Helvetius, on the question "whether genius ought to be considered as a natural gift, or as an effect of education," says:--
"I am going to examine in this discourse what the mind receives from nature and education; for which purpose it is necessary first, to determine what is here meant by the word Nature. This word may raise in our minds a confused idea of a being or a force that has endued us with all our senses: now the senses are the sources of all our ideas. Being deprived of our senses, we are deprived of all the ideas relative to them: a man born blind has for this reason no idea of colors; it is then evident that, in this signification, genius ought to be considered as a gift of nature. But, if the word be taken in a different acceptation, and we suppose that among the men well formed and endued with all their senses, without any perceivable defect of their organization, nature has made such a remarkable difference, and formed such an unequal distribution of the intellectual powers, that one shall be so organized as to be stupid, and the other be a man of genius, the question will become more delicate. I confess that, at first, we cannot consider the great inequality in the minds of men, without admitting that there is the same difference between them as between bodies, some of which are weak and delicate, while others are strong and robust. What can here occasion such variations from the uniform manner wherein nature operates? This reasoning, it is true, is founded only on a.n.a.logy. It is like that of the astronomers who conclude that the moon is inhabited, because it is composed of nearly the same matter as our earth.--How weak soever this reasoning may be, it must yet appear demonstrative; for, say they, to what cause can be attributed the great disproportion of intellects observable between people who appear to have had the same education! In order to reply to this objection, it is proper first to inquire, whether several men can, strictly speaking, have the same education; and for this purpose to fix the idea included in the word Education. If by education we merely understand that received in the same places, and under the same masters; in this sense the education is the same with an infinite number of men. But, if we give to this word a more true and extensive signification, and in general comprehend everything that relates to our instruction; then I say, that n.o.body receives the same education; because each individual has, for his preceptors, if I may be allowed to say so, the form of government under which he lives, his friends, his mistresses, the people about him, whatever he reads, and in short chance; that is, an infinite number or events, with respect to which our ignorance will not permit us to perceive their causes, and the chain that connects them together. Now, this chance has a greater share in our education than is imagined. It is this places certain objects before us, and in consequence of this, occasions more happy ideas, and sometimes leads to the greatest discoveries. To give some examples: it was chance that conducted Galileo into the gardens of Florence, when the gardeners were working the pumps: it was that which inspired those gardeners, when, not being able to raise the water above the height of 32 feet, to ask him the cause, and by that question piqued the vanity of the philosopher, put in action by so casual a question, that obliged him to make this natural effect the subject of his thoughts, till, at last, by discovering the weight of the air, he found the solution of the problem. In the moment when the peaceful soul of Newton was employed by no business, and agitated by no pa.s.sion, it was also chance that, drawing him under an apple tree, loosened some of the fruit from the branches, and gave that philosopher the first idea of his system on gravitation: it was really this incident that afterwards made him turn his thoughts to inquire whether the moon does not gravitate towards the earth with the same force as that with which bodies fall on its surface? It is then to chance that great geniuses are frequently obliged for their most happy thoughts. How many great minds are confounded among the people of moderate capacities for want of a certain tranquillity of soul, the question of a gardener, or the fall of an apple!"
