"Then you will have the less difficulty in retorting it," said Harrington, coolly. "Pitt"s observation only shows that he had forgotten the true object of the work, or never understood it. For the purposes of refutation, it does not follow that an a.n.a.logy may be easily retorted; it may be, and often is, irresistible. It is when employed to establish a truth, not to expose an error, that it is often feeble.
If Butler had attempted to prove that the inhabitants of Jupiter must be miserable, nothing could have been more ridiculous than to adduce the a.n.a.logy of our planet. But if he merely wished to show that it did not follow that that beautiful orb, being created by infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, must be an abode of happiness, (just the Rationalist style of reasoning,) it would be quite sufficient to introduce the speculator to this ill-starred planet of ours."
There are few who will not acquiesce in this remark of Harrington"s, however they may lament the alternative he seemed disposed to take.
a.s.suredly, for the specific object in view, no book written by man was ever more conclusive than that of Butler. For if you can show to an unbeliever in Christianity, who is yet (as most are) a Theists, that any objection derived from its apparent repugnance to wisdom or goodness applies equally to the "const.i.tution and course of nature," you do fairly compel him (as long as he remains a Theist) to admit that that objection ought not to have weight with him. He has indeed an alternative; that of Atheism or Scepticism; but it is clear he must give up either his argument or his--Theism. It may be called, indeed, an argument ad hominem; but as almost every unbeliever in Christianity is a man of the above stamp, it is of wide application. This is the fair issue to which Butler brings the argument; and the conclusiveness of his logic has been shown in this, that, however easily "a.n.a.logies" may be "retorted,"
the parties affected by it have never answered it. I was amused with the criticism with which Harrington wound up. "Butler," said he, "wrote but little; but when reading him, I have often thought of Walter Scott"s wolf-dog Maida, who seldom was tempted to join in the bark of his lesser canine a.s.sociates. "He seldom opens his mouth," said his master; "but when he does, he shakes the Eildon Hills. Maida is like the great gun at Constantinople,--it takes a long time to load it; but when it does go off, it goes off for something!""
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Aug. 1. I this day put into Mr. Fellowes"s hands the brief notes on the three questions on which he had solicited my opinion. They were as follows:--
I. Mr. Newman says that it is an idle boast that the elevation of woman is in any high degree attributable to the Gospel. "In point of fact,"
says he, "Christian doctrine, as propounded by Paul, is not at all so honorable to woman as that which German soundness of heart has established. With Paul the sole reason for marriage is that a man may without sin vent his sensual desires."
If, indeed, there were no other pa.s.sage in the New Testament than that to which Mr. Newman refers, there might be something to be said for him.
But it is only one of many, and the question really at issue is consequently blinked, namely, what is the aspect of the entire New Testament inst.i.tute upon the relations of woman? It is true, indeed, that the reason for marriage which Mr. Newman contends is the only thing Paul thought about, is very properly urged; for from the const.i.tution of human nature, (as every comprehensive philosopher and legislator would admits) as well as from the horrible condition of things where marriage is neglected, prominence is very justly given to the preservation of chast.i.ty as one of the primary objects of the inst.i.tution. But the question as between Mr. Newman and Christianity is this: Is this the only aspect under which the relations of man and woman are represented to us? That every thing is not said in one pa.s.sage is true enough. From the desultory manner in which the ethics as well as doctrines of the New Testament are expounded to us, and especially from the casual form which they a.s.sume in the Apostolic Epistles, where the particular circ.u.mstances of the parties addressed naturally suggested the degree of prominence given to each topic, we must fairly examine the whole volume in order to comprehend the spirit of the whole, and not take up a solitary pa.s.sage as though it were the only one.
Now, if we examine other pa.s.sages, we cannot fail to see that the New Testament consecrates married life by enjoining the utmost purity, devotion, and tenderness of affection. Look at only one or two of the pa.s.sages in which the New Testament enjoins the reciprocal duties of husbands and wives; what sort of model it proposes for their love.
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it ..... Let every one in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, .... giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life."
Is this like condemning women to be "elegant toys and voluptuous appendages"?
