Therefore, G.o.d must have had a designer.
It will thus be seen that Mr. Wendling"s design argument from Catwell and Paley proves entirely too much for his own good, and hence it is that the astute theologians of the day have abandoned Paley and his design argument to their fate, where they have been duly relegated by the incisive logic of the modern materialist.
Finally, Mr. Wendling comes to the moral argument, and in _conscience_ finds proof of the existence of a personal G.o.d. He complacently avers that "G.o.d made man with this omnipresent "I ought" implanted in his nature." Now, in the first place, it is a great mistake that this "I ought" or conscience is _universally_ implanted in man--is "omnipresent," as Mr. Wendling puts it. That there are tribes without the moral sense of conscience, is sustained by the same unimpeachable authorities referred to in proof of the absence in them of any theistic conception or belief; and even in civilized (?) society we unfortunately find an occasional specimen of the _genus h.o.m.o_ with no noticeable trace of that "variable quality" we call conscience.
That conscience is _innate_ in man, and a G.o.d-given faculty, instead of acquired by development, is another convenient a.s.sumption without any substantial foundation. If conscience is a Divine gift to humanity, how is it that consciences differ so widely, not only in _degree_, but in _kind_? If conscience is a Divine "monitor" and "guide" from heaven, why is it that it so often becomes a very blind guide, and leads people into many by-paths? How is it that under the sanction of conscience the most horrid crimes and cruelties against humanity have been committed in the name of G.o.d, its alleged author? How is it, if conscience is an "unerring guide" to conduct, implanted by G.o.d, that it has guided man, in the name of its author, to let out the life blood of his fellow-creatures in rivers, on account of differences of opinion _conscientiously_ entertained? Does G.o.d give one man one sort of conscience and another man another and wholly different sort, leading them in opposite directions, and then prompt the conscience of one to put the other (his fellow) to death for conscience sake and for G.o.d"s sake? If so, it is very questionable work, surely, for a good (?) G.o.d to be engaged in! If G.o.d implants the conscience in man, why not be fair and just and give _all_ men consciences? and give them all the same article? and not give one man a tolerably good article of conscience (the Freethinker, for example) and then go and give others (some of our Christian friends, for example) so poor an article, so to speak--so flexible and elastic--that it allows them to murder, cheat, lie, slander, rob widows and orphans, and run away with other people"s money and other men"s wives without compunction--without any troublesome pangs from this universal "I ought" over which Mr. Wendling grows so eloquent!
The Christian world has been quite long enough teaching an irrational and absurd doctrine about conscience. They not only blunder as to its origin, but as to its nature and functions. Nearly every Christian writer defines conscience as an "inward monitor" to tell us right from wrong; a divine faculty enabling us to "_judge_ between the good and the bad;" a "_guide_ to conduct," &c, &c. In the light of our present mental science this definition of conscience is utterly false. Conscience is not an _intelligent_ faculty at all--it is simply a feeling. By modern metaphysics conscience has been relegated from the domain of the intellect to its proper place among the emotions. Hence it _decides_ nothing, _judges_ nothing as between right and wrong, or anything else, for that is a function of intellect. Conscience, instead of being a "guide" or "judge," is but a blind impulse needing itself to be guided.
It is simply a feeling for the right--a thirsting for the good--but the _intellect_ must decide what _is_ right; and the nature and character of its decisions will depend upon various circ.u.mstances, such as organization, education, &c.; and the decisions of different individuals as to right and wrong will differ as those circ.u.mstances differ. We hear a great deal about "enlightening the conscience;" but it cannot be done.
You might as well talk of enlightening a sunflower, which instinctively turns its head to the light; or a vine, which instinctively creeps up the portico. The intellect, however, may be enlightened. Reason, which is the only and ultimate arbiter and guide to conduct, may be enlightened; and we may thus modify, guide and direct the blind impulses of conscience. The truth is, conscience in man, such as it is, is a development--is acquired rather than innate; has been developed by Nature instead of "implanted" by G.o.d. The moral sense, without doubt, gradually developed in man as he rose in the scale of intelligence.