Of the "exclusive qualities of the Mind and Soul," Helvetius observes:--
"My view in the preceding chapters was to affix clear ideas to the several qualities of the mind, I propose in this to examine if there are talents that must necessarily exclude each other? This question, it is said, is determined by facts; no person is, at the same time, superior to all others in many different kinds of knowledge. Newton is not reckoned among the poets, nor Milton among the geometricians: the verses of Leibnitz are bad. There is not a man who, in a single art, as poetry, or painting, has succeeded in all the branches of it. Corneille and Racine have done nothing in comedy comparable to Moliere: Michael Angelo has not drawn the pictures of Albani, nor Albani painted those of Julius Romano. The genius of the greatest men appears then to be confined within very narrow limits. This is, doubtless, true: but I ask, what is the cause? Is it time, or is it wit, which men want to render themselves ill.u.s.trious in the different arts and sciences? The progress of the human mind, it is said, ought to be the same in all the arts and sciences: the operations of the mind are reduced to the knowledge of the resemblances and differences that subsist between various objects. It is then by observation that we obtain, in all the different kinds of study, the new and general ideas on which our superiority depends. Every great physician, every great chemist, may then become a great geometrician, a great astronomer, a great politician, and the first, in short, in all the sciences This fact being stated, it will doubtless be concluded, that it is the short duration of human life that forces superior minds to limit themselves to one kind of study. It must, however, be confessed, that there are talents and qualities possessed only by the exclusion of some others. Among mankind some are filled with the love of glory, and are not susceptible of any other of the pa.s.sions: some may excel in natural philosophy, civil law, geometry, and, in short, in all the sciences that consist in the comparison of ideas. A fondness for any other study can only distract or precipitate them into errors. There are other men susceptible not Only of the love of glory, but an infinite number of other pa.s.sions: these may become celebrated in different kinds of study, where the success depends on being moved. Such is, for instance, the dramatic kind of writing: but, in order to paint the pa.s.sions, we must, as I have already said, feel them very warmly: we are ignorant both of the language of the pa.s.sions and of the sensations they excite in us, when we have not experienced them. Thus ignorance of this kind always produces mediocrity. If Fontenelle had been obliged to paint the characters of Rhadamistus, Brutus, or Cataline, that great man would certainly have fallen much below mediocrity.... Let a man, for instance, like M. de Fontenelle, contemplate, without severity, the wickedness of mankind; let him consider it, let him rise up against crimes without hating the criminals, and people will applaud his moderation; and yet, at the same instant, they will accuse him of being too lukewarm in friendship. They do not perceive, that the same absence of the pa.s.sions, to which he owes the moderation they commend, must necessarily render him less sensible of the charms of friendship."
The "abuse of words" by different schools of philosophers is thus ably pointed out:--
"Descartes had before Locke observed that the Peripatetics, intrenching themselves behind the obscurity of words, were not unlike a blind man, who, in order to be a match for his clear-sighted antagonist, should draw him into a dark cavern. "Now," added he, "if this man can introduce light into the cavern, and compel the Peripatetics to fix clear ideas to their words, the victory is his own. In imitation of Descartes and Locke, I shall show that, both in metaphysics and morality, the abuse of words, and the ignorance of their true import, is a labyrinth in which the greatest geniuses have lost themselves; and, in order to set this particular in a clear light, instance, in some of those words which have given rise to the longest and sharpest disputes among philosophers: such, in metaphysics, are Matter, s.p.a.ce, and Infinite. It has at all times been alternately a.s.serted that Matter felt, or did not feel, and given rise to disputes equally loud and vague. It was very late before it came into the disputants! heads to ask one another, what they were disputing about, and to annex a precise idea to the word Matter. Had they at first fixed the meaning of it, they would have perceived, if I may use the expression, that men were the creators of Matter; that Matter was not a being; that in nature there were only individuals to which the name of Body had been given; and that this word Matter could import no more than the collection of properties common to all bodies.
The meaning of this word being determined, all that remained was to know, whether extent, solidity, and impenetrability, were the only properties common to all bodies; and whether the discovery of a power, such for instance as attraction, might not give rise to a conjecture that bodies had some properties. .h.i.therto unknown, such as that of sensation, which, though evident only in the organized members of animals, might yet be common to all individuals! The question being reduced to this, it would have appeared that if, strictly speaking, it is impossible to demonstrate that all bodies are absolutely insensible, no man, unless instructed by a particular revelation, can decide the question otherwise than by calculating and comparing the verisimilitude of this opinion with that of the contrary...."
Instructed by the errors of great men who have gone before us, we should be sensible that our observations, however multiplied and concentrated, are scarcely sufficient to form one of those partial systems comprehended in the general system; add that it is from the depth of imagination that the several systems of the universe have hitherto been drawn; and, as our informations of remote countries are always imperfect, so the informations philosophers have of the system of the world are also defective. With a great genius and a mult.i.tude of combinations, the products of their labors will be only fictions till time and chance shall furnish then? with a general fact, to which all others may be referred.