Admitting, for the sake of argument, that the whole of Christianity is a delusion; that Christ never lived, and therefore never died; that he is a more palpable myth than even Dr. Strauss contends for; still it is impossible not to see that the writers of the New Testament represent his love for man as the ideal of pure, disinterested, self-sacrificing affection; this appears whether we listen to the words which the Evangelists have put into his mouth, or those in which they have spoken of him. "Greater love hath non man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends." Now, let there be as much or as little historic truth in such statements, in the doings and sufferings of Christ on behalf of humanity, as you will, the conclusion is irresistible that his conduct (real or imaginary) is set forth as the exhibition of unequalled patience, gentleness, meekness, and forbearance; of a love anxious to purchase, at the dearest cost, the purest and highest happiness of its objects. Now such is the pattern of affection which the Apostles commend to the imitation of "husbands and wives" in their conduct towards one another. Such is to be the lofty standard which their love is to emulate. Is it possible to go further? Does not the fantastical observance, or rather the absolute idolatry of women cherished by chivalry,--itself, however, rooted in the influences of a corrupt Christianity,--look like a caricature beside the picture? And who are the "poets of Germanic culture" who have risen to an equal ideal of the reciprocal duties and sentiments of wedded life? I must contend that so beautiful a picture of a real equality between man and woman,--founded on the love of the common Lord of both,--such a picture of woman"s true elevation, was never realized in the ancient world, nor would have been to this day had not Christianity been promulgated; nor is now, except where Christianity is known, though, alas! not always where it is. But if you think otherwise, beg Mr. Newman to give you a catena of pa.s.sages from the "poets of Germanic culture" (he has not adduced a syllable in proof); and recollect it ought to be from Germanic poets who lived before the Germans were Christians! Or perhaps you would wish to seek the Germanic "sentiment"
towards woman pure in its source, as given in the certainly not unfavorable estimate of Tacitus. In their respect for woman and the stress they laid on chast.i.ty, the ancient Germans transcended without doubt many savages. Still, few readers will suppose there was much reason to boast of the elevation of women, or the presence of much refined "sentiment" between the s.e.xes! As long as women do all the drudgery of house and field work, while their lazy husbands drink and gamble; as long as they are liable (and their children too) to be sold or put on the hazard of a cast of the dice; as long as they are themselves ferocious enough to go out to battle with their husbands; I presume you will think the "Germanic culture" very far short of the "culture" likely to be produced by the New Testament! Well says Gibbon, "Heroines of such a cast may claim admiration; but they were most a.s.suredly neither lovely nor very susceptible of love."
II. Mr. Newman says, that undue credit has been claimed for Christianity as the foe and extirpator of slavery. He says that, at this day, the "New Testament is the argumentative stronghold of those who are trying to keep up the accursed system." Would it not have been candid to add, that the New Testament has ever been also the stronghold of those who oppose it, as well in this country as in America? It is on the express ground to its supposed inconsistency with the maxims and spirit of Christianity, that the great ma.s.s of Abolitionists hate and loathe it.
A public clamor against it was never raised in the days of ancient slavery, nor is now in any country where Christianity is unknown.
The opposition to it in our own country was a religious one; that we know full well; and so is the opposition of the American Abolitionists at the present day. If selfish cupidity, on the one hand, appeals to the New Testament for its continuance, so does philanthropy, on the other, for its abolition; and though in my judgment the inferences of the latter are far more reasonable, the mere fact that both parties appeal to the book shows that the New Testament neither sanctions it--rather the contrary by implication--nor expressly denounces it;--Mr. Newman doubtless can do it safely. This very moderation of language, however, has to many minds, and those of no mean capacity, (the late Dr. Chalmers for example,) been regarded as an indication of the wisdom which has presided over the construction of the New Testament; it was not only a tone peremptorily demanded by the necessary conditions of publishing Christianity at all, but was best adapted,--nay, alone adapted,--in the actual condition of the world in relation to slavery, to make any salutary impression.
