSY. 421
V. THE SUBSCRIPTION CONTROVERSY.
53. Unitarianism showed itself both amongst churchmen
and dissenters. In the previous generation, Lardner became
a Socinian, Watts was inclined to Arianism, and Doddridge,
who taught the most celebrated dissenting academy, was at
one time himself inclined to heresy, whilst many of his pupils
subsequently became Unitarians. In the last half of the cen-
tury, Unitarianism became the prevailing creed of the most
intelligent dissenters. Within the borders of the establish-
ment the same tendency was manifest. The theology of
Paley, Hey, and Watson is only nominally Trinitarian, and
their orthodoxy may, with little want of charity, be imputed
to the fact that they attached too little importance to their
dogmas to care for a collision with the Thirty-nine Articles.
There were, however, some men of more tender conscience, of
whom some, such as Lindsey, Wakefield, Jebb, Disney, and
Evanson seceded from the Church, whilst others endeavoured
to break the galling fetters of subscription. Of these last the
leading spirit was Francis Blackburne. The discussion of
which his ' Confessional ' was the chief result had been sim-
mering since the middle of the century. Robert Clayton was
a disciple of Clarke's, with whom he had formed a friendship
just before the philosopher's death, and by whom he had been
presented to Queen Caroline. Her favour, aided by the in-
fluence of Lady Sundon, advanced him to an Irish bishopric
in 1730. In the year 1751 appeared a strange book called
the ' Essay on Spirit,' of which he was either the genuine or
the adopted father. 1 The object of this book was to set forth
a strange kind of metaphysical fetichism. Every particle of
active and attractive matter, it seems, has a spirit united to it
to direct its movements. 2 The whole universe is thus replete
with spirits. God governs through this vast hierarchy of
subordinate beings, 3 of which Christ or the Logos, who is
identified with Daniel's Archangel Michael, 4 is the head. In
a dedication to the primate, the author admits that his opinions
1 See Chalmers's 'Biog. Diet.' 3 Ib. p. 85.
'Essay on Spirit,' p. 11. 4 Ib. p. 75.
422 THE LATER THEOLOGY.
do not quite coincide with those of the compilers of the
Articles and the Liturgy ; but argues that it his duty neither
to submit to the authority of the Church, nor to secede from
every institution marked by human imperfection. 1 He there-
fore concludes to express his sentiments, in a dress not calcu-
lated to disturb the minds of the vulgar, hoping that the
constituted authorities will redress his grievance, and especially
that they will get rid of the Athanasian Creed. In 1756
Clayton tried to carry his principles into effect by moving in
the Irish House of Lords for an omission of the Athanasian
and Nicene Creeds from the Liturgy of the Church of Ireland.
At the same time he gave so much offence by continued
attacks upon the doctrine of the Trinity, in an answer to
Bolingbroke, that a prosecution was commenced against him
in 1757. A meeting of the Irish prelates was summoned ; but
before the appointed time he died of a nervous fever ; his
illness being universally attributed to the excitement caused
by the prosecution.
54. Blackburne took up the cause to which Clayton was
the first martyr. The discussion, indeed, had already begun
by the publication in 1749 of an anonymous book, afterwards
known to be the work of John Jones, Vicar of Allonbury,
Huntingdonshire, called ' Free and Candid Disquisitions re-
lating to the Church of England.' It proposed some moderate
reforms, and excited the wrath of the High Church party.
Jones was defended in 1750 by Blackburne ; but the only
contribution to the controversy which I need mention is the
'Confessional,' which, after being for some years in manuscript,
appeared in 1766, and reached a third edition in 1770. Black-
burne was a sturdy Liberal in politics and theology. He
owed his principles, as he tells us, to the accidental advice of
a ' worthy old lay gentleman,' who said to him : ' Young man,
let the first book thou readest at Cambridge be " Locke upon
Government." ' 2 Through life he was an energetic adherent
of the school of Locke and Hoadly. He was the intimate
friend and biographer of Thomas Hollis, that quaint old
seventeenth-century republican, born by some accident in the
eighteenth. For near fifty years he was rector of Richmond
in Yorkshire and Archdeacon of Cleveland ; any hopes of
1 'Essay on Spirit,' pp. xii. xiii. * Blackburne's Works, i. iv.
V. THE SUBSCRIPTION CONTROVERSY. 423
further preferment being effectually stopped by his avowed
principles. We are told, indeed, that at ' an early period of
his labours as a writer ' he had l made up his mind never
again to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles. His sincerity is
confirmed by the fact that, whilst he received only i5o/. a
year from his benefice, he refused better offers, and amongst
them an offer of 4OO/. a year as successor of Samuel Chandler,
in the dissenting congregation of the Old Jewry. He was a
worthy and stubborn, but unluckily a rather hot-headed and
puzzle-minded, writer. The ' Confessional,' without being long,
succeeds in being oppressively dull. The leading principle,
overlaid by a mass of prolix refutations of all manner of people,
is indeed very simple. It is the application to the political
question of the principles of Locke and Chillingworth. The
Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants, and
therefore a Protestant church has no right to demand any
other subscription than a profession from its pastors that they
receive the Scriptures as the word of God, and will instruct
the people from the Scriptures alone. 2 The history of various
Protestant confessions is traced amidst much confused objur-
gation of opponents ; and the doctrine that the Thirty-nine
Articles may be subscribed in a lax sense is described as an
artifice of Laud's for introducing his Arminian opinions in
spite of the Calvinistic sense of the articles. 3 He objects to
the trimming which led such men as Burnet and Tillotson
to defend the theory that they were ' articles of peace ; ' and
concludes that ' a rev 