"What I have said of the word Matter, I say also of s.p.a.ce. Most of the philosophers have made a being of it; and the ignorance of the true sense of the word has occasioned long disputes. They would have been greatly shortened by annexing a clear idea to this word; for then the sages would have agreed that s.p.a.ce, considered in bodies, is what we call extension; that we owe the idea of a void, which partly composes the idea of s.p.a.ce, to the interval seen betwixt two lofty mountains; an interval which, being filled only by air, that is, by a body which at a certain distance makes no sensible impression on us, must have given us an idea of a vacuum; being nothing more than a power of representing to ourselves mountains separated from each other, and the intervening distances not being filled by other bodies. With regard to the idea of Infinite, comprehended also within the idea of s.p.a.ce, I say that we owe this idea of Infinite only to the power which a man standing on a plain has of continually extending its limits, the boundary of his imagination not being determinable: the absence of limits is therefore the only idea we can form of Infinite. Had philosophers, previously to their giving any opinion on this subject, determined the signification of the word Infinite, I am inclined to believe they would have adopted the above definition, and not spent their time in frivolous disputes. To the false philosophy of former ages, our gross ignorance of the true signification of words is princ.i.p.ally owing; as the art of abusing them made up the greatest part of that philosophy. This art, in which the whole science of the schools consisted, confounded all ideas; and the obscurity it threw on the expressions, generally diffused itself over all the sciences, especially morality."
The following remarks show Helvetia"s notions of the "love of glory":--
"By the word Strong-Pa.s.sion, I mean a pa.s.sion the object of which is so necessary to our happiness, that without the possession of it life would be insupportable. This was Omar"s idea of the pa.s.sion, when he said, "Whoever thou art, that lovest liberty, desirest to be wealthy without riches, powerful without subjects, a subject without a master, dare to condemn death: kings will then tremble before thee, whilst thou alone shalt fear no person.".... It was the pa.s.sion of honor and philosophic fanaticism alone that could induce Timicha, the Pythagorean, in the midst of torture, to bite off her tongue, that she might not expose herself to reveal the secrets of her sect. Cato, when a child, going with his tutor to Sylla"s palace, at seeing the b.l.o.o.d.y heads of the proscribed, asked with impatience the name of the monster who had caused so many Roman citizens to be murdered. He was answered, it was Sylla: "How," says he, "does Sylla murder thus, and is Sylla still alive?"
"Yes," it was replied, "the very name of Sylla disarms our citizens."
"Oh! Rome," cried Cato, "deplorable is thy fate, since within the vast compa.s.s of thy walls not a man of virtue can be found, and the arm of a feeble child is the only one that will oppose itself against tyranny!"
Then, turning towards his governor, "Give me," said he, "your sword; I will conceal it under my robe, approach Sylla, and kill him. Cato lives, and Rome is again free." If the generous pride, the pa.s.sion of patriotism and glory, determine citizens to such heroic actions, with what resolution and intrepidity do not the pa.s.sions inspire those who aim at distinction in the arts and sciences, and whom Cicero calls the peaceable heroes? It is from a desire of glory that the astronomer is seen, on the icy summits of the Cordileras, placing his instruments in the midst of snows and frost; which conducts the botanist to the brinks of precipices in quest of plants; which anciently carried the juvenile lovers of ihe sciences into Egypt, Ethiopia, and even into the Indies, for visiting the most celebrated philosophers, and acquiring from their conversation the principles of their doctrine. How strongly did this pa.s.sion exert itself in Demosthenes, who, for perfecting his p.r.o.nunciation, used every day to stand on the sea-sh.o.r.e, and with his mouth full of pebbles harangue the agitated waves! It was from the same desire of glory that the young Pythagoreans submitted to a silence of three years, in order to habituate themselves to recollection and meditation; it induced Democritus to shun the distractions of the world, and retire among the tombs, to meditate on those valuable truths, the discovery of which, as it is always very difficult, is also very little esteemed; in fine, it was this that prompted Herac.l.i.tus to cede to his younger brother the throne of Ephesus, to which he had the right of primogeniture, that he might give himself up entirely to philosophy; which made the Athletic improve his strength, by denying himself the pleasures of love; it was also from a desire of popular applause that certain ancient priests renounced the same pleasures, and often, as Boindin pleasantly observes of them, without any other recompense for their continence than the perpetual temptation it occasions,... "The cause," says Cardinal Richelieu, "why a timorous mind perceives an impossibility in the most simple projects, when to an elevated mind the most arduous seems easy, is, because, before the latter the mountains sink, and before the former mole-hills are metamorphosed into mountains.""
The different motives that influence our conduct are thus stated:--
"A mother idolizes her son; "I love him," says she, "for his own sake."