Admitting that the great, the primary end of the Gospel was spiritual; that it was the object of the Apostles to obtain for it a dispa.s.sionate hearing among all nations; and that, however they might hope indirectly to affect the temporal prosperity and political welfare of mankind, all good of this kind was in their view subordinate to that spiritual amelioration, which, if affected, would necessarily involve all inferior social and political improvements;--I say, admitting this, it is really difficult to imagine any other course open to a wise choice than that which was actually adopted. I contend, that in not pa.s.sionately denouncing slavery, and in contenting themselves with quietly depositing those principles and sentiments which, while achieving objects infinitely more important, would infallibly abolish it, the Apostles took the wisest course, even with relation to this latter object,--though it was doubtless not the course into which a blind fanaticism would have plunged. To enter upon an open crusade against slavery in that age would have been to render the preaching of the Gospel a simple impossibility, and to convert a professedly moral and spiritual inst.i.tute into an engine of political agitation; it would have afforded the indignant governments of the world--quite prompt enough to charge it with seditious tendencies--a plausible pretext for its suppression. Both the primary and the secondary objects would have been sacrificed; and the chains of slavery riveted, not relaxed. Slavery, in that age, we must recollect, was interwoven with the entire fabric of society in almost all nations. To denounce it would have been a provocation, nay, a challenge, to a servile war in every country to which the zeal of the Christian emissaries might carry the Gospel.
Contenting themselves, therefore, with the enunciation of those principles which, where they are truly embraced, are inconsistent with the permanent existence of slavery, and, if triumphant, insure its downfall, the Apostles pursued that which was their great object; and for those of an inferior order, patiently waited for the time when the seed they had sown broadcast in the earth should yield its harvest.
And surely the event has justified their sagacity. For to what, after all, have just notions on this most important subject been owing, except to this said Christianity? Though it is true that, owing to the imperfect exemplification of its principles by men who profess it, it has not yet done its work, it is doing it; though some Christian nations--more shame for them--have slaves, none but Christian nations are without them. Not only is the sincere admission of the maxims and principles of the New Testament inconsistent with the permanent existence of slavery, but the history of Christianity affords perpetual ill.u.s.trations of its tendency to destroy it. Even during the Dark Ages, even in its most corrupted form, Christianity wrought for the practical extinction of serfdom. Mr. Newman says that it was Christians, not men, that the church sought to enfranchise; it little matters; she sought to abolish all villanage. He says that even Mahometans do not like to enslave Mahometans; I ask, can he find immense bodies of Mahometans who contend that it is Contrary to the spirit, tendencies, and maxims, if not precise letter, of their religion, to enslave any body? For it was such a principle which expressly called forth the abhorrence and condemnation of slavery in our own age and nation. It cannot be denied that the movement by which this accursed system was, after so long a struggle, exterminated amongst us, was an eminently religious one, as regards its main supporters, the ground they took, and the sacrifices they made.
"But Christian nations have defended and practised slavery!" you will say.
They have; and Christian nations have often practised the vices which the "Book" expressly condemns,--just as all nations have practised many things which their codes of morals or laws condemn. The question is whether in the one case the Book, or in the other case the codes, approve them; not, I presume, whether man is a very inconsistent animal.
But no system is made answerable for the violations of its spirit--except Christianity.
Mr. Newman says that slaveholders make the "New Testament the stronghold of the accursed system." It had been more to the purpose if he had pointed out a pa.s.sage or two which recommend it. He knows that it is simply because it does not (for reasons already stated) denounce it, that they say it approves it. Are you satisfied with this reasoning? Then try it on another case,--for despotism is exactly parallel. The New Testament does not expressly denounce that, and for the same reasons; and the arguments for pa.s.sive obedience have been with equal plausibility drawn from its pages. Will the Transatlantic republicans approve despotism on the same authority?
--Despotism has wrought at least as much misery to mankind as slavery, and probably much more. Was it a duty of the Apostles, instead of laying down principles which, though having another object, would infallibly undermine it, to denounce despotism everywhere, and invite all people to an insurrection against their rulers? If they had, the spiritual objects of the Gospel would have been easily understood, and very properly treated. Let me apply the argumentum ad hominem. Mr. Newman has favored the world with his views of religious truth, and the "spiritual" weapons by which its "champion" is to make it victorious over mankind; he has also recorded his hatred of slavery and despotism, where such magnanimity is perfectly safe, and perfectly superfluous.