Where there is little or no intelligence, the moral sense would be inapplicable and incongruous, and is not needed, hence does not exist.
When it is required, Nature, in perfect keeping with all her other adaptations, develops it. Darwin, in the "Descent of Man," vol. i, pp.
68-9, says:--
"The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable--namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man."
On this point John Stuart Mill also has the following in his "Utilitarianism," p. 45:--
"If, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural."
The reader is also referred to "Psychological Inquiries," by Sir B.
Brodie, for further evidence on this subject.
The moral sense, therefore, which exists in a portion of mankind--distinct traces of which are also found in some of the lower animals--has been gradually acquired during the evolution of man from a lower to a higher condition. It has come down to us from primitive barbarism through long ages of hereditary transmission. The "spiritual yearnings" of man"s nature, thought by Christians to prove a G.o.d as their author, have, in like manner, been gradually acquired. These subjective emotions and desires--whether you call them _carnal_ or _spiritual_--are, unquestionably, in the light of modern science, all matters of gradual development, hereditary inheritance, and education.
The great doctrine of EVOLUTION in nature explains them all.
Having thus dealt with the arguments of Mr. Wendling in evidence of a personal G.o.d--a primary a.s.sumption upon which he predicates many other a.s.sumptions--there is little else in his "Reply to Robert Ingersoll"
demanding attention. One or two, however, of his extraordinary a.s.sertions, it may not be amiss to look into a little; especially as Mr.
Wendling, having waxed valiant over the supposed conclusiveness of his arguments, triumphantly throws down the glove to "infidelity" in this wise:--
"To my mind the great central thought of Christianity is that every living soul, of every race, of every clime, of every creed, of every condition, of every color--every living soul is worthy the Kingdom * *
* And here I challenge infidelity. I lay the challenge broadly down. I challenge infidelity to name an era or a school in which this doctrine was taught prior to the advent of the Ideal Man."
Here, again, Mr. Wendling"s orthodoxy is badly out of joint, and his facts at loose ends. This "central thought" that "every living soul is worthy the Kingdom" has no place in Christianity. It is by no means biblical doctrine, however well so humane an idea may fit into Mr.
W."s own mind. Hence, to designate the _brotherhood of man_ the "great central thought of Christianity"--a system which is to consign a majority of mankind to an endless h.e.l.l of fire and brimstone--is purely gratuitous. To claim benevolent fatherhood or brotherhood for a religion which declares that the road to h.e.l.l is "broad," and many shall go in thereat, while the way to Heaven is "narrow," and few shall go in thereat, is to play fast and loose with the Bible. To say that "every soul is worthy the Kingdom," and call this the "great central thought of Christianity," in the face of what the "Word of G.o.d" cheerfully tells us on this subject, is, indeed, a "marvellous flexibility of language,"
which I do not at all propose to tolerate in discussion with "a lawyer,"
"a politician," "a man of the world," or any other man. Hear ye! O!
non-elect, what comforting things the Scripture saith to you on your "future prospects!"
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of G.o.d according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth." "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." (Romans, 8th and 9th Chapters.) "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." (Psalm 58.) "Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep." (John 10.) "Ye be reprobates." (II. Corinth. 13.) "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9.) He hardened their hearts, "That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand." (Mark 4.) "Hath not the potter power over the clay." &c. (Romans 9.) "He that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned."
This is benevolent (?) fatherhood, and the spirit of the _brotherhood of humanity_, with a vengance! We are distinctly told that G.o.d, "from the beginning," has deliberately fixed upon the ultimate misery and destruction of a portion of His hapless creatures; that He moulds them as clay in the hands of the potter; hardens their hearts and blinds their eyes, and then tells them He will d.a.m.n them for not doing what He has prevented them from doing, and what He knows, beforehand, they cannot and will not do! This is what Mr. Wendling calls the "great central thought of Christianity--that "every soul is worthy the Kingdom,""--and he calls loudly upon "infidelity" to name an era or a school in which this doctrine was taught before the "Ideal Man" taught it. He is right! We cannot do it! We may search the philosophies and sacred writings of the Pagans in vain for so fiendish a doctrine.