However, one might reply, you take no care of his education, though you are in no doubt that a good one would contribute infinitely to his happiness; why, therefore, do not you consult some men of sense about him, and read some of the works written on this subject? "Why, because,"
says she, "I think I know as much of this matter as those authors and their works." But how did you get this confidence in your own understanding? Is it not the effect of your indifference? An ardent desire always inspires us with a salutary distrust of ourselves. If we have a suit at law of considerable consequence, we visit counsellors and attorneys, we consult a great number, and examine their advice. Are we attacked by any of those lingering diseases, which incessantly place around us the shades and horrors of death? We seek physicians, compare their opinions, read physical books, we ourselves become little physicians. Such is the conduct prompted by a warm interest. With respect to the education of children, if you are not influenced in the same manner, it is because you do not love your son as well as yourself. "But," adds the mother, "what then should be the motive of my tenderness?" Among fathers and mothers, I reply, some are influenced by the desire of perpetuating their name in their children; they properly love only their names; others are fond of command, and see in their children their slaves. The animal leaves its young when their weakness no longer keeps them in dependence; and paternal love becomes extinguished in almost all hearts, when children have, by their age or station, attained to independence. "Then," said the poet Saadi, "the father sees nothing in them but greedy heirs," and this is the cause, adds some poet, of the extraordinary love of the grandfather for his grandchildren; he considers them as the enemies of his enemies. There are, in short, fathers and mothers, who make their children their playthings and their pastime. The loss of this plaything would be insupportable to them; but would their affliction prove that they loved the child for itself? Everybody knows this pa.s.sage in the life of M. de Lauzun: he was in the Bastile; there, without books, without employment, a prey to la.s.situde and the horrors of a prison, he took it in his head to tame a spider. This was the only consolation he had left in his misfortune. The governor of the Bastile, from an inhumanity common to men accustomed to see the unhappy, crushed the spider. The prisoner felt the most cutting grief, and no mother could be affected by the death of a son with a more violent sorrow. Now whence is derived this conformity of sentiments for such different objects? It is because, in the loss of a child, or in the loss of the spider, people frequently weep for nothing but for the la.s.situde and want of employment into which they fall. If mothers appear in general more afflicted at the death of a child than fathers employed in business, or given up to the pursuit of ambition, it is not because the mother loves her child more tenderly, but because she suffers a loss more difficult to be supplied. The errors, in my opinion, are, in this respect, very frequent; people rarely cherish a child for its own sake. That paternal love of which so many men make a parade, and by which they believe themselves so warmly affected, is most frequently nothing more than an effect, either of a desire of perpetuating their names, or of pride of command...... Do you not know that Galileo was unworthily dragged to the prison of the Inquisition, for having maintained that the sun is placed in the centre, and does not move around the earth; that his system first offended the weak, and appeared directly contrary to that text of Scripture--"Sun, stand thou still?" However, able divines have since made Galileo"s principles agree with those of religion. Who has told you, that a divine more happy or more enlightened than you, will not remove the contradiction, which you think you perceive between your religion, and the opinion you resolve to condemn! Who forces you by a precipitate censure to expose, if not religion, at least its ministers, to the hatred excited by persecution? Why, always borrowing the a.s.sistance of force and terror, would you impose silence on men of genius, and deprive mankind of the useful knowledge they are capable of dispensing? You obey, you say, the dictates of religion. But it commands you to distrust yourselves, and to love your neighbor. If you do not act in conformity to these principles, you are then not actuated by the spirit of G.o.d.
But you say, by whom then are we inspired? By laziness and pride. It is laziness, the enemy of thought, which makes you averse to those opinions, which you cannot, without study and some fatigue of attention, unite with the principles received in the schools; but which being proved to be philosophically true, cannot be theologically false. It is pride, which is ordinarily carried to a greater height in the bigot than in any other person, which makes him detest in the man of genius the benefactor of the human race, and which exasperates him against the truths discovered by humility. It is then this laziness and this pride, which, disguising themselves under the appearance of zeal, render them the persecutors of men of learning; and which in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, have forged chains, built gibbets, and held the torch to the piles of the Inquisition. Thus the same pride, which is so formidable in the devout fanatic, and which in all religions makes him persecute, in the name of the Most High, the men of genius, sometimes arms against them the men in power. After the example of those Pharisees, who treated as criminals the persons who did not adopt all their decisions, how many viziers treat, as enemies to the nation, those who do not blindly approve their conduct!"
J. W.
FRANCES W. D"ARUSMONT.