Let me now suppose you, not only partly, but wholly of his mind, and animated (if "spiritualism" will ever prompt men to do any thing, except, as Harrington says, to write books against book-revelation), --let me suppose you animated to go as missionary to the East to preach this spiritual system: would you, in addition to all the rest, publicly denounce the social and political evils under which the nations groan? If so, your spiritual projects would soon be perfectly understood, and summarily dealt with. It is in vain to say that, if commissioned by Heaven, and endowed with power of working miracles, you would do so; for you cannot tell under what limitations your commission would be given; it is pretty certain that it would leave you to work a moral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means, and not allow you to turn the world upside down, nor mendaciously tell it that you came only to "preach peace," while every syllable you uttered would be an incentive to sedition.
III. The last point on which you ask a few remarks is in relation to the early spread of Christianity. Mr. Newman makes easy work of this great problem. He says, "Before Constantine, Christians were but a small fraction of the empire ..... In fact, it was the Christian soldiers in Constanline"s army who conquered the empire for Christianity." (Phases, p. 162.)
In the first place, supposing the facts just as stated.--namely, that it was the Christian soldiers of Constantine who conquered the empire for Christianity,--who was it that conquered the army for Christianity?
When I find Mahometanism the prevalent religion through the English regiments, I shall shrewdly suspect that the conquest of England for Mahometanism will have been made an easy task, by its having already made equal progress amongst the people generally!
I suppose it will not be denied that the soldiers, by whose aid Constantine achieved this great victory, were themselves professedly converts to Christianity; and Christianity as it had existed in the times of the recent persecutions was not likely to allure men to the profession of arms. I think, therefore, we may fairly a.s.sume, that, if the imperial armies were to any considerable extent--and it must have been ex hypothesi to a prevailing extent--composed of Christians, Christianity had made at least equal progress in the ranks of civil life. The one may be taken as the measure of the other; though we might fairly suppose, both from the principles and habits of the Christians, that they would be found in civil life in a larger ratio. The camp was not precisely the place for them; the Gospel might find them there, it rarely sent them. So that the question returns, How came it to pa.s.s that the bulk of the armies which "conquered the empire for Christianity"
came to be Christians,--at least in name and profession?
"Ah!" you will say, "in name,--but they were strange Christians who became soldiers." Very true; and it makes my argument the stronger. Mere professors of a religious system only follow in the wake of its triumphs.
When those who do not care much for a system profess and embrace it, depend upon it, it has largely triumphed. To suppose, therefore, that Constantine conquered the empire for Christianity, while we admit that the army was already Christian, is very like getting rid of the objection in the way the Irishman proposed to get rid of some superfluous cart-loads of earth. "Let us dig a hole," said he, "and put it in." It is much the same here.
Constantine became a convert, perhaps from conviction, but certainly rather late. Supposing him a political convert, as many have done, it could only be because he saw that Christianity had done its work to such an extent as to render it more probable that it would a.s.sist him than that he could a.s.sist it. This induced him to take it under the wing of his patronage. And on such a theory, what but such a conviction could have justified him in the attempt for a moment? How could he be fool enough to add to the difficulties of his position--a candidate for empire--the stupendous difficulty of forcing upon his unwilling or indifferent subjects a religion which by supposition they were any thing but prepared to receive? If the prospects of Christianity had not already decided the question for him, so far from receiving credit for political sagacity, as he ever has done, he would deserve rather to be considered an absolute idiot!
Again; is it not plain from history in general, and must we not infer it from the nature of the case a priori, that Christianity must in some fashion have conquered its millions before Constantine or any other man was likely to attempt to conquer the empire for Christianity, or to succeed in so doing if he had? Is there an instance on record of a people suddenly, at a moment"s notice, changing its religion, or rather--for this is the true representation--of many different nations changing their many different religions at the simple command of their sovereign, and he too an upstart? In two cases, and in only two, it may be done; first, by an unsparing use of the sword, the brief, simple alternative of Mahomet, Death or the Koran; the other, when the new form of belief has converted the bulk or a large portion of the nation; of which, in this case, the conversion of the army is a tolerably significant indication.