For pure, unadulterated malevolence, the Vedas, the Shaster, the Zend-Avesta, afford no parallel for this truly Christian doctrine.
If, however, Mr. Wendling challenges us to name an era or school in which the _brotherhood of man_ (as we understand it) was taught before the time of the "Ideal Man," we unhesitatingly accept his challenge.
It was taught by Buddha, Confucius, and numerous Pagan writers and philosophers long before the time of Jesus, for proof of which I refer the reader to Prof. Max Muller, Sir Wm. Jones, Lord, Amberly, &c, or to the writings themselves. Mr. Wendling desires us to "Tell me (him) why it is that all the creeds of Christendom and all the civilized nations unite in accepting the Ideal Man of Christianity despite the laws of climate and of race?"
I will answer this question in the Irishman"s fashion, by asking one or two others. Tell me why it is, if Christianity is a divine system, and its author omnipotent, that, after eighteen centuries of active propagandism and aggression, compa.s.sing sea and land to make proselytes, it has to-day, according to recent statistics, but the meagre following of 399,200,000; while Buddhism has 405,600,000, and Brahmanism, Mohammedanism, etc., 500,000,000? Not nearly one-third of the world"s population Christians, and the number rapidly diminishing! Tell me why it is, if Christianity is true that its foundations are melting down like wax in the light of Modern Science?" Tell me why it is, if the Bible is an inspired book, a divine revelation, that scarcely a single really eminent scientist or scholar of the present day accepts it as such? Tell me why it is that Atheism, Agnosticism, and Rationalism are making such rapid headway among the educated and intelligent, in every civilized country, both in the church and out of it? That the dogmas upon which Christianity rests are doomed; and as Froude, the historian, says, "Doctrines once fixed as a rock are now fluid as water?"* If the Bible can bear the light of science and historical research, how is it that these have already irrevocably sapped its very foundations; and that, as a consequence, the world is completely "honey-combed with infidelity," as a Toronto paper recently a.s.serted of that city? The only answer Mr. Wendling can give to these questions is this: Because Christianity is unable to show its t.i.tles; because the Bible, being human in its origin, and, as a consequence, abounding in errors, both in science and morals, cannot bear the penetrating light of modern science and criticism.
* "Science and Theology, Ancient and Modern."--The International Religio-Science Series.--Rose-Belford Publishing Company, Toronto.
REPLY TO LYNCH
A CRUSHING (?) EDICT FROM ST. MICHAEL"S PALACE.
(_Brutem Fulmen_,)
BY
"Yours in Christ, (Signed), John Joseph Lynch."
Since Ingersoll"s visit to Canada, Archbishop Lynch, of Toronto,-has also felt called upon to issue a bull against the Freethinkers; and, I propose to take this "bull" by the horns and _lynch_ him (I may say _sub rosa_ that the Bulls of Rome were long ago emasculated, yet, strangely enough, they still keep _multiplying_!) Under the circ.u.mstances, I think such a work (lynching the bull) will not be one wholly of _supererogation_,--though it may be more than a _venial_ offence--indeed possibly a _mortal_ sin for which I can get no _absolution_--to presume to criticise an Archbishop, and break a lance with his holy bull! I have, however, desperately resolved to take my chances of purgatory or limbo and go in for the bull.
Some of the Archbishop"s flock, it would seem, had ventured to exercise the natural rights of man to the very modest extent of going to hear Mr. Ingersoll lecture, and also attending some of the meetings of the Toronto _Liberal a.s.sociation_. Hence the fulmination of the aforesaid "bull," wherein his Grace, with that meekness, charity and toleration born of piety and infallibility, orders his people to "avoid all contact with these Freethinkers, their lectures and their writings,"
and threatens all Catholics who "go to the meetings and lectures of the Freethinkers or Atheists" with refusal of "absolution," which priestly function, he patronizingly tells them, he "reserves" to himself.