The previous issues of this publication contain notices of the lives and writings of men of eminence in the world of Freethought. This number is devoted to a review of the career and works of a most talented and accomplished lady--a Freethinker and Republican. As a proof--if any proof were needed--that women, if adequately educated, are equally capable with men to become teachers and reformers, the works of the subject of present notice afford abundant evidence. The efforts now being made to procure an adjustment of the laws relating to women, whereby they will be protected in their property, and consequently improved in their social position, deserve the support of all cla.s.ses; When females become independent, there will be less ignorance among women and more happiness among men.
Frances Wright, afterwards Madame D"Arusmont, was a native of Dundee.
She was born on the 6th of September, 1795. She came of a wealthy family, who had been extensive holders of city property from the year 1500. Her father was a man of considerable literary attainments, and to his active antiquarian researches and donations the British Museum is indebted for many rare and valuable coins and medals. He died young, as also his wife, leaving three children--two girls and a boy. Frances was then but two years and a half old. At the wish of her grandfather, General Duncan Campbell, she was taken to England, and reared as a ward of Chancery, under the guardianship of a maternal aunt. She grew to be very tall in person, erect, and of a commanding figure; large eyes, and magnificent head, with a face somewhat masculine, but well formed, and decidedly handsome. Her brother was sent to India, at the age of fifteen, as a cadet in the East India Company"s service, and was killed on the pa.s.sage out in an encounter with a French vessel. Her sister pa.s.sed her life with her, and died in Paris in 1831.
At an early age, Miss Wright gave evidence of great intellectual ability. The education she received was of a very superior kind. She diligently applied herself to the various branches of science, and to the study of ancient and modern letters and the arts, being impelled by a strong desire for knowledge. At the age of nineteen, she published her first work, "A Few Days in Athens." Her attention was early drawn to the sufferings of the lower cla.s.ses, and on reflection she became convinced that some great vice lay at the foundation of the whole of human practice: She determined to endeavor to discover, and a.s.sist in removing it. She read Bocca"s "History of the American Revolution," and resolved to visit that country, it appearing to her young imagination as the land of freedom and hope.--After having familiarised herself with the government and inst.i.tutions of America, she sailed for New York 1818.
She returned to England in 1820, and published a large volume, ent.i.tled "Views of Society and Manners in America." It was dedicated to Jeremy Bentham, and had a large sale. The work being translated into most of the continental languages, she became known to the prominent reformers of Europe.
In 1821, she made her first visit to Paris, and was there introduced to General Lafayette, who, having previously read her work on America, invited her to that city. A republican in all her views and hopes, she was highly appreciated by Lafayette and other eminent supporters of the liberal party in France.--She remained in Paris until 1824, when she returned to the United States, and immediately undertook a project for the abolition of slavery upon a plan somewhat different from any that then engaged the attention of philanthropists. For this purpose she purchased two thousand acres of land at Chickasaw Bluffe, (now Memphis, Tennessee), intending to make a good farm rather than a cotton plantation. She then purchased several slave families, gave them their liberty, and removed them to the farm, residing there herself to direct their labor. Commencing this novel undertaking with all that enthusiasm for which she was remarkable, she continued the experiment some three years and a half, when her health gave way, and, suffering under severe sickness, she made a voyage to Europe for her recovery. During her absence, the farm got involved in difficulties by the influence of her enemies; and finally, the whole project falling through, the negroes were sent off to Hayti at her expense.--She gave much time and money to the carrying forward of this experiment; and though it was a failure, it strikingly exhibited her strong sympathy and benevolence for an oppressed and degraded cla.s.s of beings. Returning from Europe, she went to New Harmony (Indiana) to a.s.sume the proprietorship of a periodical the Harmony Gazette, which had been published under the direction of Robert Dale Owen. In 1828, leaving Mr. Owen in charge of the paper, she began a lecturing tour through the Union; and probably no man, and certainly no _woman_, ever met with such furious opposition. Her views, as announced in her paper, had made her generally known, and, being somewhat new and radically "anti-theological," brought down upon her head the rancor of religious bigotry. As no church or hall would be opened for her, she lectured in theatres; and her ability and eloquence drew great audiences. On one occasion, while preparing to lecture in a theatre at Baltimore, she was threatened with the destruction of her life if she attempted to speak. She calmly replied, that she thought she knew the American people, and for every riotous fanatic that might annoy her, a hundred good citizens would protect her, and she was not afraid to place herself in their hands. She judged rightly. She went to the theatre, which was crammed from pit to ceiling, and lectured to an admiring and enthusiastic audience. In other cities she was not always so fortunate; more or less rioting occurred, while the press, almost without exception, denounced her in the bitterest terms. Subsequently, her paper was removed to New York. Some years afterwards, she again made a lecturing tour, but this time she spoke on subjects of a political nature, and met with a better reception. In addition to lecturing, she conducted a political magazine, ent.i.tled the Manual of American Principles, and was also engaged with Mr. Kneeland in editing the Boston Investigator. She wrote a great deal, and upon many subjects. Among her many works is a tragedy called "Altorf," which was performed on the stage, the princ.i.p.al character being sustained by Mr. James Wallack.
Her last work, of any considerable size, was ent.i.tled "England the Civiliser," published in London in 1847.
Madame D"Arusmont died suddenly in Cincinnati, on Tuesday, December 14, 1852, aged fifty-seven. She had been for sometime unwell, in consequence of a fall upon the ice the previous winter, which broke her thigh, and probably hastened her decease; but the immediate cause of her death was the rupture of a blood vessel. She was aware of her situation, knew when she was dying, and met her last hour with perfect composure. A daughter, her only child, survives her.
In a small work ent.i.tled "Observations on Religion and Civilization,"
are given the following "Definitions of Theology and Religion: in the words and in the things signified. Origin and Nature of Theology:"--
"Theology from the Greek _theos, logos_, renders distinct the meaning of the subject it attempts to treat.--_Theos_, G.o.d, or G.o.ds, unseen beings and unknown causes. _Logos_, word, talk--or, if we like to employ yet more familiar and expressive terms, prattle or chatter. _Talk, or prattle, about unseen beings or unknown causes_, The idleness of the subject, and inutility--nay, absolute insanity of the occupation, sufficiently appears in the strict etymological meaning of the word employed to typify them. The danger, the mischief, the cruelly immoral, and, if I may be permitted to coin a word for the occasion, the _unhumanizing_ tendencies both of the subject and the occupation, when and where these are (as they have for the most part ever been throughout the civilized world) absolutely protected by law and upheld by government, sufficiently appear also from the whole page of history.
Religion, from the Latin _religio, religio_, renders with equal distinctness the things signified. _Religo_, to tie over again, to bind fast; _religio_, a binding together, a bond of union. The importance of the great reality, here so accurately shadowed out, appears sufficiently in the etymological signification of the word. Its utility will be evident if we read, with intelligence, the nature, the past history, the actual condition, and the future destiny of man. But now, taking these two things in the most strict etymological sense of the words which express them, it will readily be distinguished that the first is a necessary creation of the _human intellect_ in a certain stage of inquiry; the second, a necessary creation of the _human soul_ (by which I understand both our intellectual and moral faculties taken conjointly) in any and every state of human civilization. Theology argues, in its origin, the first awakening of human attention to the phenomena of nature, and the first crude efforts of human ingenuity to expound them.
While man sees the sun and stars without observing either their diurnal or their annual revolutions; while he receives upon his frame the rain and the wind, and the varying elements, without observing either their effects upon himself or upon the field of nature around him, he is as the brute which suffers and enjoys without inquiring why it experiences light or darkness, pain or pleasure. When first he puts, in awkward language, to himself or to his fellow, the question _why does such an effect follow such a cause_? he commences his existence, if not as a reasonable being, (a state at which he has not yet arrived) at least _as a being capable of reason_. The answer to this first inquiry of awakening intelligence is, of course, such as his own circ.u.mscribed observation supplies.--It is, in fine, in accordance with the explanation of the old nurse to the child, who, asking, when startled by a rolling peal of thunder--"what makes that noise" was fully satisfied by the reply: "my darling, it is G.o.d Almighty overhead moving his furniture." Man awakening to thought, but still unfamiliar with the concatenation of natural phenomena, inevitably conceives of some huge being, or beings, bestriding the clouds and whirlwind, or wheeling the sun and the moon like chariots through the blue vault. And so again, fancy most naturally peoples the gloom of the night with demons, the woods and the waters with naiads and dryads, elves and fairies, the church-yard with ghosts, and the dark cave and the solitary cot with wizards, imps and old witches. Such, then, is theology in its origin; and, in all its stages, we find it varying in grossness according to the degree of ignorance of the human mind; and, refining into verbal subtleties and misty metaphysics in proportion as that mind exchanges, in its progress from darkness to light, the gloom of ignorance for the ma.s.s of terror."
The nature of belief in the unknowable, and the dire consequences arising from fanaticism, are ably depicted in the following pa.s.sages, selected from Lecture IV., on "Religion:"--
"Admitting religion to be the most important of all subjects, its truths must be the most apparent; for we shall readily concede, both that a thing true, must be always of more or less importance--and that a thing essentially important, must always be indisputably true. Now, again, I conceive we shall be disposed to admit, that exactly in proportion to the indisputability of a truth, is the proof it is capable of affording; and that, exactly in proportion to the proof afforded, is our admission of such truth and belief in it. If, then, religion be the most important subject of human inquiry, it must be that also which presents the most forcible, irrefragable, and indisputable truths to the inquirer.--It must be that on which the human mind can err the least, and where all minds must be the most agreed. If religion be at once a science, and the most true of all sciences, its truths must be as indisputable as those in any branch of the mathematics--as apparent to all the senses as those revealed by the chemist or observed by the naturalist, and as easily referred to the test of our approving or disapproving sensations, as those involved in the science of morals.... Is religion a science?
Is it a branch of knowledge? Where are the _things known_ upon which it rests? Where are the acc.u.mulated facts of which it is compounded? What are the human sensations to which it appeals? Knowledge is compounded of _things known_. It is an acc.u.mulation of facts gleaned by our senses, within the range of material existence, which is subject to their investigation.... Now let us see where, in the table of knowledge, we may cla.s.s religion. Of what part or division of nature, or material existence, does it treat? What bodies, or what properties of tangible bodies, does it place in contact with our senses, and bring home to the perception of our faculties? It clearly appertains not to the table of human knowledge, for it treats not of objects discoverable within the field of human observation. "No," will you say? "but its knowledge is superhuman, unearthly--its field is in heaven." My friends, the knowledge which is not human, is of slippery foundation to us human creatures. Things _known_, const.i.tute knowledge; and here is a science treating of things unseen, unfelt, uncomprehended! Such cannot be _knowledge_. What, then, is it? Probability? possibility? theory?
hypothesis? tradition? written? spoken? by whom? when? where? Let its teachers--nay, let all earth reply! But what confusion of tongues and voices now strike on the ear! From either Indies, from torrid Africa, from the frozen regions of either pole, from the vast plains of ancient Asia, from the fields and cities of European industry, from the palaces of European luxury, from the soft chambers of priestly ease, from the domes of hierarchal dominion, from the deep cell of the self-immolated monk, from the stony cave of the self-denying anchorite, from the cloud-capt towers, spires, and minarets of the crescent and the cross, arise shouts, and hosannas, and anathemas, in the commingled names of Brama, and Veeshnu, and Creeshna, and Juggernaut; heavenly kings, heavenly queens, triune deities, earth-born G.o.ds, heaven-born prophets, apotheosized monarchs, demon-enlightened philosophers, saints, angels, devils, ghosts, apparitions, and sorceries! But, worse than these sounds which but stun the ear and confound the intellect, what sights, oh!
human kind! appal the heart! The rivers of earth run blood! Nation set against nation! Brother against brother! Man against the companion of his bosom! and that soft companion, maddened with the frenzy of insane remorse for imaginary crimes? fired with the rage of infatuated bigotry, or subdued to diseased helplessness and mental fatuity, renounces kindred, flies from social converse, and pines away a useless or mischievous existence in sighings and tremblings, spectral fears, uncharitable feelings and bitter denunciations! Such are thy doings, oh! religion! Or, rather, such are thy doings, oh! man! While standing in a world so rich in sources of enjoyment, so stored with objects of real inquiry and attainable knowledge, yet shutting thine eyes, and, worse, thine heart, to the tangible things and sentient creatures around thee, and winging thy diseased imagination beyond the light of the sun which gladdens thy world, and contemplation of the objects which are here to expand thy mind and quicken the pulses of thy heart!... I will pray ye to observe how much of our positive misery originates in our idle speculations in matters of faith, and in our blind, our fearful forgetfulness of facts--our cold, heartless, and, I will say, _insane_ indifference to visible causes of tangible evil, and visible sources of tangible happiness. Look to the walks of life, I beseech ye--look into the public prints--look into your sectarian churches--look into the bosoms of families--look into your own bosoms, and those of your fellow beings, and see how many of our disputes and dissensions, public and private--how many of our unjust actions--how many of our harsh judgments--how many of our uncharitable feelings--spring out of our ignorant ambition to rend the veil which wraps from our human senses the knowledge of things unseen, and from our human faculties the conception of causes unknown? And oh! my fellow beings! do not these very words _unseen_ and _unknown_, warn the enthusiast against the profanity of such inquiries, and proclaim to the philosopher their futility? Do they not teach us that religion is no subject for instruction, and no subject for discussion? Will they not convince us that as beyond the horizon of our observation we can know nothing, so within that horizon"s the only safe ground for us to meet in public?... Every day we see sects splitting, creeds new modelling, and men forsaking old opinions only to quarrel about their opposites.
"I see three G.o.ds in one, says the Trinitarian, and excommunicates the Socinian, who sees a G.o.d-head in unity. I see a heaven but no h.e.l.l, says the Universalist, and disowns fellowship with such as may distinguish less. "I see a heaven and h.e.l.l also, beyond the stars," said lately the Orthodox friend, and expelled his shorter-sighted brethren from the sanctuary. I seek them both in the heart of man, said the more spiritual follower of Penn, and straightway builded him up another temple, in which to quarrel with his neighbor, who perhaps only employs other words to express the same ideas. For myself, pretending to no insight into these mysteries, possessing no means of intercourse with the inhabitants of other worlds, confessing my absolute incapacity to see either as far back as a first cause, or as far forward as a last one, I am content to state to you, my fellow creatures, that all my studies, reading, reflection, and observation, have obtained for me no knowledge beyond the sphere of our planet, our earthly interests and our earthly duties; and that I more than doubt whether, should you expend all your time and all your treasure in the search, you will be able to acquire any better information respecting unseen worlds and future events than myself."
The philosophical romance, "A Few Days in Athens," though the first of Miss Wright"s works, and written when she was very young, displays considerable power and eloquence. It is the most pleasing of all her writings. It is intended to portray the doctrines of Epicurus, and gives a picture of the Gargettian, in the "Gardens of the Academy," surrounded by his pupils, calculated to counteract many of the popular and erroneous notions entertained of that philosopher"s teachings. The following dialogue between Epicurus and his favorite, Theon, will afford the readers of the "Half-Hours" an opportunity of judging how far Miss Wright has conveyed a truthful idea of Epicurus"s ethical philosophy:--
"On leaving you, last night," said Theon, "I encountered Cleanthes. He came from the perusal of your writings, and brought charges against them which I was unprepared to answer."
"Let us hear them, my son; perhaps, until you shall have perused them yourself, we may a.s.sist your difficulty."
"First, that they deny the existence of the G.o.ds."
"I see but one other a.s.sertion that could equal that in folly," said Epicurus.
"I knew it," exclaimed Theon, triumphantly, "I knew it was impossible.
But where will not prejudice lead men, when even the uptight Cleanthes is capable of slander?"
"He is utterly incapable of it," said the Master; "and the inaccuracy, in this case, I rather suspect to rest with you than with him. To _deny_ the existence of the G.o.ds would indeed be presumption in a "philosopher; a presumption equalled only by that of him who should _a.s.sert_ their existence."
"How!" exclaimed the youth, with a countenance in which astonishment seemed to suspend every other expression.
"As I never saw the G.o.ds, my son," calmly continued the Sage, "I cannot _a.s.sert_ their existence; and that I never saw them, is no reason for my _denying_ it."
"But do we believe nothing except that of which we have ocular demonstration?"
"Nothing, at least, for which we have not the evidence of one or more of our senses; that is, when we believe on just grounds, which I grant, taking men collectively, is very seldom."
"But where would this spirit lead us! To impiety!--to Atheism!--to all, against which I felt confidence in defending the character and philosophy of Epicurus!"
"We will examine presently, my son, into the meaning of the terms you have employed. When you first entered the Garden your mind was unfit for the examination of the subject you have now started: it is no longer so; and we will therefore enter upon the inquiry, and pursue it in order."
"Forgive me if I express--if I acknowledge," said the youth, slightly recoiling from his instructor, "some reluctance to enter on the discussion of truths, whose very discussion would seem to argue a doubt, and"--
"And what then!"
"That very doubt were a crime."