But again; if it be said that the people, or rather the many different nations, abandoned their religions out of complaisance to their sovereign, I answer, Why do we not see the same thing repeated when Julian wished to reverse the experiment? They were not so pliant then; then was it seen very dearly that the people were, as in every other case, unwilling, as regards their religion, to be mere puppets in the hands of their governors. He was animated by at least as strong a hatred of Christianity as Constantine by a love of it.
Yet we see all the way through, that there was not a chance of success for him.
"But there were some persecutions," you will say, "by Constantine."
True, but they were so trifling compared with what would have been required had the conversion of an unbelieving and refractory empire depended on such means, that few who read the history of religious revolutions will believe that they were the cause of the change. Every thing shows that a vast preceding moral revolution in the empire is the only sufficient explanation of so sudden an event. Gibbon himself admits Constantine"s tolerant disposition.
"But," it may be said, "the old heathenism was worn out and effete; no one thought it worth his while to stand up in its defence."
I answer, first, it seems to have been sufficiently loved, or at least Christianity was sufficiently hated, to insure frequent and sanguinary persecutions of the latter, almost up to the eve of Constantine"s accession. Secondly, you are to consider that, though in the schools of philosophers, in the Epicurean or sceptical atmosphere of the luxurious capital and other great cities, there was unquestionably a numerous party to whom the old superst.i.tion was a laughing-stock, there were vast mult.i.tudes to whom it was still, in its various forms, a thing of power. You are to recollect that the Roman empire was made up of many nations, each with a different mode of religion, and to suppose that these different religions had ceased to exercise the usual influence on vast mult.i.tudes of the people would be mere delusion. If they were surrendered at last so easily, it could only be because a great party--antagonistic to each--had been silently forming in each nation, and undermining the power of the popular superst.i.tions. But, thirdly, if the representation were true, to what can so singular a phenomenon--this simultaneous decay of different religions, this epidemic pestilence amongst the G.o.ds of the Pantheon --be ascribed, but to the previous influence of Christianity, and its extensive conquests? And, fourthly, supposing this not the case, and yet that the indifference in question existed, this indifference to the old systems of religion would not presuppose equal indifference to new, or induce the people to embrace them at the mere bidding of their new master. If this were so, we ought to see the same phenomenon repeated in the case of Julian. If, in their presumed indifference to the old and the new, they listened to Constantine when he commanded them to become Christians, why did not they manifest an equally compliant temper when the Apostate enjoined them to become heathens, and like Constantine, gave them both precept and example?
But look at the historic evidence on the subject long before the establishment of Christianity. Is it possible for any candid person to read the Epistle of Pliny to Trajan, and not see in that alone, after making every deduction for any supposed bias under which the letter may have been written (though, in fact, it is difficult to suppose any bias that would not rather lead the writer to diminish the number of the Christians than to exaggerate it),--is it possible, I say, to read that singular state paper, and not feel that the new religion had made prodigious progress in that remote province? and that, a fortiori, if in Bithynia it had conquered its thousands of proselytes, in other and more favored provinces it must have gained its tens of thousands?
To me the letter of Pliny speaks volumes; and if so much could be said at so early a period as A. D. 107, what was the state of things two centuries later?
Precisely the same conclusion must be arrived at if we consult the uniform tone of the Christian apologists, from Justin Martyr to Minucius Felix. Making here, again, what deductions you please for the fervid eloquence and rhetorical exaggerations of such a man as Tertullian, it is too much to suppose even his "African" impetuosity would have ventured, not merely on the virulent invective, the bold taunts, with which he everywhere a.s.sails the popular superst.i.tions, but on such strong a.s.sertions of the triumphant progress of the upstart religion, unless there had been obvious approximation to truth in his statements.
"We were but of yesterday," says he, "and we have filled your cities, islands, towns, and a.s.semblies; the camp, the senate, the palace, and the forum swarm with converts to Christianity." Apologist for Christianity! Unless these words had been enforced by very much of truth, he would have made Christianity simply ridiculous; and Christians would have been necessitated to apologize for their mad apologist.
The same conclusion equally follows from the consideration of those very corruptions of Christianity, which no candid student of ecclesiastical history will be slow to admit had already infected it, many years before Constantine ventured to aid it by his equivocal patronage. It was obviously its triumphant progress,--its attraction to itself of much wealth,--the accession, to a considerable extent, of fashion, rank, and power,--that chiefly caused those corruptions.
So long as the Christian Church was poor and despised, such scenes as often attended the election of bishops in the great cities of the empire would be quite impossible.
Under such circ.u.mstances the argument of Mr. Newman--judiciously compressed into a few sentences--appears to me even ludicrous. How different the course which Gibbon pursues! What a pity that the great historian did not perceive that this statement would have led him equally well to his desired end; that so brief a demonstration would suffice to account for that unmanageable phenomenon, the rapid progress and ultimate triumph of Christianity! He, on the contrary, seems to have read history with very different eyes; and yet I suppose no man will question either his learning or his sagacity. He finds himself obliged to admit the conspicuous advance which the Gospel had made before Constantine"s accession, and employs every nerve to invent sufficient natural causes to account for it. What a facile task would he have had of it, if he had but bethought him that Christianity, instead of having been to an enormous extent successful was, in fact, waiting, in comparative failure, the triumphant aid of a military conqueror! He might then have dispensed with the celebrated chapter, and subst.i.tuted for it the two pregnant sentences by which Mr. Newmen has, in effect, declared it superfluous.
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August 7. Three days ago (the evening before my return home) I managed to prevail upon myself to have a close and formal discussion with Harrington on the subject of his scepticism. We had a regular fight, which lasted till midnight, and beyond. A good deal of it was (in a double sense, perhaps) a nuktomachia. As I had no one to jot down short-hand notes of our controversy,--perhaps it is as well for me and for truth that there was none,--it is impossible that I should do more than give you a succinct summary of its course. But its princ.i.p.al topics are too indelibly impressed on my memory to leave me in doubt about general accuracy.
I hardly know what led to it; I believe, however, it was an observation he made on the different fates of metaphysical and physical science,--the last all progress, and the first perpetual uncertainty. He had been reading a remark of some philosopher who attributed this difference to the more substantial incentives offered to the cultivation of the physical sciences. "So that," said he, "they are, it seems, what our German friends would call "Brodwissenschaften"! Not the brain, as some idly suppose, but the stomach, is the true organon of discovery, and if the metaphysician could but be punctually a.s.sured of his dinner (which has not always been the case), or at all events of a fortune, we should soon have the true theories of the Sublime and Beautiful,--of Ethics,--of the Infinite,--of the Absolute,--of Mind and Matter,--of Liberty and Necessity; whereas I think we should only have a multiplication of doubtful theories."
He remarked that he doubted the truth of the hypothesis in both its parts; that not the want of adequate motives, but the intrinsic difficulty of the subjects, had kept metaphysics back (on what subjects had men expended more gigantic toil?); nor, on the other hand, was it necessity that chiefly impelled man to cultivate physical science; it was the desire of knowledge,--or rather, he added, the love of truth; for what else was his admitted curiosity, in the last resort, unless man is equally curious about falsehood and truth; "that is," said he, laughing, "as curious after ignorance as after knowledge!
No," he continued, "the sciences are made arts for utilitarian purposes; but the sciences themselves have a very different origin. For my own part, I would as soon believe that Sir Isaac Newton excogitated his system of the universe in hopes of being made one day Master of the Mint." I a.s.sented, and, smiling, told him I was glad to find him admit that there was in man a love of knowledge, identical with the love of truth. He said he admitted the appet.i.te, but denied that there was always an adequate supply of food. He admitted that in physical science man seemed capable of unlimited progress; but it seemed doubtful whether this was the case in other directions. "What was there inconsistent with scepticism in that?" he asked.
I answered, that it was not for me to say at what point of the scale a man might become an orthodox doubter; but I was, at all events, glad that he had not gone all the lengths which some had gone, or professed to have gone; who, if they had not reached that climax of Pyrrhonism, to doubt even if they doubt, yet had declared the attainment of all truth impossible. I then bantered him a little on the advantages of "absolute scepticism"; told him I wondered that he should throw them away; and reminded him of the success with which the sceptic might train on his adversary into the "bosky depths"
of German metaphysics,--the theories of Sch.e.l.ling, Fichte, Hegel. "If truth be in any of those dusky labyrinths," said I, "you are not compelled to find her; the more unintelligible the discussion becomes, the better for the sceptic; you may not only doubt, but doubt whether you even understand your doubts. You may play "hide and seek" there for ten thousand years." "For all eternity," was his reply. But he said he had no wish to seek any such covert, nor to play the sceptic.
I told him I was glad to find that his scepticism did not--to use Burke"s expression on another subject--"go down to the foundations."
He answered that he was afraid it did on all subjects really of any significance to man. "As to the present life," he continued, "I am quite willing to accept Bayle"s dictum: "Les Sceptiques ne nioient pas qu"il ne se fallut conformer aux coutumes de son pays, et pratiquer des devoirs de la morale, et prendre parti en ces choses la sur des probabilites, sans attendre la cert.i.tude.""
I was not sorry that he took Bayle"s limits of scepticism rather than Hume"s: I told him so.
Hume, he said, was evidently playing with scepticism; for himself, he had no heart to jest upon the subject. The Scotch sceptic acknowledged that the metaphysical riddles of his "absolute scepticism" exercised, and ought to exercise, no practical influence on himself or any man; that the moment he quitted them, and entered into society, "they appeared to him so frigid and unnatural" that he could not get himself to interest himself about them any further; that a dinner with a friend, or a game at backgammon, put them all to flight, and restored him to the undoubting belief of all the maxims which his meditative hours had stripped him of. It was natural, Harrington said; for such scepticism was impossible. He added, however, that, had Hume been honest, he would never have employed his subtilty in the one-sided way he did; "for," said he, "if his principles be true, they tell just as much against those who deny any religious dogmas as against those who maintain them. Yet everywhere in relation to religion--take the question of miracles, for example--he argues not as a sceptic at all, but as a dogmatist, only on the negative side. If his doctrine of "Ideas" and of "Causation" be true, he ought to have maintained that; for any thing we know, miracles may have occurred a thousand times, and may as often occur again. Hume," he said, "was amusing himself; but I am not: nor can any one really feel--many pretend to do so without feeling at all--the pressure of such doubts as envelop me, and be content to amuse themselves with them."
I found it very difficult to attack him in the intrenchments he had thrown up. I thought I would just try for a moment to act on the Spiritualist"s advice, and, throwing aside all "intellectual and logical processes," all appeals to the "critical faculties," advance "lightly equipped as Priestley himself," making my appeal to the "spiritual faculty." I cannot say that the result was at all what "spiritualism" promises. On the contrary, Harrington parried all such appeals in a twinkling. He said he did not admit that he had any "spiritual faculty" which acted in isolation from the intellect; that religious faith must be founded on religious truth, and even quasi-religious faith on quasi-religious truth. That the intellect and the moral and spiritual faculties (if he had any) acted together, since he felt that he was indivisible, and that the former man be satisfied as well as the latter; that it was so with all his faculties, none of which acted in isolation; that however hunger might prompt to food, he never took what his senses of sight and touch told him was sand or gravel; that if he indulged love, or pity, or anger, it was only as the senses and the imagination and the understanding were busied with objects adequate to elicit them; that if beautiful poetry excited emotion, it was only as he understood the meaning and connection of the words. "And what else are you doing now, while urging me to realize by direct "insight," by "gazing" on "spiritual truth," and so forth, the things you wish me to realize, --I say what are you doing but appealing to me, through these same media of the senses and the imagination, by rhetoric and logic? How else can you gain any access to my supposed "spiritual faculties"?"
I replied, that even the spiritualist did that,--he endeavored to convince men, I supposed. "Yes," he replied, laughing, "because he is privileged doubly to abuse logic at one and the same time; to abuse it in one sense as a fallacious instrument of religious conviction in the hands of others, and to abuse it in another sense, as an instrument of fallacious conviction in his own. But you are not so privileged."