Now, may we not indulge the hope, in this age of reason, and land of at least professed liberty, and esoteric freedom of conscience, that every man, be he Catholic or Protestant, will look upon this attempted exercise of medieval bigotry and intolerance with practical disregard, and deserved contempt. As for the Freethinkers, they can afford to smile at the impotent Archbishop, who seems to imagine himself in the ninth instead of the nineteenth century, and in Rome or Spain instead of the Dominion of Canada. They can but look at him and his foolish "bull" as most ridiculous anachronisms. On reading this precious doc.u.ment it is plain that all this deputy "Vicegerent of G.o.d" requires to make him a first-cla.s.s modern Torquemada is the power--the outward authority to carry out his subjective hatred of "brutalized" Freethinkers. But this, thanks to science, and consequent civilization, he has not got.
The Rationalist can, therefore, at this day, afford to deride the malevolent, though fortunately impotent, ravings of this zealous bishop of an emasculated Church. He and his Church (the whole Christian Church) are, fortunately for humanity, shorn of their wonted strength, which, in the past, they have used with such fiendish ferocity and brutality on human kind. The day has gone by when the Church may light an _auto-da-fe_ around the body of a Bruno. The time has pa.s.sed when she may thrust a Galileo into prison and force him to recant the sublime truths of Astronomy. She can no longer cast a Roger Bacon into a noisome dungeon because of his scientific investigations. True, she can still, if she choose, excommunicate a Copernicus for what she denounced as his "false Pythagorean doctrine," but that is all. Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Proctor and the rest are safe. This relentless enemy of Science and liberty, and consequently of mankind, can no longer clutch every young science by the throat and strangle struggling truth, which, crushed to earth has risen again in its might; and history will scarcely repeat itself in the case of Bruno the Atheist, or Galileo the Astronomer, or Roger Bacon the Philosopher, or a thousand other victims of this ruthless "Bourbon of the world of thought"--the Church. She may still continue to fulminate her absurd and innocuous _anathemas_, but this is about all. The Holy Inquisition, with its two hundred and fifty thousand human victims; the Crusades with its five millions; the ma.s.sacre of St.
Bartholomew with its fifty thousand; to say nothing of the religious horrors of the Netherlands, of England, Scotland, and Ireland since the reformation--all these holy horrors, let us hope, are "hideous blots on the history of the past never to be repeated." Or will it be said of the future history of Christianity, as has been frankly admitted of its past by one of its ardent disciples, Baxter, that "Blood, blood, blood stains every page?"
The tables are now turning. The Church, to-day, instead of burning unbelievers, and strangling science by immuring in dungeons its votaries, is herself being strangled by science (with no loss of human blood, however). Her cruel theology and irrational dogmas are prostrate, writhing in their death throes, at the feet of the Hercules of modern science and criticism.
A little digression will not be out of order here. Our comic caricaturist at Toronto (of which, on the whole, Canada may feel proud), recently had a cartoon representing the theological Gamaliel of St.
Michael"s Palace, Toronto, strangling the _serpent_ "Freethought."
Now, though usually on the side of truth and impartiality, _Grip_ has undoubtedly, in this case, taken an oblique squint at truth and justice, and has for once, at least, got the cart before the horse. Facts and truth demand that the positions of the gladiators in his cartoon must be reversed, and the zoological nomenclature corrected. And if _Grip_ had read Huxley and Tyndall, and correctly observed the signs of the times, he would scarcely have fallen into this unpardonable error. Let us quote Prof. Huxley on this subject of strangling serpents:--
"It is true that, if philosophers have suffered, their cause has been amply revenged. _Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules_; and history records that, whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget; and, though at present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of sound science; and to visit, with such petty thunderbolts as its half-paralyzed hands can hurl those who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism."--_Lay Sermons_, p.
277-8.
From this, _Grip_ will see that instead of the fair form of reason and Freethought (which he represents as a snake) being strangled by a prelate of the church, it is the serpent, orthodoxy, which is being strangled by the Hercules of science. It is to be regretted that _Grip_, notwithstanding his professions of independence and impartiality, is himself obnoxious to the very moral cowardice he has so often fearlessly and justly exposed in others. Else why does he represent Freethought as a snake? Is it because Freethought is yet comparatively weak in numbers, and unpopular, and because this sort of thing will please the Church, which _is_ popular and powerful? What characteristic of the snake attaches to Freethought or Freethinkers? None; and we fearlessly challenge _Grip_ and the Church on this point. Freethought has none of the reptilian qualities of hypocrisy, cunning or deceit, but is frank and fearless. Amid all the obloquy, denunciation, persecution, social ostracism, calumny, and "holy bulls" hurled at them, Freethinkers have the courage of their opinions; and bear all these, as well as business detriment, for the sake of what they sacredly regard as _truth_.
What does Prof. Tyndall say of Freethinkers and Atheists? To Archbishop Lynch, who, in his p.r.o.nunciamiento, says, "A person who, disbelieves in the Ten Commandments, in h.e.l.l or in Heaven, can hardly be trusted in the concerns of life;" and to _Grip_ who cowardly crystalizes this base a.s.sertion into a baser cartoon, I quote with pride the language of this n.o.ble man, and eminent scholar and scientist. In the _Fortnightly Review_ for November, 1877, Prof. Tyndall says:
"It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of morality, would contrast more than favorably with the lives of those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say "offensive" I refer simply to the intention of those who use such terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious newspapers, has any particular offensiveness to me. If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively unknown; if I wanted a loving father, a faithful husband, an honorable neighbor, and a just citizen, I would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have known some of the most p.r.o.nounced amongst them, not only in life, but in death--seen them approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a "hangman"s whip," with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future depended on their latest deeds."
Let the Archbishop, and _Grip_, and every reader ponder these brave words of so high an authority in defence of the reprobated cla.s.s-stigmatised as "infidels," to which they refer; and then, for corroboration, compare the testimony given with the living facts around them..
The Archbishop says, these "foolish men" (the Freethinkers) are "striving to replunge the world into the depths of Barbarism and Paganism," etc., etc. To those who know that the present att.i.tude of all the great scientists and eminent _savans_ towards the dogmas of the Christian Church, is one of undoubted unbelief and hostility; and who are conversant with the history of the Archbishop"s own church in particular, during the past fifteen centuries,--to them the Archbishop"s vituperation is as foolish as it is ridiculous. From the days of Constantine to this year, 1880, the Church, of which this learned (?) prelate is a representative, has strenuously opposed learning, and r.e.t.a.r.ded civilization; has tolerated no freedom of conscience or liberty of thought, thus narrowing instead of extending the liberty enjoyed in Pagan and Imperial Rome, over whose ruins she reared her tyrannical head. Talk of "Paganism!" His Church needs, as Emerson puts it, "some good Paganism." She left behind her the liberty even of Pagan Rome, her maligned precursor. Renan tells us, "We may search in vain, the Roman law before Constantine, for a single pa.s.sage against freedom of thought, and the history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine." And, Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, tells us that the Romans exercised this toleration in the amplest manner.
"The prosecutions of the Christians by the Pagans, it is now universally conceded by Christian historians, have been greatly exaggerated; Christians have killed, in one day, for their faith nearly half as many heretics as all the Christians put to death by the Pagans during the whole period of the Pagan Empire." (The Influence of Christianity on Civilization, pp. 24-5, Underwood.)
The Archbishop"s Church is, therefore, no improvement in respect of liberty or toleration, on the Paganism he reviles.
What progress the world has made in liberty and civilization, has been made, not with the a.s.sistance of the Christian Church, but in spite of its determined opposition and deadly hostility. Dr. Draper, author of the "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," and other works, tells us that: