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Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume | |
PAMPHILUS TO HERMIPPUS | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>It has been remarked, my HERMIPPUS, that though the ancient philosophers | |
conveyed most of their instruction in the form of dialogue, this method | |
of composition has been little practised in later ages, and has seldom | |
succeeded in the hands of those who have attempted it. Accurate and | |
regular argument, indeed, such as is now expected of philosophical | |
inquirers, naturally throws a man into the methodical and didactic | |
manner; where he can immediately, without preparation, explain the point | |
at which he aims; and thence proceed, without interruption, to deduce | |
the proofs on which it is established. To deliver a SYSTEM in | |
conversation, scarcely appears natural; and while the dialogue-writer | |
desires, by departing from the direct style of composition, to give a | |
freer air to his performance, and avoid the appearance of Author and | |
Reader, he is apt to run into a worse inconvenience, and convey the | |
image of Pedagogue and Pupil. Or, if he carries on the dispute in the | |
natural spirit of good company, by throwing in a variety of topics, and | |
preserving a proper balance among the speakers, he often loses so much | |
time in preparations and transitions, that the reader will scarcely | |
think himself compensated, by all the graces of dialogue, for the order, | |
brevity, and precision, which are sacrificed to them. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>There are some subjects, however, to which dialogue-writing is peculiarly | |
adapted, and where it is still preferable to the direct and simple method | |
of composition. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>Any point of doctrine, which is so obvious that it scarcely admits of | |
dispute, but at the same time so important that it cannot be too often | |
inculcated, seems to require some such method of handling it; where the | |
novelty of the manner may compensate the triteness of the subject; where | |
the vivacity of conversation may enforce the precept; and where the | |
variety of lights, presented by various personages and characters, may | |
appear neither tedious nor redundant. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>Any question of philosophy, on the other hand, which is so OBSCURE and | |
UNCERTAIN, that human reason can reach no fixed determination with regard | |
to it; if it should be treated at all, seems to lead us naturally into | |
the style of dialogue and conversation. Reasonable men may be allowed to | |
differ, where no one can reasonably be positive. Opposite sentiments, | |
even without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement; and if the | |
subject be curious and interesting, the book carries us, in a manner, | |
into company; and unites the two greatest and purest pleasures of human | |
life, study and society. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>Happily, these circumstances are all to be found in the subject of | |
NATURAL RELIGION. What truth so obvious, so certain, as the being of a | |
God, which the most ignorant ages have acknowledged, for which the most | |
refined geniuses have ambitiously striven to produce new proofs and | |
arguments? What truth so important as this, which is the ground of all | |
our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, the firmest support of | |
society, and the only principle which ought never to be a moment absent | |
from our thoughts and meditations? But, in treating of this obvious and | |
important truth, what obscure questions occur concerning the nature of | |
that Divine Being, his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence? | |
These have been always subjected to the disputations of men; concerning | |
these human reason has not reached any certain determination. But these | |
are topics so interesting, that we cannot restrain our restless inquiry | |
with regard to them; though nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and | |
contradiction, have as yet been the result of our most accurate | |
researches. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>This I had lately occasion to observe, while I passed, as usual, part of | |
the summer season with CLEANTHES, and was present at those conversations | |
of his with PHILO and DEMEA, of which I gave you lately some imperfect | |
account. Your curiosity, you then told me, was so excited, that I must, | |
of necessity, enter into a more exact detail of their reasonings, and | |
display those various systems which they advanced with regard to so | |
delicate a subject as that of natural religion. The remarkable contrast | |
in their characters still further raised your expectations; while you | |
opposed the accurate philosophical turn of CLEANTHES to the careless | |
scepticism of PHILO, or compared either of their dispositions with the | |
rigid inflexible orthodoxy of DEMEA. My youth rendered me a mere auditor | |
of their disputes; and that curiosity, natural to the early season of | |
life, has so deeply imprinted in my memory the whole chain and connection | |
of their arguments, that, I hope, I shall not omit or confound any | |
considerable part of them in the recital. | |
PART 1 | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>After I joined the company, whom I found sitting in CLEANTHES's library, | |
DEMEA paid CLEANTHES some compliments on the great care which he took of | |
my education, and on his unwearied perseverance and constancy in all his | |
friendships. <speaker DEMEA>The father of PAMPHILUS, said he, <speaker DEMEA>was your intimate friend: | |
The son is your pupil; and may indeed be regarded as your adopted son, | |
were we to judge by the pains which you bestow in conveying to him every | |
useful branch of literature and science. You are no more wanting, I am | |
persuaded, in prudence, than in industry. I shall, therefore, communicate | |
to you a maxim, which I have observed with regard to my own children, | |
that I may learn how far it agrees with your practice. The method I | |
follow in their education is founded on the saying of an ancient, "That | |
students of philosophy ought first to learn logics, then ethics, next | |
physics, last of all the nature of the gods." [Chrysippus apud Plut: de | |
repug: Stoicorum] This science of natural theology, according to him, | |
being the most profound and abstruse of any, required the maturest | |
judgement in its students; and none but a mind enriched with all the other | |
sciences, can safely be entrusted with it. | |
<speaker PHILO>Are you so late, says PHILO, <speaker PHILO>in teaching your children the principles of | |
religion? Is there no danger of their neglecting, or rejecting altogether | |
those opinions of which they have heard so little during the whole course | |
of their education? <speaker DEMEA>It is only as a science, replied DEMEA, <speaker DEMEA>subjected to | |
human reasoning and disputation, that I postpone the study of Natural | |
Theology. To season their minds with early piety, is my chief care; and | |
by continual precept and instruction, and I hope too by example, I | |
imprint deeply on their tender minds an habitual reverence for all the | |
principles of religion. While they pass through every other science, I | |
still remark the uncertainty of each part; the eternal disputations of | |
men; the obscurity of all philosophy; and the strange, ridiculous | |
conclusions, which some of the greatest geniuses have derived from the | |
principles of mere human reason. Having thus tamed their mind to a proper | |
submission and self-diffidence, I have no longer any scruple of opening | |
to them the greatest mysteries of religion; nor apprehend any danger from | |
that assuming arrogance of philosophy, which may lead them to reject the | |
most established doctrines and opinions. | |
<speaker PHILO>Your precaution, says PHILO, <speaker PHILO>of seasoning your children's minds early | |
with piety, is certainly very reasonable; and no more than is requisite | |
in this profane and irreligious age. But what I chiefly admire in your | |
plan of education, is your method of drawing advantage from the very | |
principles of philosophy and learning, which, by inspiring pride and | |
self-sufficiency, have commonly, in all ages, been found so destructive | |
to the principles of religion. The vulgar, indeed, we may remark, who are | |
unacquainted with science and profound inquiry, observing the endless | |
disputes of the learned, have commonly a thorough contempt for | |
philosophy; and rivet themselves the faster, by that means, in the great | |
points of theology which have been taught them. Those who enter a little | |
into study and study and inquiry, finding many appearances of evidence in | |
doctrines the newest and most extraordinary, think nothing too difficult | |
for human reason; and, presumptuously breaking through all fences, | |
profane the inmost sanctuaries of the temple. But CLEANTHES will, I hope, | |
agree with me, that, after we have abandoned ignorance, the surest | |
remedy, there is still one expedient left to prevent this profane | |
liberty. Let DEMEA's principles be improved and cultivated: Let us become | |
thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of | |
human reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless | |
contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice: Let the | |
errors and deceits of our very senses be set before us; the insuperable | |
difficulties which attend first principles in all systems; the | |
contradictions which adhere to the very ideas of matter, cause and | |
effect, extension, space, time, motion; and in a word, quantity of all | |
kinds, the object of the only science that can fairly pretend to any | |
certainty or evidence. When these topics are displayed in their full | |
light, as they are by some philosophers and almost all divines; who can | |
retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any | |
regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so abstruse, so remote | |
from common life and experience? When the coherence of the parts of a | |
stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when | |
these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain | |
circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we | |
decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from | |
eternity to eternity? | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>While PHILO pronounced these words, I could observe a smile in the | |
countenance both of DEMEA and CLEANTHES. That of DEMEA seemed to imply an | |
unreserved satisfaction in the doctrines delivered: But, in CLEANTHES's | |
features, I could distinguish an air of finesse; as if he perceived some | |
raillery or artificial malice in the reasonings of PHILO. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>You propose then, PHILO, said CLEANTHES, <speaker CLEANTHES>to erect religious faith on | |
philosophical scepticism; and you think, that if certainty or evidence be | |
expelled from every other subject of inquiry, it will all retire to these | |
theological doctrines, and there acquire a superior force and authority. | |
Whether your scepticism be as absolute and sincere as you pretend, we | |
shall learn by and by, when the company breaks up: We shall then see, | |
whether you go out at the door or the window; and whether you really | |
doubt if your body has gravity, or can be injured by its fall; according | |
to popular opinion, derived from our fallacious senses, and more | |
fallacious experience. And this consideration, DEMEA, may, I think, | |
fairly serve to abate our ill-will to this humorous sect of the sceptics. | |
If they be thoroughly in earnest, they will not long trouble the world | |
with their doubts, cavils, and disputes: If they be only in jest, they | |
are, perhaps, bad raillers; but can never be very dangerous, either to | |
the state, to philosophy, or to religion. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>In reality, PHILO, continued he, <speaker CLEANTHES>it seems certain, that though a man, in | |
a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions | |
and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and | |
opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, | |
or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours. External objects press | |
in upon him; passions solicit him; his philosophical melancholy | |
dissipates; and even the utmost violence upon his own temper will not be | |
able, during any time, to preserve the poor appearance of scepticism. And | |
for what reason impose on himself such a violence? This is a point in | |
which it will be impossible for him ever to satisfy himself, consistently | |
with his sceptical principles. So that, upon the whole, nothing could be | |
more ridiculous than the principles of the ancient PYRRHONIANS; if in | |
reality they endeavoured, as is pretended, to extend, throughout, the | |
same scepticism which they had learned from the declamations of their | |
schools, and which they ought to have confined to them. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>In this view, there appears a great resemblance between the sects of the | |
STOICS and PYRRHONIANS, though perpetual antagonists; and both of them | |
seem founded on this erroneous maxim, That what a man can perform | |
sometimes, and in some dispositions, he can perform always, and in every | |
disposition. When the mind, by Stoical reflections, is elevated into a | |
sublime enthusiasm of virtue, and strongly smit with any species of | |
honour or public good, the utmost bodily pain and sufferings will not | |
prevail over such a high sense of duty; and it is possible, perhaps, by | |
its means, even to smile and exult in the midst of tortures. If this | |
sometimes may be the case in fact and reality, much more may a | |
philosopher, in his school, or even in his closet, work himself up to | |
such an enthusiasm, and support in imagination the acutest pain or most | |
calamitous event which he can possibly conceive. But how shall he support | |
this enthusiasm itself? The bent of his mind relaxes, and cannot be | |
recalled at pleasure; avocations lead him astray; misfortunes attack him | |
unawares; and the philosopher sinks by degrees into the plebeian. | |
<speaker PHILO>I allow of your comparison between the STOICS and SKEPTICS, replied | |
PHILO. <speaker PHILO>But you may observe, at the same time, that though the mind | |
cannot, in Stoicism, support the highest flights of philosophy, yet, even | |
when it sinks lower, it still retains somewhat of its former disposition; | |
and the effects of the Stoic's reasoning will appear in his conduct in | |
common life, and through the whole tenor of his actions. The ancient | |
schools, particularly that of ZENO, produced examples of virtue and | |
constancy which seem astonishing to present times. | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker PHILO>Vain Wisdom all and false Philosophy. | |
Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm | |
Pain, for a while, or anguish; and excite | |
Fallacious Hope, or arm the obdurate breast | |
With stubborn Patience, as with triple steel. | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker PHILO>In like manner, if a man has accustomed himself to sceptical | |
considerations on the uncertainty and narrow limits of reason, he will | |
not entirely forget them when he turns his reflection on other subjects; | |
but in all his philosophical principles and reasoning, I dare not say in | |
his common conduct, he will be found different from those, who either | |
never formed any opinions in the case, or have entertained sentiments | |
more favourable to human reason. | |
<speaker PHILO>To whatever length any one may push his speculative principles of | |
scepticism, he must act, I own, and live, and converse, like other men; | |
and for this conduct he is not obliged to give any other reason, than the | |
absolute necessity he lies under of so doing. If he ever carries his | |
speculations further than this necessity constrains him, and | |
philosophises either on natural or moral subjects, he is allured by a | |
certain pleasure and satisfaction which he finds in employing himself | |
after that manner. He considers besides, that every one, even in common | |
life, is constrained to have more or less of this philosophy; that from | |
our earliest infancy we make continual advances in forming more general | |
principles of conduct and reasoning; that the larger experience we | |
acquire, and the stronger reason we are endued with, we always render our | |
principles the more general and comprehensive; and that what we call | |
philosophy is nothing but a more regular and methodical operation of the | |
same kind. To philosophise on such subjects, is nothing essentially | |
different from reasoning on common life; and we may only expect greater | |
stability, if not greater truth, from our philosophy, on account of its | |
exacter and more scrupulous method of proceeding. | |
<speaker PHILO>But when we look beyond human affairs and the properties of the | |
surrounding bodies: when we carry our speculations into the two | |
eternities, before and after the present state of things; into the | |
creation and formation of the universe; the existence and properties of | |
spirits; the powers and operations of one universal Spirit existing | |
without beginning and without end; omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, | |
infinite, and incomprehensible: We must be far removed from the smallest | |
tendency to scepticism not to be apprehensive, that we have here got | |
quite beyond the reach of our faculties. So long as we confine our | |
speculations to trade, or morals, or politics, or criticism, we make | |
appeals, every moment, to common sense and experience, which strengthen | |
our philosophical conclusions, and remove, at least in part, the | |
suspicion which we so justly entertain with regard to every reasoning | |
that is very subtle and refined. But, in theological reasonings, we have | |
not this advantage; while, at the same time, we are employed upon | |
objects, which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp, and of | |
all others, require most to be familiarised to our apprehension. We are | |
like foreigners in a strange country, to whom every thing must seem | |
suspicious, and who are in danger every moment of transgressing against | |
the laws and customs of the people with whom they live and converse. We | |
know not how far we ought to trust our vulgar methods of reasoning in | |
such a subject; since, even in common life, and in that province which is | |
peculiarly appropriated to them, we cannot account for them, and are | |
entirely guided by a kind of instinct or necessity in employing them. | |
<speaker PHILO>All sceptics pretend, that, if reason be considered in an abstract view, | |
it furnishes invincible arguments against itself; and that we could never | |
retain any conviction or assurance, on any subject, were not the | |
sceptical reasonings so refined and subtle, that they are not able to | |
counterpoise the more solid and more natural arguments derived from the | |
senses and experience. But it is evident, whenever our arguments lose | |
this advantage, and run wide of common life, that the most refined | |
scepticism comes to be upon a footing with them, and is able to oppose | |
and counterbalance them. The one has no more weight than the other. The | |
mind must remain in suspense between them; and it is that very suspense | |
or balance, which is the triumph of scepticism. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But I observe, says CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> with regard to you, PHILO, and all | |
speculative sceptics, that your doctrine and practice are as much at | |
variance in the most abstruse points of theory as in the conduct of | |
common life. Wherever evidence discovers itself, you adhere to it, | |
notwithstanding your pretended scepticism; and I can observe, too, some | |
of your sect to be as decisive as those who make greater professions of | |
certainty and assurance. In reality, would not a man be ridiculous, who | |
pretended to reject NEWTON's explication of the wonderful phenomenon of | |
the rainbow, because that explication gives a minute anatomy of the rays | |
of light; a subject, forsooth, too refined for human comprehension? And | |
what would you say to one, who, having nothing particular to object to | |
the arguments of COPERNICUS and GALILEO for the motion of the earth, | |
should withhold his assent, on that general principle, that these | |
subjects were too magnificent and remote to be explained by the narrow | |
and fallacious reason of mankind? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>There is indeed a kind of brutish and ignorant scepticism, as you well | |
observed, which gives the vulgar a general prejudice against what they do | |
not easily understand, and makes them reject every principle which | |
requires elaborate reasoning to prove and establish it. This species of | |
scepticism is fatal to knowledge, not to religion; since we find, that | |
those who make greatest profession of it, give often their assent, not | |
only to the great truths of Theism and natural theology, but even to the | |
most absurd tenets which a traditional superstition has recommended to | |
them. They firmly believe in witches, though they will not believe nor | |
attend to the most simple proposition of Euclid. But the refined and | |
philosophical sceptics fall into an inconsistence of an opposite nature. | |
They push their researches into the most abstruse corners of science; and | |
their assent attends them in every step, proportioned to the evidence | |
which they meet with. They are even obliged to acknowledge, that the most | |
abstruse and remote objects are those which are best explained by | |
philosophy. Light is in reality anatomised. The true system of the | |
heavenly bodies is discovered and ascertained. But the nourishment of | |
bodies by food is still an inexplicable mystery. The cohesion of the | |
parts of matter is still incomprehensible. These sceptics, therefore, are | |
obliged, in every question, to consider each particular evidence apart, | |
and proportion their assent to the precise degree of evidence which | |
occurs. This is their practice in all natural, mathematical, moral, and | |
political science. And why not the same, I ask, in the theological and | |
religious? Why must conclusions of this nature be alone rejected on the | |
general presumption of the insufficiency of human reason, without any | |
particular discussion of the evidence? Is not such an unequal conduct a | |
plain proof of prejudice and passion? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Our senses, you say, are fallacious; our understanding erroneous; our | |
ideas, even of the most familiar objects, extension, duration, motion, | |
full of absurdities and contradictions. You defy me to solve the | |
difficulties, or reconcile the repugnancies which you discover in them. I | |
have not capacity for so great an undertaking: I have not leisure for it: | |
I perceive it to be superfluous. Your own conduct, in every circumstance, | |
refutes your principles, and shows the firmest reliance on all the | |
received maxims of science, morals, prudence, and behaviour. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I shall never assent to so harsh an opinion as that of a celebrated | |
writer [L'Arte de penser], who says, that the Sceptics are not a sect of | |
philosophers: They are only a sect of liars. I may, however, affirm | |
(I hope without offence), that they are a sect of jesters or raillers. | |
But for my part, whenever I find myself disposed to mirth and amusement, | |
I shall certainly choose my entertainment of a less perplexing and abstruse | |
nature. A comedy, a novel, or at most a history, seems a more natural | |
recreation than such metaphysical subtleties and abstractions. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>In vain would the sceptic make a distinction between science and common | |
life, or between one science and another. The arguments employed in all, | |
if just, are of a similar nature, and contain the same force and | |
evidence. Or if there be any difference among them, the advantage lies | |
entirely on the side of theology and natural religion. Many principles of | |
mechanics are founded on very abstruse reasoning; yet no man who has any | |
pretensions to science, even no speculative sceptic, pretends to | |
entertain the least doubt with regard to them. The COPERNICAN system | |
contains the most surprising paradox, and the most contrary to our | |
natural conceptions, to appearances, and to our very senses: yet even | |
monks and inquisitors are now constrained to withdraw their opposition to | |
it. And shall PHILO, a man of so liberal a genius and extensive | |
knowledge, entertain any general undistinguished scruples with regard to | |
the religious hypothesis, which is founded on the simplest and most | |
obvious arguments, and, unless it meets with artificial obstacles, has | |
such easy access and admission into the mind of man? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>And here we may observe, continued he,<speaker CLEANTHES> turning himself towards DEMEA, a | |
pretty curious circumstance in the history of the sciences. After the | |
union of philosophy with the popular religion, upon the first | |
establishment of Christianity, nothing was more usual, among all | |
religious teachers, than declamations against reason, against the senses, | |
against every principle derived merely from human research and inquiry. | |
All the topics of the ancient academics were adopted by the fathers; and | |
thence propagated for several ages in every school and pulpit throughout | |
Christendom. The Reformers embraced the same principles of reasoning, or | |
rather declamation; and all panegyrics on the excellency of faith, were | |
sure to be interlarded with some severe strokes of satire against natural | |
reason. A celebrated prelate [Monsr. Huet] too, of the Romish communion, | |
a man of the most extensive learning, who wrote a demonstration of | |
Christianity, has also composed a treatise, which contains all the cavils | |
of the boldest and most determined PYRRHONISM. LOCKE seems to have been the | |
first Christian who ventured openly to assert, that faith was nothing but | |
a species of reason; that religion was only a branch of philosophy; and | |
that a chain of arguments, similar to that which established any truth in | |
morals, politics, or physics, was always employed in discovering all the | |
principles of theology, natural and revealed. The ill use which BAYLE and | |
other libertines made of the philosophical scepticism of the fathers and | |
first reformers, still further propagated the judicious sentiment of Mr. | |
LOCKE: And it is now in a manner avowed, by all pretenders to reasoning | |
and philosophy, that Atheist and Sceptic are almost synonymous. And as it | |
is certain that no man is in earnest when he professes the latter | |
principle, I would fain hope that there are as few who seriously maintain | |
the former. | |
<speaker PHILO>Don't you remember, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> the excellent saying of LORD BACON on | |
this head?<speaker CLEANTHES> That a little philosophy, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> makes a man an | |
Atheist: A great deal converts him to religion.<speaker PHILO> That is a very judicious | |
remark too, said PHILO.<speaker PHILO> But what I have in my eye is another passage, | |
where, having mentioned DAVID's fool, who said in his heart there is no | |
God, this great philosopher observes, that the Atheists nowadays have a | |
double share of folly; for they are not contented to say in their hearts | |
there is no God, but they also utter that impiety with their lips, and | |
are thereby guilty of multiplied indiscretion and imprudence. Such | |
people, though they were ever so much in earnest, cannot, methinks, be | |
very formidable. | |
<speaker PHILO>But though you should rank me in this class of fools, I cannot forbear | |
communicating a remark that occurs to me, from the history of the | |
religious and irreligious scepticism with which you have entertained us. | |
It appears to me, that there are strong symptoms of priestcraft in the | |
whole progress of this affair. During ignorant ages, such as those which | |
followed the dissolution of the ancient schools, the priests perceived, | |
that Atheism, Deism, or heresy of any kind, could only proceed from the | |
presumptuous questioning of received opinions, and from a belief that | |
human reason was equal to every thing. Education had then a mighty | |
influence over the minds of men, and was almost equal in force to those | |
suggestions of the senses and common understanding, by which the most | |
determined sceptic must allow himself to be governed. But at present, | |
when the influence of education is much diminished, and men, from a more | |
open commerce of the world, have learned to compare the popular | |
principles of different nations and ages, our sagacious divines have | |
changed their whole system of philosophy, and talk the language of | |
STOICS, PLATONISTS, and PERIPATETICS, not that of PYRRHONIANS and | |
ACADEMICS. If we distrust human reason, we have now no other principle to | |
lead us into religion. Thus, sceptics in one age, dogmatists in another; | |
whichever system best suits the purpose of these reverend gentlemen, in | |
giving them an ascendant over mankind, they are sure to make it their | |
favourite principle, and established tenet. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It is very natural, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> for men to embrace those principles, | |
by which they find they can best defend their doctrines; nor need we have | |
any recourse to priestcraft to account for so reasonable an expedient. | |
And, surely nothing can afford a stronger presumption, that any set of | |
principles are true, and ought to be embraced, than to observe that they | |
tend to the confirmation of true religion, and serve to confound the | |
cavils of Atheists, Libertines, and Freethinkers of all denominations. | |
PART 2 | |
<speaker DEMEA>I must own, CLEANTHES, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> that nothing can more surprise me, | |
than the light in which you have all along put this argument. By the | |
whole tenor of your discourse, one would imagine that you were | |
maintaining the Being of a God, against the cavils of Atheists and | |
Infidels; and were necessitated to become a champion for that fundamental | |
principle of all religion. But this, I hope, is not by any means a | |
question among us. No man, no man at least of common sense, I am | |
persuaded, ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to a truth so | |
certain and self-evident. The question is not concerning the being, but | |
the nature of God. This, I affirm, from the infirmities of human | |
understanding, to be altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us. The | |
essence of that supreme Mind, his attributes, the manner of his | |
existence, the very nature of his duration; these, and every particular | |
which regards so divine a Being, are mysterious to men. Finite, weak, and | |
blind creatures, we ought to humble ourselves in his august presence; | |
and, conscious of our frailties, adore in silence his infinite | |
perfections, which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it | |
entered into the heart of man to conceive. They are covered in a deep | |
cloud from human curiosity. It is profaneness to attempt penetrating | |
through these sacred obscurities. And, next to the impiety of denying his | |
existence, is the temerity of prying into his nature and essence, decrees | |
and attributes. | |
<speaker DEMEA>But lest you should think that my piety has here got the better of my | |
philosophy, I shall support my opinion, if it needs any support, by a very | |
great authority. I might cite all the divines, almost, from the foundation | |
of Christianity, who have ever treated of this or any other theological | |
subject: But I shall confine myself, at present, to one equally celebrated | |
for piety and philosophy. It is Father MALEBRANCHE, who, I remember, thus | |
expresses himself [Recherche de la Verite. Liv. 3. Chap.9]. "One ought not | |
so much," says he, "to call God a spirit, in order to express positively | |
what he is, as in order to signify that he is not matter. He is a Being | |
infinitely perfect: Of this we cannot doubt. But in the same manner as | |
we ought not to imagine, even supposing him corporeal, that he is clothed | |
with a human body, as the ANTHROPOMORPHITES asserted, under colour that | |
that figure was the most perfect of any; so, neither ought we to imagine | |
that the spirit of God has human ideas, or bears any resemblance to our | |
spirit, under colour that we know nothing more perfect than a human mind. | |
We ought rather to believe, that as he comprehends the perfections of | |
matter without being material.... he comprehends also the perfections of | |
created spirits without being spirit, in the manner we conceive spirit: | |
That his true name is, He that is; or, in other words, Being without | |
restriction, All Being, the Being infinite and universal." | |
<speaker PHILO>After so great an authority, DEMEA, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> as that which you have | |
produced, and a thousand more which you might produce, it would appear | |
ridiculous in me to add my sentiment, or express my approbation of your | |
doctrine. But surely, where reasonable men treat these subjects, the | |
question can never be concerning the Being, but only the Nature, of the | |
Deity. The former truth, as you well observe, is unquestionable and | |
self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause; and the original cause of | |
this universe (whatever it be) we call God; and piously ascribe to him | |
every species of perfection. Whoever scruples this fundamental truth, | |
deserves every punishment which can be inflicted among philosophers, to | |
wit, the greatest ridicule, contempt, and disapprobation. But as all | |
perfection is entirely relative, we ought never to imagine that we | |
comprehend the attributes of this divine Being, or to suppose that his | |
perfections have any analogy or likeness to the perfections of a human | |
creature. Wisdom, Thought, Design, Knowledge; these we justly ascribe to | |
him; because these words are honourable among men, and we have no other | |
language or other conceptions by which we can express our adoration of | |
him. But let us beware, lest we think that our ideas anywise correspond | |
to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these | |
qualities among men. He is infinitely superior to our limited view and | |
comprehension; and is more the object of worship in the temple, than of | |
disputation in the schools. | |
<speaker PHILO> In reality, CLEANTHES, continued he,<speaker PHILO> there is no need of having recourse | |
to that affected scepticism so displeasing to you, in order to come at | |
this determination. Our ideas reach no further than our experience. We | |
have no experience of divine attributes and operations. I need not | |
conclude my syllogism. You can draw the inference yourself. And it is a | |
pleasure to me (and I hope to you too) that just reasoning and sound | |
piety here concur in the same conclusion, and both of them establish the | |
adorably mysterious and incomprehensible nature of the Supreme Being. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> addressing | |
himself to DEMEA, much less in replying to the pious declamations of | |
PHILO; I shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round the | |
world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be | |
nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of | |
lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond | |
what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various | |
machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other | |
with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever | |
contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all | |
nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of | |
human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. | |
Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, | |
by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the | |
Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed | |
of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which | |
he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument | |
alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity | |
to human mind and intelligence. | |
<speaker DEMEA>I shall be so free, CLEANTHES, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> as to tell you, that from the | |
beginning, I could not approve of your conclusion concerning the | |
similarity of the Deity to men; still less can I approve of the mediums | |
by which you endeavour to establish it. What! No demonstration of the | |
Being of God! No abstract arguments! No proofs a priori! Are these, which | |
have hitherto been so much insisted on by philosophers, all fallacy, all | |
sophism? Can we reach no further in this subject than experience and | |
probability? I will not say that this is betraying the cause of a Deity: | |
But surely, by this affected candour, you give advantages to Atheists, | |
which they never could obtain by the mere dint of argument and reasoning. | |
<speaker PHILO>What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said PHILO, <speaker PHILO>is not so much that | |
all religious arguments are by CLEANTHES reduced to experience, as that | |
they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable of that | |
inferior kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the | |
earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a thousand times; and | |
when any new instance of this nature is presented, we draw without | |
hesitation the accustomed inference. The exact similarity of the cases | |
gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event; and a stronger evidence | |
is never desired nor sought after. But wherever you depart, in the least, | |
from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the | |
evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is | |
confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced the | |
circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it | |
takes place in TITIUS and MAEVIUS. But from its circulation in frogs and | |
fishes, it is only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that | |
it takes place in men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much | |
weaker, when we infer the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our | |
experience that the blood circulates in animals; and those, who hastily | |
followed that imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experiments, | |
to have been mistaken. | |
<speaker PHILO>If we see a house, CLEANTHES, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, | |
that it had an architect or builder; because this is precisely that | |
species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species | |
of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a | |
resemblance to a house, that we can with the same certainty infer a | |
similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The | |
dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is | |
a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause; and how | |
that pretension will be received in the world, I leave you to consider. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It would surely be very ill received, replied CLEANTHES;<speaker CLEANTHES> and I should be | |
deservedly blamed and detested, did I allow, that the proofs of a Deity | |
amounted to no more than a guess or conjecture. But is the whole | |
adjustment of means to ends in a house and in the universe so slight a | |
resemblance? The economy of final causes? The order, proportion, and | |
arrangement of every part? Steps of a stair are plainly contrived, that | |
human legs may use them in mounting; and this inference is certain and | |
infallible. Human legs are also contrived for walking and mounting; and | |
this inference, I allow, is not altogether so certain, because of the | |
dissimilarity which you remark; but does it, therefore, deserve the name | |
only of presumption or conjecture? | |
<speaker DEMEA>Good God! cried DEMEA, interrupting him,<speaker DEMEA> where are we? Zealous defenders | |
of religion allow, that the proofs of a Deity fall short of perfect | |
evidence! And you, PHILO, on whose assistance I depended in proving the | |
adorable mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, do you assent to all these | |
extravagant opinions of CLEANTHES? For what other name can I give them? | |
or, why spare my censure, when such principles are advanced, supported by | |
such an authority, before so young a man as PAMPHILUS? | |
<speaker PHILO>You seem not to apprehend, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that I argue with CLEANTHES in | |
his own way; and, by showing him the dangerous consequences of his | |
tenets, hope at last to reduce him to our opinion. But what sticks most | |
with you, I observe, is the representation which CLEANTHES has made of | |
the argument a posteriori; and finding that that argument is likely to | |
escape your hold and vanish into air, you think it so disguised, that you | |
can scarcely believe it to be set in its true light. Now, however much I | |
may dissent, in other respects, from the dangerous principles of | |
CLEANTHES, I must allow that he has fairly represented that argument; and | |
I shall endeavour so to state the matter to you, that you will entertain | |
no further scruples with regard to it. | |
<speaker PHILO>Were a man to abstract from every thing which he knows or has seen, he | |
would be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to determine | |
what kind of scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to one | |
state or situation of things above another. For as nothing which he | |
clearly conceives could be esteemed impossible or implying a contradiction, | |
every chimera of his fancy would be upon an equal footing; nor could he | |
assign any just reason why he adheres to one idea or system, and rejects | |
the others which are equally possible. | |
<speaker PHILO>Again; after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the world as it really | |
is, it would be impossible for him at first to assign the cause of any | |
one event, much less of the whole of things, or of the universe. He might | |
set his fancy a rambling; and she might bring him in an infinite variety | |
of reports and representations. These would all be possible; but being | |
all equally possible, he would never of himself give a satisfactory | |
account for his preferring one of them to the rest. Experience alone can | |
point out to him the true cause of any phenomenon. | |
<speaker PHILO>Now, according to this method of reasoning, DEMEA, it follows, (and is, | |
indeed, tacitly allowed by CLEANTHES himself,) that order, arrangement, | |
or the adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any proof of design; | |
but only so far as it has been experienced to proceed from that | |
principle. For aught we can know a priori, matter may contain the source | |
or spring of order originally within itself, as well as mind does; and | |
there is no more difficulty in conceiving, that the several elements, | |
from an internal unknown cause, may fall into the most exquisite | |
arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas, in the great universal | |
mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into that arrangement. The | |
equal possibility of both these suppositions is allowed. But, by | |
experience, we find, (according to CLEANTHES), that there is a difference | |
between them. Throw several pieces of steel together, without shape or | |
form; they will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch. Stone, | |
and mortar, and wood, without an architect, never erect a house. But the | |
ideas in a human mind, we see, by an unknown, inexplicable economy, | |
arrange themselves so as to form the plan of a watch or house. | |
Experience, therefore, proves, that there is an original principle of | |
order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects we infer similar | |
causes. The adjustment of means to ends is alike in the universe, as in a | |
machine of human contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resembling. | |
<speaker PHILO>I was from the beginning scandalised, I must own, with this resemblance, | |
which is asserted, between the Deity and human creatures; and must | |
conceive it to imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being as no sound | |
Theist could endure. With your assistance, therefore, DEMEA, I shall | |
endeavour to defend what you justly call the adorable mysteriousness of | |
the Divine Nature, and shall refute this reasoning of CLEANTHES, provided | |
he allows that I have made a fair representation of it. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>When CLEANTHES had assented, PHILO, after a short pause, proceeded in the | |
following manner. | |
<speaker PHILO>That all inferences, CLEANTHES, concerning fact, are founded on | |
experience; and that all experimental reasonings are founded on the | |
supposition that similar causes prove similar effects, and similar | |
effects similar causes; I shall not at present much dispute with you. But | |
observe, I entreat you, with what extreme caution all just reasoners | |
proceed in the transferring of experiments to similar cases. Unless the | |
cases be exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence in applying | |
their past observation to any particular phenomenon. Every alteration of | |
circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the event; and it requires new | |
experiments to prove certainly, that the new circumstances are of no | |
moment or importance. A change in bulk, situation, arrangement, age, | |
disposition of the air, or surrounding bodies; any of these particulars | |
may be attended with the most unexpected consequences: And unless the | |
objects be quite familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect | |
with assurance, after any of these changes, an event similar to that | |
which before fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate steps of | |
philosophers here, if any where, are distinguished from the precipitate | |
march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the smallest similitude, are | |
incapable of all discernment or consideration. | |
<speaker PHILO>But can you think, CLEANTHES, that your usual phlegm and philosophy have | |
been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to | |
the universe houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their | |
similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? | |
Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other | |
animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the | |
universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred | |
others, which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause, by | |
which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on | |
other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred | |
from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all | |
comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we | |
learn any thing concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a | |
leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction | |
concerning the vegetation of a tree? | |
<speaker PHILO>But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature | |
upon another, for the foundation of our judgement concerning the origin | |
of the whole, (which never can be admitted,) yet why select so minute, so | |
weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is | |
found to be upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little | |
agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it | |
the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does | |
indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully | |
to guard against so natural an illusion. | |
<speaker PHILO>So far from admitting, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that the operations of a part can | |
afford us any just conclusion concerning the origin of the whole, I will | |
not allow any one part to form a rule for another part, if the latter be | |
very remote from the former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude, | |
that the inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence, | |
reason, or any thing similar to these faculties in men? When nature has | |
so extremely diversified her manner of operation in this small globe, can | |
we imagine that she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense a | |
universe? And if thought, as we may well suppose, be confined merely to | |
this narrow corner, and has even there so limited a sphere of action, | |
with what propriety can we assign it for the original cause of all | |
things? The narrow views of a peasant, who makes his domestic economy the | |
rule for the government of kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable | |
sophism. | |
<speaker PHILO>But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason, resembling | |
the human, were to be found throughout the whole universe, and were its | |
activity elsewhere vastly greater and more commanding than it appears in | |
this globe; yet I cannot see, why the operations of a world constituted, | |
arranged, adjusted, can with any propriety be extended to a world which | |
is in its embryo state, and is advancing towards that constitution and | |
arrangement. By observation, we know somewhat of the economy, action, and | |
nourishment of a finished animal; but we must transfer with great caution | |
that observation to the growth of a foetus in the womb, and still more to | |
the formation of an animalcule in the loins of its male parent. Nature, | |
we find, even from our limited experience, possesses an infinite number | |
of springs and principles, which incessantly discover themselves on every | |
change of her position and situation. And what new and unknown principles | |
would actuate her in so new and unknown a situation as that of the | |
formation of a universe, we cannot, without the utmost temerity, pretend | |
to determine. | |
<speaker PHILO>A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very | |
imperfectly discovered to us; and do we thence pronounce decisively | |
concerning the origin of the whole? | |
<speaker PHILO>Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at this | |
time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without | |
human art and contrivance; therefore the universe could not originally | |
attain its order and arrangement, without something similar to human art. | |
But is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former? | |
Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a rule for the universe? | |
Is nature in one situation, a certain rule for nature in another | |
situation vastly different from the former? | |
<speaker PHILO>And can you blame me, CLEANTHES, if I here imitate the prudent reserve of | |
SIMONIDES, who, according to the noted story, being asked by HIERO, | |
What God was? desired a day to think of it, and then two days more; and | |
after that manner continually prolonged the term, without ever bringing | |
in his definition or description? Could you even blame me, if I had | |
answered at first, that I did not know, and was sensible that this | |
subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties? You might cry out | |
sceptic and railler, as much as you pleased: but having found, in so many | |
other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections and even | |
contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from | |
its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from the | |
sphere of our observation. When two species of objects have always been | |
observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence | |
of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an | |
argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the | |
objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without | |
parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will | |
any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must | |
arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have | |
experience of it? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we | |
had experience of the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely, | |
that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance... | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>PHILO was proceeding in this vehement manner, somewhat between jest and | |
earnest, as it appeared to me, when he observed some signs of impatience | |
in CLEANTHES, and then immediately stopped short. <speaker CLEANTHES>What I had to suggest, | |
said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> is only that you would not abuse terms, or make use of | |
popular expressions to subvert philosophical reasonings. You know, that | |
the vulgar often distinguish reason from experience, even where the | |
question relates only to matter of fact and existence; though it is | |
found, where that reason is properly analysed, that it is nothing but a | |
species of experience. To prove by experience the origin of the universe | |
from mind, is not more contrary to common speech, than to prove the | |
motion of the earth from the same principle. And a caviller might raise | |
all the same objections to the Copernican system, which you have urged | |
against my reasonings. Have you other earths, might he say, which you | |
have seen to move? Have... | |
<speaker PHILO>Yes! cried PHILO, interrupting him,<speaker PHILO> we have other earths. Is not the moon | |
another earth, which we see to turn round its centre? Is not Venus | |
another earth, where we observe the same phenomenon? Are not the | |
revolutions of the sun also a confirmation, from analogy, of the same | |
theory? All the planets, are they not earths, which revolve about the | |
sun? Are not the satellites moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn, | |
and along with these primary planets round the sun? These analogies and | |
resemblances, with others which I have not mentioned, are the sole proofs | |
of the COPERNICAN system; and to you it belongs to consider, whether you | |
have any analogies of the same kind to support your theory. | |
<speaker PHILO>In reality, CLEANTHES, continued he,<speaker PHILO> the modern system of astronomy is | |
now so much received by all inquirers, and has become so essential a part | |
even of our earliest education, that we are not commonly very scrupulous | |
in examining the reasons upon which it is founded. It is now become a | |
matter of mere curiosity to study the first writers on that subject, who | |
had the full force of prejudice to encounter, and were obliged to turn | |
their arguments on every side in order to render them popular and | |
convincing. But if we peruse GALILEO's famous Dialogues concerning the | |
system of the world, we shall find, that that great genius, one of the | |
sublimest that ever existed, first bent all his endeavours to prove, that | |
there was no foundation for the distinction commonly made between | |
elementary and celestial substances. The schools, proceeding from the | |
illusions of sense, had carried this distinction very far; and had | |
established the latter substances to be ingenerable, incorruptible, | |
unalterable, impassable; and had assigned all the opposite qualities to | |
the former. But GALILEO, beginning with the moon, proved its similarity | |
in every particular to the earth; its convex figure, its natural darkness | |
when not illuminated, its density, its distinction into solid and liquid, | |
the variations of its phases, the mutual illuminations of the earth and | |
moon, their mutual eclipses, the inequalities of the lunar surface, &c. | |
After many instances of this kind, with regard to all the planets, men | |
plainly saw that these bodies became proper objects of experience; and | |
that the similarity of their nature enabled us to extend the same | |
arguments and phenomena from one to the other. | |
<speaker PHILO>In this cautious proceeding of the astronomers, you may read your own | |
condemnation, CLEANTHES; or rather may see, that the subject in which you | |
are engaged exceeds all human reason and inquiry. Can you pretend to show | |
any such similarity between the fabric of a house, and the generation of | |
a universe? Have you ever seen nature in any such situation as resembles | |
the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under | |
your eye; and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the | |
phenomenon, from the first appearance of order to its final consummation? | |
If you have, then cite your experience, and deliver your theory. | |
PART 3 | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>How the most absurd argument, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> in the hands of a man of | |
ingenuity and invention, may acquire an air of probability! Are you not | |
aware, PHILO, that it became necessary for Copernicus and his first | |
disciples to prove the similarity of the terrestrial and celestial | |
matter; because several philosophers, blinded by old systems, and | |
supported by some sensible appearances, had denied this similarity? but | |
that it is by no means necessary, that Theists should prove the | |
similarity of the works of Nature to those of Art; because this | |
similarity is self-evident and undeniable? The same matter, a like form; | |
what more is requisite to show an analogy between their causes, and to | |
ascertain the origin of all things from a divine purpose and intention? | |
Your objections, I must freely tell you, are no better than the abstruse | |
cavils of those philosophers who denied motion; and ought to be refuted | |
in the same manner, by illustrations, examples, and instances, rather | |
than by serious argument and philosophy. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Suppose, therefore, that an articulate voice were heard in the clouds, | |
much louder and more melodious than any which human art could ever reach: | |
Suppose, that this voice were extended in the same instant over all | |
nations, and spoke to each nation in its own language and dialect: | |
Suppose, that the words delivered not only contain a just sense and | |
meaning, but convey some instruction altogether worthy of a benevolent | |
Being, superior to mankind: Could you possibly hesitate a moment | |
concerning the cause of this voice? and must you not instantly ascribe it | |
to some design or purpose? Yet I cannot see but all the same objections | |
(if they merit that appellation) which lie against the system of Theism, | |
may also be produced against this inference. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Might you not say, that all conclusions concerning fact were founded on | |
experience: that when we hear an articulate voice in the dark, and thence | |
infer a man, it is only the resemblance of the effects which leads us to | |
conclude that there is a like resemblance in the cause: but that this | |
extraordinary voice, by its loudness, extent, and flexibility to all | |
languages, bears so little analogy to any human voice, that we have no | |
reason to suppose any analogy in their causes: and consequently, that a | |
rational, wise, coherent speech proceeded, you know not whence, from some | |
accidental whistling of the winds, not from any divine reason or | |
intelligence? You see clearly your own objections in these cavils, and I | |
hope too you see clearly, that they cannot possibly have more force in | |
the one case than in the other. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But to bring the case still nearer the present one of the universe, I | |
shall make two suppositions, which imply not any absurdity or | |
impossibility. Suppose that there is a natural, universal, invariable | |
language, common to every individual of human race; and that books are | |
natural productions, which perpetuate themselves in the same manner with | |
animals and vegetables, by descent and propagation. Several expressions | |
of our passions contain a universal language: all brute animals have a | |
natural speech, which, however limited, is very intelligible to their own | |
species. And as there are infinitely fewer parts and less contrivance in | |
the finest composition of eloquence, than in the coarsest organised body, | |
the propagation of an Iliad or Aeneid is an easier supposition than that | |
of any plant or animal. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Suppose, therefore, that you enter into your library, thus peopled by | |
natural volumes, containing the most refined reason and most exquisite | |
beauty; could you possibly open one of them, and doubt, that its original | |
cause bore the strongest analogy to mind and intelligence? When it | |
reasons and discourses; when it expostulates, argues, and enforces its | |
views and topics; when it applies sometimes to the pure intellect, | |
sometimes to the affections; when it collects, disposes, and adorns every | |
consideration suited to the subject; could you persist in asserting, that | |
all this, at the bottom, had really no meaning; and that the first | |
formation of this volume in the loins of its original parent proceeded | |
not from thought and design? Your obstinacy, I know, reaches not that | |
degree of firmness: even your sceptical play and wantonness would be | |
abashed at so glaring an absurdity. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But if there be any difference, PHILO, between this supposed case and the | |
real one of the universe, it is all to the advantage of the latter. The | |
anatomy of an animal affords many stronger instances of design than the | |
perusal of LIVY or TACITUS; and any objection which you start in the | |
former case, by carrying me back to so unusual and extraordinary a scene | |
as the first formation of worlds, the same objection has place on the | |
supposition of our vegetating library. Choose, then, your party, PHILO, | |
without ambiguity or evasion; assert either that a rational volume is no | |
proof of a rational cause, or admit of a similar cause to all the works | |
of nature. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Let me here observe too, continued CLEANTHES, <speaker CLEANTHES>that this religious | |
argument, instead of being weakened by that scepticism so much affected | |
by you, rather acquires force from it, and becomes more firm and | |
undisputed. To exclude all argument or reasoning of every kind, is either | |
affectation or madness. The declared profession of every reasonable | |
sceptic is only to reject abstruse, remote, and refined arguments; to | |
adhere to common sense and the plain instincts of nature; and to assent, | |
wherever any reasons strike him with so full a force that he cannot, | |
without the greatest violence, prevent it. Now the arguments for Natural | |
Religion are plainly of this kind; and nothing but the most perverse, | |
obstinate metaphysics can reject them. Consider, anatomise the eye; | |
survey its structure and contrivance; and tell me, from your own feeling, | |
if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you with a | |
force like that of sensation. The most obvious conclusion, surely, is in | |
favour of design; and it requires time, reflection, and study, to summon | |
up those frivolous, though abstruse objections, which can support | |
Infidelity. Who can behold the male and female of each species, the | |
correspondence of their parts and instincts, their passions, and whole | |
course of life before and after generation, but must be sensible, that | |
the propagation of the species is intended by Nature? Millions and | |
millions of such instances present themselves through every part of the | |
universe; and no language can convey a more intelligible irresistible | |
meaning, than the curious adjustment of final causes. To what degree, | |
therefore, of blind dogmatism must one have attained, to reject such | |
natural and such convincing arguments? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Some beauties in writing we may meet with, which seem contrary to rules, | |
and which gain the affections, and animate the imagination, in opposition | |
to all the precepts of criticism, and to the authority of the established | |
masters of art. And if the argument for Theism be, as you pretend, | |
contradictory to the principles of logic; its universal, its irresistible | |
influence proves clearly, that there may be arguments of a like irregular | |
nature. Whatever cavils may be urged, an orderly world, as well as a | |
coherent, articulate speech, will still be received as an incontestable | |
proof of design and intention. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It sometimes happens, I own, that the religious arguments have not their | |
due influence on an ignorant savage and barbarian; not because they are | |
obscure and difficult, but because he never asks himself any question | |
with regard to them. Whence arises the curious structure of an animal? | |
From the copulation of its parents. And these whence? From their parents? | |
A few removes set the objects at such a distance, that to him they are | |
lost in darkness and confusion; nor is he actuated by any curiosity to | |
trace them further. But this is neither dogmatism nor scepticism, but | |
stupidity: a state of mind very different from your sifting, inquisitive | |
disposition, my ingenious friend. You can trace causes from effects: You | |
can compare the most distant and remote objects: and your greatest errors | |
proceed not from barrenness of thought and invention, but from too | |
luxuriant a fertility, which suppresses your natural good sense, by a | |
profusion of unnecessary scruples and objections. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>Here I could observe, HERMIPPUS, that PHILO was a little embarrassed and | |
confounded: But while he hesitated in delivering an answer, luckily for | |
him, DEMEA broke in upon the discourse, and saved his countenance. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Your instance, CLEANTHES, said he,<speaker DEMEA> drawn from books and language, being | |
familiar, has, I confess, so much more force on that account: but is | |
there not some danger too in this very circumstance; and may it not | |
render us presumptuous, by making us imagine we comprehend the Deity, and | |
have some adequate idea of his nature and attributes? When I read a | |
volume, I enter into the mind and intention of the author: I become him, | |
in a manner, for the instant; and have an immediate feeling and | |
conception of those ideas which revolved in his imagination while | |
employed in that composition. But so near an approach we never surely can | |
make to the Deity. His ways are not our ways. His attributes are perfect, | |
but incomprehensible. And this volume of nature contains a great and | |
inexplicable riddle, more than any intelligible discourse or reasoning. | |
<speaker DEMEA>The ancient PLATONISTS, you know, were the most religious and devout of | |
all the Pagan philosophers; yet many of them, particularly PLOTINUS, | |
expressly declare, that intellect or understanding is not to be ascribed | |
to the Deity; and that our most perfect worship of him consists, not in | |
acts of veneration, reverence, gratitude, or love; but in a certain | |
mysterious self-annihilation, or total extinction of all our faculties. | |
These ideas are, perhaps, too far stretched; but still it must be | |
acknowledged, that, by representing the Deity as so intelligible and | |
comprehensible, and so similar to a human mind, we are guilty of the | |
grossest and most narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the | |
whole universe. | |
<speaker DEMEA>All the sentiments of the human mind, gratitude, resentment, love, | |
friendship, approbation, blame, pity, emulation, envy, have a plain | |
reference to the state and situation of man, and are calculated for | |
preserving the existence and promoting the activity of such a being in | |
such circumstances. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to transfer such | |
sentiments to a supreme existence, or to suppose him actuated by them; | |
and the phenomena besides of the universe will not support us in such a | |
theory. All our ideas, derived from the senses, are confessedly false and | |
illusive; and cannot therefore be supposed to have place in a supreme | |
intelligence: And as the ideas of internal sentiment, added to those of | |
the external senses, compose the whole furniture of human understanding, | |
we may conclude, that none of the materials of thought are in any respect | |
similar in the human and in the divine intelligence. Now, as to the | |
manner of thinking; how can we make any comparison between them, or | |
suppose them any wise resembling? Our thought is fluctuating, uncertain, | |
fleeting, successive, and compounded; and were we to remove these | |
circumstances, we absolutely annihilate its essence, and it would in such | |
a case be an abuse of terms to apply to it the name of thought or reason. | |
At least if it appear more pious and respectful (as it really is) still | |
to retain these terms, when we mention the Supreme Being, we ought to | |
acknowledge, that their meaning, in that case, is totally | |
incomprehensible; and that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us | |
to reach any ideas which in the least correspond to the ineffable | |
sublimity of the Divine attributes. | |
PART 4 | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It seems strange to me, said CLEANTHES, <speaker CLEANTHES>that you, DEMEA, who are so | |
sincere in the cause of religion, should still maintain the mysterious, | |
incomprehensible nature of the Deity, and should insist so strenuously | |
that he has no manner of likeness or resemblance to human creatures. The | |
Deity, I can readily allow, possesses many powers and attributes of which | |
we can have no comprehension: But if our ideas, so far as they go, be not | |
just, and adequate, and correspondent to his real nature, I know not what | |
there is in this subject worth insisting on. Is the name, without any | |
meaning, of such mighty importance? Or how do you mystics, who maintain | |
the absolute incomprehensibility of the Deity, differ from Sceptics or | |
Atheists, who assert, that the first cause of all is unknown and | |
unintelligible? Their temerity must be very great, if, after rejecting | |
the production by a mind, I mean a mind resembling the human, (for I know | |
of no other,) they pretend to assign, with certainty, any other specific | |
intelligible cause: And their conscience must be very scrupulous indeed, | |
if they refuse to call the universal unknown cause a God or Deity; and to | |
bestow on him as many sublime eulogies and unmeaning epithets as you | |
shall please to require of them. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Who could imagine, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> that CLEANTHES, the calm philosophical | |
CLEANTHES, would attempt to refute his antagonists by affixing a nickname | |
to them; and, like the common bigots and inquisitors of the age, have | |
recourse to invective and declamation, instead of reasoning? Or does he | |
not perceive, that these topics are easily retorted, and that | |
Anthropomorphite is an appellation as invidious, and implies as dangerous | |
consequences, as the epithet of Mystic, with which he has honoured us? In | |
reality, CLEANTHES, consider what it is you assert when you represent the | |
Deity as similar to a human mind and understanding. What is the soul of | |
man? A composition of various faculties, passions, sentiments, ideas; | |
united, indeed, into one self or person, but still distinct from each | |
other. When it reasons, the ideas, which are the parts of its discourse, | |
arrange themselves in a certain form or order; which is not preserved | |
entire for a moment, but immediately gives place to another arrangement. | |
New opinions, new passions, new affections, new feelings arise, which | |
continually diversify the mental scene, and produce in it the greatest | |
variety and most rapid succession imaginable. How is this compatible with | |
that perfect immutability and simplicity which all true Theists ascribe | |
to the Deity? By the same act, say they, he sees past, present, and | |
future: His love and hatred, his mercy and justice, are one individual | |
operation: He is entire in every point of space; and complete in every | |
instant of duration. No succession, no change, no acquisition, no | |
diminution. What he is implies not in it any shadow of distinction or | |
diversity. And what he is this moment he ever has been, and ever will be, | |
without any new judgement, sentiment, or operation. He stands fixed in | |
one simple, perfect state: nor can you ever say, with any propriety, that | |
this act of his is different from that other; or that this judgement or | |
idea has been lately formed, and will give place, by succession, to any | |
different judgement or idea. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I can readily allow, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> that those who maintain the perfect | |
simplicity of the Supreme Being, to the extent in which you have | |
explained it, are complete Mystics, and chargeable with all the | |
consequences which I have drawn from their opinion. They are, in a word, | |
Atheists, without knowing it. For though it be allowed, that the Deity | |
possesses attributes of which we have no comprehension, yet ought we | |
never to ascribe to him any attributes which are absolutely incompatible | |
with that intelligent nature essential to him. A mind, whose acts and | |
sentiments and ideas are not distinct and successive; one, that is wholly | |
simple, and totally immutable, is a mind which has no thought, no reason, | |
no will, no sentiment, no love, no hatred; or, in a word, is no mind at | |
all. It is an abuse of terms to give it that appellation; and we may as | |
well speak of limited extension without figure, or of number without | |
composition. | |
<speaker PHILO>Pray consider, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> whom you are at present inveighing against. | |
You are honouring with the appellation of Atheist all the sound, orthodox | |
divines, almost, who have treated of this subject; and you will at last | |
be, yourself, found, according to your reckoning, the only sound Theist | |
in the world. But if idolaters be Atheists, as, I think, may justly be | |
asserted, and Christian Theologians the same, what becomes of the | |
argument, so much celebrated, derived from the universal consent of | |
mankind? | |
<speaker PHILO>But because I know you are not much swayed by names and authorities, I | |
shall endeavour to show you, a little more distinctly, the inconveniences | |
of that Anthropomorphism, which you have embraced; and shall prove, that | |
there is no ground to suppose a plan of the world to be formed in the | |
Divine mind, consisting of distinct ideas, differently arranged, in the | |
same manner as an architect forms in his head the plan of a house which | |
he intends to execute. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is not easy, I own, to see what is gained by this supposition, whether | |
we judge of the matter by Reason or by Experience. We are still obliged | |
to mount higher, in order to find the cause of this cause, which you had | |
assigned as satisfactory and conclusive. | |
<speaker PHILO>If Reason (I mean abstract reason, derived from inquiries a priori) be | |
not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect, | |
this sentence at least it will venture to pronounce, That a mental world, | |
or universe of ideas, requires a cause as much, as does a material world, | |
or universe of objects; and, if similar in its arrangement, must require | |
a similar cause. For what is there in this subject, which should occasion | |
a different conclusion or inference? In an abstract view, they are | |
entirely alike; and no difficulty attends the one supposition, which is | |
not common to both of them. | |
<speaker PHILO>Again, when we will needs force Experience to pronounce some sentence, | |
even on these subjects which lie beyond her sphere, neither can she | |
perceive any material difference in this particular, between these two | |
kinds of worlds; but finds them to be governed by similar principles, and | |
to depend upon an equal variety of causes in their operations. We have | |
specimens in miniature of both of them. Our own mind resembles the one; a | |
vegetable or animal body the other. Let experience, therefore, judge from | |
these samples. Nothing seems more delicate, with regard to its causes, | |
than thought; and as these causes never operate in two persons after the | |
same manner, so we never find two persons who think exactly alike. Nor | |
indeed does the same person think exactly alike at any two different | |
periods of time. A difference of age, of the disposition of his body, of | |
weather, of food, of company, of books, of passions; any of these | |
particulars, or others more minute, are sufficient to alter the curious | |
machinery of thought, and communicate to it very different movements and | |
operations. As far as we can judge, vegetables and animal bodies are not | |
more delicate in their motions, nor depend upon a greater variety or more | |
curious adjustment of springs and principles. | |
<speaker PHILO>How, therefore, shall we satisfy ourselves concerning the cause of that | |
Being whom you suppose the Author of Nature, or, according to your system | |
of Anthropomorphism, the ideal world, into which you trace the material? | |
Have we not the same reason to trace that ideal world into another ideal | |
world, or new intelligent principle? But if we stop, and go no further; | |
why go so far? why not stop at the material world? How can we satisfy | |
ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what | |
satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the | |
story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more | |
applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon | |
a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so | |
on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the | |
present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its | |
order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we | |
arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. When you go one step | |
beyond the mundane system, you only excite an inquisitive humour which it | |
is impossible ever to satisfy. | |
<speaker PHILO>To say, that the different ideas which compose the reason of the Supreme | |
Being, fall into order of themselves, and by their own nature, is really | |
to talk without any precise meaning. If it has a meaning, I would fain | |
know, why it is not as good sense to say, that the parts of the material | |
world fall into order of themselves and by their own nature. Can the one | |
opinion be intelligible, while the other is not so? | |
<speaker PHILO>We have, indeed, experience of ideas which fall into order of themselves, | |
and without any known cause. But, I am sure, we have a much larger | |
experience of matter which does the same; as, in all instances of | |
generation and vegetation, where the accurate analysis of the cause | |
exceeds all human comprehension. We have also experience of particular | |
systems of thought and of matter which have no order; of the first in | |
madness, of the second in corruption. Why, then, should we think, that | |
order is more essential to one than the other? And if it requires a cause | |
in both, what do we gain by your system, in tracing the universe of | |
objects into a similar universe of ideas? The first step which we make | |
leads us on for ever. It were, therefore, wise in us to limit all our | |
inquiries to the present world, without looking further. No satisfaction | |
can ever be attained by these speculations, which so far exceed the | |
narrow bounds of human understanding. | |
<speaker PHILO>It was usual with the PERIPATETICS, you know, CLEANTHES, when the cause | |
of any phenomenon was demanded, to have recourse to their faculties or | |
occult qualities; and to say, for instance, that bread nourished by its | |
nutritive faculty, and senna purged by its purgative. But it has been | |
discovered, that this subterfuge was nothing but the disguise of | |
ignorance; and that these philosophers, though less ingenuous, really | |
said the same thing with the sceptics or the vulgar, who fairly confessed | |
that they knew not the cause of these phenomena. In like manner, when it | |
is asked, what cause produces order in the ideas of the Supreme Being; | |
can any other reason be assigned by you, Anthropomorphites, than that it | |
is a rational faculty, and that such is the nature of the Deity? But why | |
a similar answer will not be equally satisfactory in accounting for the | |
order of the world, without having recourse to any such intelligent | |
creator as you insist on, may be difficult to determine. It is only to | |
say, that such is the nature of material objects, and that they are all | |
originally possessed of a faculty of order and proportion. These are only | |
more learned and elaborate ways of confessing our ignorance; nor has the | |
one hypothesis any real advantage above the other, except in its greater | |
conformity to vulgar prejudices. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>You have displayed this argument with great emphasis, replied CLEANTHES:<speaker CLEANTHES> | |
You seem not sensible how easy it is to answer it. Even in common life, | |
if I assign a cause for any event, is it any objection, PHILO, that I | |
cannot assign the cause of that cause, and answer every new question | |
which may incessantly be started? And what philosophers could possibly | |
submit to so rigid a rule? philosophers, who confess ultimate causes to | |
be totally unknown; and are sensible, that the most refined principles | |
into which they trace the phenomena, are still to them as inexplicable as | |
these phenomena themselves are to the vulgar. The order and arrangement | |
of nature, the curious adjustment of final causes, the plain use and | |
intention of every part and organ; all these bespeak in the clearest | |
language an intelligent cause or author. The heavens and the earth join | |
in the same testimony: The whole chorus of Nature raises one hymn to the | |
praises of its Creator. You alone, or almost alone, disturb this general | |
harmony. You start abstruse doubts, cavils, and objections: You ask me, | |
what is the cause of this cause? I know not; I care not; that concerns | |
not me. I have found a Deity; and here I stop my inquiry. Let those go | |
further, who are wiser or more enterprising. | |
<speaker PHILO>I pretend to be neither, replied PHILO:<speaker PHILO> And for that very reason, I | |
should never perhaps have attempted to go so far; especially when I am | |
sensible, that I must at last be contented to sit down with the same | |
answer, which, without further trouble, might have satisfied me from the | |
beginning. If I am still to remain in utter ignorance of causes, and can | |
absolutely give an explication of nothing, I shall never esteem it any | |
advantage to shove off for a moment a difficulty, which, you acknowledge, | |
must immediately, in its full force, recur upon me. Naturalists indeed | |
very justly explain particular effects by more general causes, though | |
these general causes themselves should remain in the end totally | |
inexplicable; but they never surely thought it satisfactory to explain a | |
particular effect by a particular cause, which was no more to be | |
accounted for than the effect itself. An ideal system, arranged of | |
itself, without a precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a | |
material one, which attains its order in a like manner; nor is there any | |
more difficulty in the latter supposition than in the former. | |
PART 5 | |
<speaker PHILO>But to show you still more inconveniences, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> in your | |
Anthropomorphism, please to take a new survey of your principles. Like | |
effects prove like causes. This is the experimental argument; and this, | |
you say too, is the sole theological argument. Now, it is certain, that | |
the liker the effects are which are seen, and the liker the causes which | |
are inferred, the stronger is the argument. Every departure on either | |
side diminishes the probability, and renders the experiment less | |
conclusive. You cannot doubt of the principle; neither ought you to | |
reject its consequences. | |
<speaker PHILO>All the new discoveries in astronomy, which prove the immense grandeur | |
and magnificence of the works of Nature, are so many additional arguments | |
for a Deity, according to the true system of Theism; but, according to | |
your hypothesis of experimental Theism, they become so many objections, | |
by removing the effect still further from all resemblance to the effects | |
of human art and contrivance. For, if LUCRETIUS[Lib. II. 1094], even | |
following the old system of the world, could exclaim, | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker PHILO>Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi | |
Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas? | |
Quis pariter coelos omnes convertere? et omnes | |
Ignibus aetheriis terras suffire feraces? | |
Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore praesto? | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker PHILO>If TULLY [De. nat. Deor. Lib. I] esteemed this reasoning so natural, | |
as to put it into the mouth of his EPICUREAN: | |
<speaker PHILO>"Quibus enim oculis animi intueri potuit vester Plato fabricam illam | |
tanti operis, qua construi a Deo atque aedificari mundum facit? quae | |
molitio? quae ferramenta? qui vectes? quae machinae? qui ministri tanti | |
muneris fuerunt? quemadmodum autem obedire et parere voluntati architecti | |
aer, ignis, aqua, terra potuerunt?" | |
<speaker PHILO>If this argument, I say, had any force in former ages, how much greater | |
must it have at present, when the bounds of Nature are so infinitely | |
enlarged, and such a magnificent scene is opened to us? It is still more | |
unreasonable to form our idea of so unlimited a cause from our experience | |
of the narrow productions of human design and invention. | |
<speaker PHILO>The discoveries by microscopes, as they open a new universe in miniature, | |
are still objections, according to you, arguments, according to me. The | |
further we push our researches of this kind, we are still led to infer | |
the universal cause of all to be vastly different from mankind, or from | |
any object of human experience and observation. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>And what say you to the discoveries in anatomy, chemistry, botany?... | |
These surely are no objections, replied CLEANTHES;<speaker CLEANTHES> they only discover new | |
instances of art and contrivance.<speaker PHILO> It is still the image of mind reflected | |
on us from innumerable objects. Add, a mind like the human, said PHILO.<speaker CLEANTHES> I | |
know of no other, replied CLEANTHES.<speaker PHILO> And the liker the better, insisted | |
PHILO.<speaker CLEANTHES> To be sure, said CLEANTHES. | |
<speaker PHILO>Now, CLEANTHES, said PHILO, with an air of alacrity and triumph,<speaker PHILO> mark the | |
consequences. First, By this method of reasoning, you renounce all claim | |
to infinity in any of the attributes of the Deity. For, as the cause | |
ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it | |
falls under our cognisance, is not infinite; what pretensions have we, | |
upon your suppositions, to ascribe that attribute to the Divine Being? | |
You will still insist, that, by removing him so much from all similarity | |
to human creatures, we give in to the most arbitrary hypothesis, and at | |
the same time weaken all proofs of his existence. | |
<speaker PHILO>Secondly, You have no reason, on your theory, for ascribing perfection to | |
the Deity, even in his finite capacity, or for supposing him free from | |
every error, mistake, or incoherence, in his undertakings. There are many | |
inexplicable difficulties in the works of Nature, which, if we allow a | |
perfect author to be proved a priori, are easily solved, and become only | |
seeming difficulties, from the narrow capacity of man, who cannot trace | |
infinite relations. But according to your method of reasoning, these | |
difficulties become all real; and perhaps will be insisted on, as new | |
instances of likeness to human art and contrivance. At least, you must | |
acknowledge, that it is impossible for us to tell, from our limited | |
views, whether this system contains any great faults, or deserves any | |
considerable praise, if compared to other possible, and even real | |
systems. Could a peasant, if the Aeneid were read to him, pronounce that | |
poem to be absolutely faultless, or even assign to it its proper rank | |
among the productions of human wit, he, who had never seen any other | |
production? | |
<speaker PHILO>But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain | |
uncertain, whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed | |
to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of | |
the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and | |
beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel, when we find him a | |
stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a | |
long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, | |
deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many | |
worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere | |
this system was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; | |
and a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in | |
the art of world-making. In such subjects, who can determine, where the | |
truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies, amidst a great | |
number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may | |
be imagined? | |
<speaker PHILO>And what shadow of an argument, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> can you produce, from | |
your hypothesis, to prove the unity of the Deity? A great number of men | |
join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a | |
commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and | |
framing a world? This is only so much greater similarity to human | |
affairs. By sharing the work among several, we may so much further limit | |
the attributes of each, and get rid of that extensive power and | |
knowledge, which must be supposed in one deity, and which, according to | |
you, can only serve to weaken the proof of his existence. And if such | |
foolish, such vicious creatures as man, can yet often unite in framing | |
and executing one plan, how much more those deities or demons, whom we | |
may suppose several degrees more perfect! | |
<speaker PHILO>To multiply causes without necessity, is indeed contrary to true | |
philosophy: but this principle applies not to the present case. Were one | |
deity antecedently proved by your theory, who were possessed of every | |
attribute requisite to the production of the universe; it would be | |
needless, I own, (though not absurd,) to suppose any other deity | |
existent. But while it is still a question, Whether all these attributes | |
are united in one subject, or dispersed among several independent beings, | |
by what phenomena in nature can we pretend to decide the controversy? | |
Where we see a body raised in a scale, we are sure that there is in the | |
opposite scale, however concealed from sight, some counterpoising weight | |
equal to it; but it is still allowed to doubt, whether that weight be an | |
aggregate of several distinct bodies, or one uniform united mass. And if | |
the weight requisite very much exceeds any thing which we have ever seen | |
conjoined in any single body, the former supposition becomes still more | |
probable and natural. An intelligent being of such vast power and | |
capacity as is necessary to produce the universe, or, to speak in the | |
language of ancient philosophy, so prodigious an animal exceeds all | |
analogy, and even comprehension. | |
<speaker PHILO>But further, CLEANTHES: men are mortal, and renew their species by | |
generation; and this is common to all living creatures. The two great | |
sexes of male and female, says MILTON, animate the world. Why must this | |
circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous | |
and limited deities? Behold, then, the theogony of ancient times brought | |
back upon us. | |
<speaker PHILO>And why not become a perfect Anthropomorphite? Why not assert the deity | |
or deities to be corporeal, and to have eyes, a nose, mouth, ears, &c.? | |
EPICURUS maintained, that no man had ever seen reason but in a human | |
figure; therefore the gods must have a human figure. And this argument, | |
which is deservedly so much ridiculed by CICERO, becomes, according to | |
you, solid and philosophical. | |
<speaker PHILO>In a word, CLEANTHES, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps | |
to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from | |
something like design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one | |
single circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix every point of his | |
theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for | |
aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior | |
standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who | |
afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work | |
only of some dependent, inferior deity; and is the object of derision to | |
his superiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in some | |
superannuated deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, | |
from the first impulse and active force which it received from him. You | |
justly give signs of horror, DEMEA, at these strange suppositions; but | |
these, and a thousand more of the same kind, are CLEANTHES's | |
suppositions, not mine. From the moment the attributes of the Deity are | |
supposed finite, all these have place. And I cannot, for my part, think | |
that so wild and unsettled a system of theology is, in any respect, | |
preferable to none at all. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>These suppositions I absolutely disown, cried CLEANTHES:<speaker CLEANTHES> they strike me, | |
however, with no horror, especially when proposed in that rambling way in | |
which they drop from you. On the contrary, they give me pleasure, when I | |
see, that, by the utmost indulgence of your imagination, you never get | |
rid of the hypothesis of design in the universe, but are obliged at every | |
turn to have recourse to it. To this concession I adhere steadily; and | |
this I regard as a sufficient foundation for religion. | |
PART 6 | |
<speaker DEMEA>It must be a slight fabric, indeed, said DEMEA, <speaker DEMEA>which can be erected on | |
so tottering a foundation. While we are uncertain whether there is one | |
deity or many; whether the deity or deities, to whom we owe our | |
existence, be perfect or imperfect, subordinate or supreme, dead or | |
alive, what trust or confidence can we repose in them? What devotion or | |
worship address to them? What veneration or obedience pay them? To all | |
the purposes of life the theory of religion becomes altogether useless: | |
and even with regard to speculative consequences, its uncertainty, | |
according to you, must render it totally precarious and unsatisfactory. | |
<speaker PHILO>To render it still more unsatisfactory, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> there occurs to me | |
another hypothesis, which must acquire an air of probability from the | |
method of reasoning so much insisted on by CLEANTHES. That like effects | |
arise from like causes: this principle he supposes the foundation of all | |
religion. But there is another principle of the same kind, no less | |
certain, and derived from the same source of experience; that where | |
several known circumstances are observed to be similar, the unknown will | |
also be found similar. Thus, if we see the limbs of a human body, we | |
conclude that it is also attended with a human head, though hid from us. | |
Thus, if we see, through a chink in a wall, a small part of the sun, we | |
conclude, that, were the wall removed, we should see the whole body. In | |
short, this method of reasoning is so obvious and familiar, that no | |
scruple can ever be made with regard to its solidity. | |
<speaker PHILO>Now, if we survey the universe, so far as it falls under our knowledge, | |
it bears a great resemblance to an animal or organised body, and seems | |
actuated with a like principle of life and motion. A continual | |
circulation of matter in it produces no disorder: a continual waste in | |
every part is incessantly repaired: the closest sympathy is perceived | |
throughout the entire system: and each part or member, in performing its | |
proper offices, operates both to its own preservation and to that of the | |
whole. The world, therefore, I infer, is an animal; and the Deity is the | |
SOUL of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it. | |
<speaker PHILO>You have too much learning, CLEANTHES, to be at all surprised at this | |
opinion, which, you know, was maintained by almost all the Theists of | |
antiquity, and chiefly prevails in their discourses and reasonings. For | |
though, sometimes, the ancient philosophers reason from final causes, as | |
if they thought the world the workmanship of God; yet it appears rather | |
their favourite notion to consider it as his body, whose organisation | |
renders it subservient to him. And it must be confessed, that, as the | |
universe resembles more a human body than it does the works of human art | |
and contrivance, if our limited analogy could ever, with any propriety, | |
be extended to the whole of nature, the inference seems juster in favour | |
of the ancient than the modern theory. | |
<speaker PHILO>There are many other advantages, too, in the former theory, which | |
recommended it to the ancient theologians. Nothing more repugnant to all | |
their notions, because nothing more repugnant to common experience, than | |
mind without body; a mere spiritual substance, which fell not under their | |
senses nor comprehension, and of which they had not observed one single | |
instance throughout all nature. Mind and body they knew, because they | |
felt both: an order, arrangement, organisation, or internal machinery, in | |
both, they likewise knew, after the same manner: and it could not but | |
seem reasonable to transfer this experience to the universe; and to | |
suppose the divine mind and body to be also coeval, and to have, both of | |
them, order and arrangement naturally inherent in them, and inseparable | |
from them. | |
<speaker PHILO>Here, therefore, is a new species of Anthropomorphism, CLEANTHES, on | |
which you may deliberate; and a theory which seems not liable to any | |
considerable difficulties. You are too much superior, surely, to | |
systematical prejudices, to find any more difficulty in supposing an | |
animal body to be, originally, of itself, or from unknown causes, | |
possessed of order and organisation, than in supposing a similar order to | |
belong to mind. But the vulgar prejudice, that body and mind ought always | |
to accompany each other, ought not, one should think, to be entirely | |
neglected; since it is founded on vulgar experience, the only guide which | |
you profess to follow in all these theological inquiries. And if you | |
assert, that our limited experience is an unequal standard, by which to | |
judge of the unlimited extent of nature; you entirely abandon your own | |
hypothesis, and must thenceforward adopt our Mysticism, as you call it, | |
and admit of the absolute incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>This theory, I own, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> has never before occurred to me, | |
though a pretty natural one; and I cannot readily, upon so short an | |
examination and reflection, deliver any opinion with regard to it.<speaker PHILO> You | |
are very scrupulous, indeed, said PHILO:<speaker PHILO> were I to examine any system of | |
yours, I should not have acted with half that caution and reserve, in | |
starting objections and difficulties to it. However, if any thing occur | |
to you, you will oblige us by proposing it. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Why then, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> it seems to me, that, though the world does, | |
in many circumstances, resemble an animal body; yet is the analogy also | |
defective in many circumstances the most material: no organs of sense; no | |
seat of thought or reason; no one precise origin of motion and action. In | |
short, it seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an | |
animal, and your inference would be so far inconclusive in favour of the | |
soul of the world. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But, in the next place, your theory seems to imply the eternity of the | |
world; and that is a principle, which, I think, can be refuted by the | |
strongest reasons and probabilities. I shall suggest an argument to this | |
purpose, which, I believe, has not been insisted on by any writer. Those, | |
who reason from the late origin of arts and sciences, though their | |
inference wants not force, may perhaps be refuted by considerations | |
derived from the nature of human society, which is in continual | |
revolution, between ignorance and knowledge, liberty and slavery, riches | |
and poverty; so that it is impossible for us, from our limited | |
experience, to foretell with assurance what events may or may not be | |
expected. Ancient learning and history seem to have been in great danger | |
of entirely perishing after the inundation of the barbarous nations; and | |
had these convulsions continued a little longer, or been a little more | |
violent, we should not probably have now known what passed in the world a | |
few centuries before us. Nay, were it not for the superstition of the | |
Popes, who preserved a little jargon of Latin, in order to support the | |
appearance of an ancient and universal church, that tongue must have been | |
utterly lost; in which case, the Western world, being totally barbarous, | |
would not have been in a fit disposition for receiving the GREEK language | |
and learning, which was conveyed to them after the sacking of | |
CONSTANTINOPLE. When learning and books had been extinguished, even the | |
mechanical arts would have fallen considerably to decay; and it is easily | |
imagined, that fable or tradition might ascribe to them a much later | |
origin than the true one. This vulgar argument, therefore, against the | |
eternity of the world, seems a little precarious. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But here appears to be the foundation of a better argument. LUCULLUS was | |
the first that brought cherry-trees from ASIA to EUROPE; though that tree | |
thrives so well in many EUROPEAN climates, that it grows in the woods | |
without any culture. Is it possible, that throughout a whole eternity, no | |
EUROPEAN had ever passed into ASIA, and thought of transplanting so | |
delicious a fruit into his own country? Or if the tree was once | |
transplanted and propagated, how could it ever afterwards perish? Empires | |
may rise and fall, liberty and slavery succeed alternately, ignorance and | |
knowledge give place to each other; but the cherry-tree will still remain | |
in the woods of GREECE, SPAIN, and ITALY, and will never be affected by | |
the revolutions of human society. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It is not two thousand years since vines were transplanted into FRANCE, | |
though there is no climate in the world more favourable to them. It is | |
not three centuries since horses, cows, sheep, swine, dogs, corn, were | |
known in AMERICA. Is it possible, that during the revolutions of a whole | |
eternity, there never arose a COLUMBUS, who might open the communication | |
between EUROPE and that continent? We may as well imagine, that all men | |
would wear stockings for ten thousand years, and never have the sense to | |
think of garters to tie them. All these seem convincing proofs of the | |
youth, or rather infancy, of the world; as being founded on the operation | |
of principles more constant and steady than those by which human society | |
is governed and directed. Nothing less than a total convulsion of the | |
elements will ever destroy all the EUROPEAN animals and vegetables which | |
are now to be found in the Western world. | |
<speaker PHILO>And what argument have you against such convulsions? replied PHILO. | |
<speaker PHILO>Strong and almost incontestable proofs may be traced over the whole | |
earth, that every part of this globe has continued for many ages entirely | |
covered with water. And though order were supposed inseparable from | |
matter, and inherent in it; yet may matter be susceptible of many and | |
great revolutions, through the endless periods of eternal duration. The | |
incessant changes, to which every part of it is subject, seem to intimate | |
some such general transformations; though, at the same time, it is | |
observable, that all the changes and corruptions of which we have ever | |
had experience, are but passages from one state of order to another; nor | |
can matter ever rest in total deformity and confusion. What we see in the | |
parts, we may infer in the whole; at least, that is the method of | |
reasoning on which you rest your whole theory. And were I obliged to | |
defend any particular system of this nature, which I never willingly | |
should do, I esteem none more plausible than that which ascribes an | |
eternal inherent principle of order to the world, though attended with | |
great and continual revolutions and alterations. This at once solves all | |
difficulties; and if the solution, by being so general, is not entirely | |
complete and satisfactory, it is at least a theory that we must sooner or | |
later have recourse to, whatever system we embrace. How could things have | |
been as they are, were there not an original inherent principle of order | |
somewhere, in thought or in matter? And it is very indifferent to which | |
of these we give the preference. Chance has no place, on any hypothesis, | |
sceptical or religious. Every thing is surely governed by steady, | |
inviolable laws. And were the inmost essence of things laid open to us, | |
we should then discover a scene, of which, at present, we can have no | |
idea. Instead of admiring the order of natural beings, we should clearly | |
see that it was absolutely impossible for them, in the smallest article, | |
ever to admit of any other disposition. | |
<speaker PHILO>Were any one inclined to revive the ancient Pagan Theology, which | |
maintained, as we learn from HESIOD, that this globe was governed by | |
30,000 deities, who arose from the unknown powers of nature: you would | |
naturally object, CLEANTHES, that nothing is gained by this hypothesis; | |
and that it is as easy to suppose all men animals, beings more numerous, | |
but less perfect, to have sprung immediately from a like origin. Push the | |
same inference a step further, and you will find a numerous society of | |
deities as explicable as one universal deity, who possesses within | |
himself the powers and perfections of the whole society. All these | |
systems, then, of Scepticism, Polytheism, and Theism, you must allow, on | |
your principles, to be on a like footing, and that no one of them has any | |
advantage over the others. You may thence learn the fallacy of your | |
principles. | |
PART 7 | |
<speaker PHILO>But here, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> in examining the ancient system of the soul of | |
the world, there strikes me, all on a sudden, a new idea, which, if just, | |
must go near to subvert all your reasoning, and destroy even your first | |
inferences, on which you repose such confidence. If the universe bears a | |
greater likeness to animal bodies and to vegetables, than to the works of | |
human art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of the | |
former than that of the latter, and its origin ought rather to be | |
ascribed to generation or vegetation, than to reason or design. Your | |
conclusion, even according to your own principles, is therefore lame and | |
defective. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Pray open up this argument a little further, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> for I do not | |
rightly apprehend it in that concise manner in which you have expressed | |
it. | |
<speaker PHILO>Our friend CLEANTHES, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> as you have heard, asserts, that | |
since no question of fact can be proved otherwise than by experience, the | |
existence of a Deity admits not of proof from any other medium. The | |
world, says he, resembles the works of human contrivance; therefore its | |
cause must also resemble that of the other. Here we may remark, that the | |
operation of one very small part of nature, to wit man, upon another very | |
small part, to wit that inanimate matter lying within his reach, is the | |
rule by which CLEANTHES judges of the origin of the whole; and he | |
measures objects, so widely disproportioned, by the same individual | |
standard. But to waive all objections drawn from this topic, I affirm, | |
that there are other parts of the universe (besides the machines of human | |
invention) which bear still a greater resemblance to the fabric of the | |
world, and which, therefore, afford a better conjecture concerning the | |
universal origin of this system. These parts are animals and vegetables. | |
The world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable, than it does a | |
watch or a knitting-loom. Its cause, therefore, it is more probable, | |
resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the former is generation | |
or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the world, we may infer to be | |
something similar or analogous to generation or vegetation. | |
<speaker DEMEA>But how is it conceivable, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> that the world can arise from any | |
thing similar to vegetation or generation? | |
<speaker PHILO>Very easily, replied PHILO.<speaker PHILO> In like manner as a tree sheds its seed into | |
the neighbouring fields, and produces other trees; so the great | |
vegetable, the world, or this planetary system, produces within itself | |
certain seeds, which, being scattered into the surrounding chaos, | |
vegetate into new worlds. A comet, for instance, is the seed of a world; | |
and after it has been fully ripened, by passing from sun to sun, and star | |
to star, it is at last tossed into the unformed elements which every | |
where surround this universe, and immediately sprouts up into a new | |
system. | |
<speaker PHILO>Or if, for the sake of variety (for I see no other advantage), we should | |
suppose this world to be an animal; a comet is the egg of this animal: | |
and in like manner as an ostrich lays its egg in the sand, which, without | |
any further care, hatches the egg, and produces a new animal; so... | |
<speaker DEMEA>I understand you, says DEMEA:<speaker DEMEA> But what wild, arbitrary suppositions are | |
these! What data have you for such extraordinary conclusions? And is the | |
slight, imaginary resemblance of the world to a vegetable or an animal | |
sufficient to establish the same inference with regard to both? Objects, | |
which are in general so widely different, ought they to be a standard for | |
each other? | |
<speaker PHILO>Right, cries PHILO:<speaker PHILO> This is the topic on which I have all along insisted. | |
I have still asserted, that we have no data to establish any system of | |
cosmogony. Our experience, so imperfect in itself, and so limited both in | |
extent and duration, can afford us no probable conjecture concerning the | |
whole of things. But if we must needs fix on some hypothesis; by what | |
rule, pray, ought we to determine our choice? Is there any other rule | |
than the greater similarity of the objects compared? And does not a plant | |
or an animal, which springs from vegetation or generation, bear a | |
stronger resemblance to the world, than does any artificial machine, | |
which arises from reason and design? | |
<speaker DEMEA>But what is this vegetation and generation of which you talk? said DEMEA. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Can you explain their operations, and anatomise that fine internal | |
structure on which they depend? | |
<speaker PHILO>As much, at least, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> as CLEANTHES can explain the operations | |
of reason, or anatomise that internal structure on which it depends. But | |
without any such elaborate disquisitions, when I see an animal, I infer, | |
that it sprang from generation; and that with as great certainty as you | |
conclude a house to have been reared by design. These words, generation, | |
reason, mark only certain powers and energies in nature, whose effects | |
are known, but whose essence is incomprehensible; and one of these | |
principles, more than the other, has no privilege for being made a | |
standard to the whole of nature. | |
<speaker PHILO>In reality, DEMEA, it may reasonably be expected, that the larger the | |
views are which we take of things, the better will they conduct us in our | |
conclusions concerning such extraordinary and such magnificent subjects. | |
In this little corner of the world alone, there are four principles, | |
reason, instinct, generation, vegetation, which are similar to each | |
other, and are the causes of similar effects. What a number of other | |
principles may we naturally suppose in the immense extent and variety of | |
the universe, could we travel from planet to planet, and from system to | |
system, in order to examine each part of this mighty fabric? Any one of | |
these four principles above mentioned, (and a hundred others which lie | |
open to our conjecture,) may afford us a theory by which to judge of the | |
origin of the world; and it is a palpable and egregious partiality to | |
confine our view entirely to that principle by which our own minds | |
operate. Were this principle more intelligible on that account, such a | |
partiality might be somewhat excusable: But reason, in its internal | |
fabric and structure, is really as little known to us as instinct or | |
vegetation; and, perhaps, even that vague, indeterminate word, Nature, to | |
which the vulgar refer every thing, is not at the bottom more | |
inexplicable. The effects of these principles are all known to us from | |
experience; but the principles themselves, and their manner of operation, | |
are totally unknown; nor is it less intelligible, or less conformable to | |
experience, to say, that the world arose by vegetation, from a seed shed | |
by another world, than to say that it arose from a divine reason or | |
contrivance, according to the sense in which CLEANTHES understands it. | |
<speaker DEMEA>But methinks, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> if the world had a vegetative quality, and | |
could sow the seeds of new worlds into the infinite chaos, this power | |
would be still an additional argument for design in its author. For | |
whence could arise so wonderful a faculty but from design? Or how can | |
order spring from any thing which perceives not that order which it | |
bestows? | |
<speaker PHILO>You need only look around you, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> to satisfy yourself with | |
regard to this question. A tree bestows order and organisation on that | |
tree which springs from it, without knowing the order; an animal in the | |
same manner on its offspring; a bird on its nest; and instances of this | |
kind are even more frequent in the world than those of order, which arise | |
from reason and contrivance. To say, that all this order in animals and | |
vegetables proceeds ultimately from design, is begging the question; nor | |
can that great point be ascertained otherwise than by proving, a priori, | |
both that order is, from its nature, inseparably attached to thought; and | |
that it can never of itself, or from original unknown principles, belong | |
to matter. | |
<speaker PHILO>But further, DEMEA; this objection which you urge can never be made use | |
of by CLEANTHES, without renouncing a defence which he has already made | |
against one of my objections. When I inquired concerning the cause of | |
that supreme reason and intelligence into which he resolves every thing; | |
he told me, that the impossibility of satisfying such inquiries could | |
never be admitted as an objection in any species of philosophy. "We must | |
stop somewhere", says he; "nor is it ever within the reach of human | |
capacity to explain ultimate causes, or show the last connections of any | |
objects. It is sufficient, if any steps, so far as we go, are supported | |
by experience and observation." Now, that vegetation and generation, as | |
well as reason, are experienced to be principles of order in nature, is | |
undeniable. If I rest my system of cosmogony on the former, preferably to | |
the latter, it is at my choice. The matter seems entirely arbitrary. And | |
when CLEANTHES asks me what is the cause of my great vegetative or | |
generative faculty, I am equally entitled to ask him the cause of his | |
great reasoning principle. These questions we have agreed to forbear on | |
both sides; and it is chiefly his interest on the present occasion to | |
stick to this agreement. Judging by our limited and imperfect experience, | |
generation has some privileges above reason: for we see every day the | |
latter arise from the former, never the former from the latter. | |
<speaker PHILO>Compare, I beseech you, the consequences on both sides. The world, say I, | |
resembles an animal; therefore it is an animal, therefore it arose from | |
generation. The steps, I confess, are wide; yet there is some small | |
appearance of analogy in each step. The world, says CLEANTHES, resembles | |
a machine; therefore it is a machine, therefore it arose from design. The | |
steps are here equally wide, and the analogy less striking. And if he | |
pretends to carry on my hypothesis a step further, and to infer design or | |
reason from the great principle of generation, on which I insist; I may, | |
with better authority, use the same freedom to push further his | |
hypothesis, and infer a divine generation or theogony from his principle | |
of reason. I have at least some faint shadow of experience, which is the | |
utmost that can ever be attained in the present subject. Reason, in | |
innumerable instances, is observed to arise from the principle of | |
generation, and never to arise from any other principle. | |
<speaker PHILO>HESIOD, and all the ancient mythologists, were so struck with this | |
analogy, that they universally explained the origin of nature from an | |
animal birth, and copulation. PLATO too, so far as he is intelligible, | |
seems to have adopted some such notion in his TIMAEUS. | |
<speaker PHILO>The BRAHMINS assert, that the world arose from an infinite spider, who | |
spun this whole complicated mass from his bowels, and annihilates | |
afterwards the whole or any part of it, by absorbing it again, and | |
resolving it into his own essence. Here is a species of cosmogony, which | |
appears to us ridiculous; because a spider is a little contemptible | |
animal, whose operations we are never likely to take for a model of the | |
whole universe. But still here is a new species of analogy, even in our | |
globe. And were there a planet wholly inhabited by spiders, (which is | |
very possible,) this inference would there appear as natural and | |
irrefragable as that which in our planet ascribes the origin of all | |
things to design and intelligence, as explained by CLEANTHES. Why an | |
orderly system may not be spun from the belly as well as from the brain, | |
it will be difficult for him to give a satisfactory reason. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I must confess, PHILO, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> that of all men living, the | |
task which you have undertaken, of raising doubts and objections, suits | |
you best, and seems, in a manner, natural and unavoidable to you. So | |
great is your fertility of invention, that I am not ashamed to | |
acknowledge myself unable, on a sudden, to solve regularly such | |
out-of-the-way difficulties as you incessantly start upon me: though I | |
clearly see, in general, their fallacy and error. And I question not, but | |
you are yourself, at present, in the same case, and have not the solution | |
so ready as the objection: while you must be sensible, that common sense | |
and reason are entirely against you; and that such whimsies as you have | |
delivered, may puzzle, but never can convince us. | |
PART 8 | |
<speaker PHILO>What you ascribe to the fertility of my invention, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> is | |
entirely owing to the nature of the subject. In subjects adapted to the | |
narrow compass of human reason, there is commonly but one determination, | |
which carries probability or conviction with it; and to a man of sound | |
judgement, all other suppositions, but that one, appear entirely absurd | |
and chimerical. But in such questions as the present, a hundred | |
contradictory views may preserve a kind of imperfect analogy; and | |
invention has here full scope to exert itself. Without any great effort | |
of thought, I believe that I could, in an instant, propose other systems | |
of cosmogony, which would have some faint appearance of truth, though it | |
is a thousand, a million to one, if either yours or any one of mine be | |
the true system. | |
<speaker PHILO>For instance, what if I should revive the old EPICUREAN hypothesis? This | |
is commonly, and I believe justly, esteemed the most absurd system that | |
has yet been proposed; yet I know not whether, with a few alterations, it | |
might not be brought to bear a faint appearance of probability. Instead | |
of supposing matter infinite, as EPICURUS did, let us suppose it finite. | |
A finite number of particles is only susceptible of finite transpositions: | |
and it must happen, in an eternal duration, that every possible order or | |
position must be tried an infinite number of times. This world, therefore, | |
with all its events, even the most minute, has before been produced and | |
destroyed, and will again be produced and destroyed, without any bounds | |
and limitations. No one, who has a conception of the powers of infinite, | |
in comparison of finite, will ever scruple this determination. | |
<speaker DEMEA>But this supposes, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> that matter can acquire motion, without | |
any voluntary agent or first mover. | |
<speaker PHILO>And where is the difficulty, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> of that supposition? Every | |
event, before experience, is equally difficult and incomprehensible; and | |
every event, after experience, is equally easy and intelligible. Motion, | |
in many instances, from gravity, from elasticity, from electricity, | |
begins in matter, without any known voluntary agent: and to suppose | |
always, in these cases, an unknown voluntary agent, is mere hypothesis; | |
and hypothesis attended with no advantages. The beginning of motion in | |
matter itself is as conceivable a priori as its communication from mind | |
and intelligence. | |
<speaker PHILO>Besides, why may not motion have been propagated by impulse through all | |
eternity, and the same stock of it, or nearly the same, be still upheld | |
in the universe? As much is lost by the composition of motion, as much is | |
gained by its resolution. And whatever the causes are, the fact is | |
certain, that matter is, and always has been, in continual agitation, as | |
far as human experience or tradition reaches. There is not probably, at | |
present, in the whole universe, one particle of matter at absolute rest. | |
<speaker PHILO>And this very consideration too, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> which we have stumbled | |
on in the course of the argument, suggests a new hypothesis of cosmogony, | |
that is not absolutely absurd and improbable. Is there a system, an | |
order, an economy of things, by which matter can preserve that perpetual | |
agitation which seems essential to it, and yet maintain a constancy in | |
the forms which it produces? There certainly is such an economy; for this | |
is actually the case with the present world. The continual motion of | |
matter, therefore, in less than infinite transpositions, must produce | |
this economy or order; and by its very nature, that order, when once | |
established, supports itself, for many ages, if not to eternity. But | |
wherever matter is so poised, arranged, and adjusted, as to continue in | |
perpetual motion, and yet preserve a constancy in the forms, its | |
situation must, of necessity, have all the same appearance of art and | |
contrivance which we observe at present. All the parts of each form must | |
have a relation to each other, and to the whole; and the whole itself | |
must have a relation to the other parts of the universe; to the element | |
in which the form subsists; to the materials with which it repairs its | |
waste and decay; and to every other form which is hostile or friendly. A | |
defect in any of these particulars destroys the form; and the matter of | |
which it is composed is again set loose, and is thrown into irregular | |
motions and fermentations, till it unite itself to some other regular | |
form. If no such form be prepared to receive it, and if there be a great | |
quantity of this corrupted matter in the universe, the universe itself is | |
entirely disordered; whether it be the feeble embryo of a world in its | |
first beginnings that is thus destroyed, or the rotten carcass of one | |
languishing in old age and infirmity. In either case, a chaos ensues; | |
till finite, though innumerable revolutions produce at last some forms, | |
whose parts and organs are so adjusted as to support the forms amidst a | |
continued succession of matter. | |
<speaker PHILO>Suppose (for we shall endeavour to vary the expression), that matter were | |
thrown into any position, by a blind, unguided force; it is evident that | |
this first position must, in all probability, be the most confused and | |
most disorderly imaginable, without any resemblance to those works of | |
human contrivance, which, along with a symmetry of parts, discover an | |
adjustment of means to ends, and a tendency to self-preservation. If the | |
actuating force cease after this operation, matter must remain for ever | |
in disorder, and continue an immense chaos, without any proportion or | |
activity. But suppose that the actuating force, whatever it be, still | |
continues in matter, this first position will immediately give place to a | |
second, which will likewise in all probability be as disorderly as the | |
first, and so on through many successions of changes and revolutions. No | |
particular order or position ever continues a moment unaltered. The | |
original force, still remaining in activity, gives a perpetual | |
restlessness to matter. Every possible situation is produced, and | |
instantly destroyed. If a glimpse or dawn of order appears for a moment, | |
it is instantly hurried away, and confounded, by that never-ceasing force | |
which actuates every part of matter. | |
<speaker PHILO>Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a continued succession of | |
chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last, so | |
as not to lose its motion and active force (for that we have supposed | |
inherent in it), yet so as to preserve an uniformity of appearance, | |
amidst the continual motion and fluctuation of its parts? This we find to | |
be the case with the universe at present. Every individual is perpetually | |
changing, and every part of every individual; and yet the whole remains, | |
in appearance, the same. May we not hope for such a position, or rather | |
be assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter; and | |
may not this account for all the appearing wisdom and contrivance which | |
is in the universe? Let us contemplate the subject a little, and we shall | |
find, that this adjustment, if attained by matter of a seeming stability | |
in the forms, with a real and perpetual revolution or motion of parts, | |
affords a plausible, if not a true solution of the difficulty. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the parts in animals | |
or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each other. I would fain | |
know, how an animal could subsist, unless its parts were so adjusted? Do | |
we not find, that it immediately perishes whenever this adjustment | |
ceases, and that its matter corrupting tries some new form? It happens | |
indeed, that the parts of the world are so well adjusted, that some | |
regular form immediately lays claim to this corrupted matter: and if it | |
were not so, could the world subsist? Must it not dissolve as well as the | |
animal, and pass through new positions and situations, till in great, but | |
finite succession, it falls at last into the present or some such order? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It is well, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> you told us, that this hypothesis was | |
suggested on a sudden, in the course of the argument. Had you had leisure | |
to examine it, you would soon have perceived the insuperable objections | |
to which it is exposed. No form, you say, can subsist, unless it possess | |
those powers and organs requisite for its subsistence: some new order or | |
economy must be tried, and so on, without intermission; till at last some | |
order, which can support and maintain itself, is fallen upon. But | |
according to this hypothesis, whence arise the many conveniences and | |
advantages which men and all animals possess? Two eyes, two ears, are not | |
absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the species. Human race might | |
have been propagated and preserved, without horses, dogs, cows, sheep, | |
and those innumerable fruits and products which serve to our satisfaction | |
and enjoyment. If no camels had been created for the use of man in the | |
sandy deserts of AFRICA and ARABIA, would the world have been dissolved? | |
If no lodestone had been framed to give that wonderful and useful | |
direction to the needle, would human society and the human kind have been | |
immediately extinguished? Though the maxims of Nature be in general very | |
frugal, yet instances of this kind are far from being rare; and any one | |
of them is a sufficient proof of design, and of a benevolent design, | |
which gave rise to the order and arrangement of the universe. | |
<speaker PHILO>At least, you may safely infer, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that the foregoing hypothesis | |
is so far incomplete and imperfect, which I shall not scruple to allow. | |
But can we ever reasonably expect greater success in any attempts of this | |
nature? Or can we ever hope to erect a system of cosmogony, that will be | |
liable to no exceptions, and will contain no circumstance repugnant to | |
our limited and imperfect experience of the analogy of Nature? Your | |
theory itself cannot surely pretend to any such advantage, even though | |
you have run into Anthropomorphism, the better to preserve a conformity | |
to common experience. Let us once more put it to trial. In all instances | |
which we have ever seen, ideas are copied from real objects, and are | |
ectypal, not archetypal, to express myself in learned terms: You reverse | |
this order, and give thought the precedence. In all instances which we | |
have ever seen, thought has no influence upon matter, except where that | |
matter is so conjoined with it as to have an equal reciprocal influence | |
upon it. No animal can move immediately any thing but the members of its | |
own body; and indeed, the equality of action and reaction seems to be an | |
universal law of nature: But your theory implies a contradiction to this | |
experience. These instances, with many more, which it were easy to | |
collect, (particularly the supposition of a mind or system of thought | |
that is eternal, or, in other words, an animal ingenerable and immortal); | |
these instances, I say, may teach all of us sobriety in condemning each | |
other, and let us see, that as no system of this kind ought ever to be | |
received from a slight analogy, so neither ought any to be rejected on | |
account of a small incongruity. For that is an inconvenience from which | |
we can justly pronounce no one to be exempted. | |
<speaker PHILO>All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and | |
insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in his turn; while he | |
carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, | |
and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole, | |
prepare a complete triumph for the Sceptic; who tells them, that no | |
system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects: For this | |
plain reason, that no absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard | |
to any subject. A total suspense of judgement is here our only reasonable | |
resource. And if every attack, as is commonly observed, and no defence, | |
among Theologians, is successful; how complete must be his victory, who | |
remains always, with all mankind, on the offensive, and has himself no | |
fixed station or abiding city, which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged | |
to defend? | |
PART 9 | |
<speaker DEMEA>But if so many difficulties attend the argument a posteriori, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> | |
had we not better adhere to that simple and sublime argument a priori, | |
which, by offering to us infallible demonstration, cuts off at once all | |
doubt and difficulty? By this argument, too, we may prove the infinity of | |
the Divine attributes, which, I am afraid, can never be ascertained with | |
certainty from any other topic. For how can an effect, which either is | |
finite, or, for aught we know, may be so; how can such an effect, I say, | |
prove an infinite cause? The unity too of the Divine Nature, it is very | |
difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to deduce merely from | |
contemplating the works of nature; nor will the uniformity alone of the | |
plan, even were it allowed, give us any assurance of that attribute. | |
Whereas the argument a priori ... | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>You seem to reason, DEMEA, interposed CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> as if those advantages | |
and conveniences in the abstract argument were full proofs of its | |
solidity. But it is first proper, in my opinion, to determine what | |
argument of this nature you choose to insist on; and we shall afterwards, | |
from itself, better than from its useful consequences, endeavour to | |
determine what value we ought to put upon it. | |
<speaker DEMEA>The argument, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> which I would insist on, is the common one. | |
Whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence; it being | |
absolutely impossible for any thing to produce itself, or be the cause of | |
its own existence. In mounting up, therefore, from effects to causes, we | |
must either go on in tracing an infinite succession, without any ultimate | |
cause at all; or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause, that | |
is necessarily existent: Now, that the first supposition is absurd, may | |
be thus proved. In the infinite chain or succession of causes and | |
effects, each single effect is determined to exist by the power and | |
efficacy of that cause which immediately preceded; but the whole eternal | |
chain or succession, taken together, is not determined or caused by any | |
thing; and yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much | |
as any particular object which begins to exist in time. The question is | |
still reasonable, why this particular succession of causes existed from | |
eternity, and not any other succession, or no succession at all. If there | |
be no necessarily existent being, any supposition which can be formed is | |
equally possible; nor is there any more absurdity in Nothing's having | |
existed from eternity, than there is in that succession of causes which | |
constitutes the universe. What was it, then, which determined Something | |
to exist rather than Nothing, and bestowed being on a particular | |
possibility, exclusive of the rest? External causes, there are supposed | |
to be none. Chance is a word without a meaning. Was it Nothing? But that | |
can never produce any thing. We must, therefore, have recourse to a | |
necessarily existent Being, who carries the REASON of his existence in | |
himself, and who cannot be supposed not to exist, without an express | |
contradiction. There is, consequently, such a Being; that is, there is a | |
Deity. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I shall not leave it to PHILO, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> though I know that the | |
starting objections is his chief delight, to point out the weakness of | |
this metaphysical reasoning. It seems to me so obviously ill-grounded, | |
and at the same time of so little consequence to the cause of true piety | |
and religion, that I shall myself venture to show the fallacy of it. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I shall begin with observing, that there is an evident absurdity in | |
pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any | |
arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies | |
a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a | |
contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as | |
non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a | |
contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is | |
demonstrable. I propose this argument as entirely decisive, and am | |
willing to rest the whole controversy upon it. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>It is pretended that the Deity is a necessarily existent being; and this | |
necessity of his existence is attempted to be explained by asserting, | |
that if we knew his whole essence or nature, we should perceive it to be | |
as impossible for him not to exist, as for twice two not to be four. But | |
it is evident that this can never happen, while our faculties remain the | |
same as at present. It will still be possible for us, at any time, to | |
conceive the non-existence of what we formerly conceived to exist; nor | |
can the mind ever lie under a necessity of supposing any object to remain | |
always in being; in the same manner as we lie under a necessity of always | |
conceiving twice two to be four. The words, therefore, necessary | |
existence, have no meaning; or, which is the same thing, none that is | |
consistent. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But further, why may not the material universe be the necessarily | |
existent Being, according to this pretended explication of necessity? We | |
dare not affirm that we know all the qualities of matter; and for aught | |
we can determine, it may contain some qualities, which, were they known, | |
would make its non-existence appear as great a contradiction as that | |
twice two is five. I find only one argument employed to prove, that the | |
material world is not the necessarily existent Being: and this argument | |
is derived from the contingency both of the matter and the form of the | |
world. "Any particle of matter," it is said[]Dr. Clarke, "may be conceived | |
to be annihilated; and any form may be conceived to be altered. Such an | |
annihilation or alteration, therefore, is not impossible." But it seems | |
a great partiality not to perceive, that the same argument extends | |
equally to the Deity, so far as we have any conception of him; and that | |
the mind can at least imagine him to be non-existent, or his attributes | |
to be altered. It must be some unknown, inconceivable qualities, which | |
can make his non-existence appear impossible, or his attributes | |
unalterable: And no reason can be assigned, why these qualities may not | |
belong to matter. As they are altogether unknown and inconceivable, they | |
can never be proved incompatible with it. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Add to this, that in tracing an eternal succession of objects, it seems | |
absurd to inquire for a general cause or first author. How can any thing, | |
that exists from eternity, have a cause, since that relation implies a | |
priority in time, and a beginning of existence? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>In such a chain, too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by | |
that which preceded it, and causes that which succeeds it. Where then is | |
the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that the | |
uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct | |
countries into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is | |
performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on | |
the nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each | |
individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think | |
it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of | |
the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause | |
of the parts. | |
<speaker PHILO>Though the reasonings which you have urged, CLEANTHES, may well excuse | |
me, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> from starting any further difficulties, yet I cannot | |
forbear insisting still upon another topic. It is observed by | |
arithmeticians, that the products of 9, compose always either 9, or some | |
lesser product of 9, if you add together all the characters of which any | |
of the former products is composed. Thus, of 18, 27, 36, which are | |
products of 9, you make 9 by adding 1 to 8, 2 to 7, 3 to 6. Thus, 369 is | |
a product also of 9; and if you add 3, 6, and 9, you make 18, a lesser | |
product of 9. To a superficial observer, so wonderful a regularity may | |
be admired as the effect either of chance or design: but a skilful | |
algebraist immediately concludes it to be the work of necessity, and | |
demonstrates, that it must for ever result from the nature of these | |
numbers. Is it not probable, I ask, that the whole economy of the | |
universe is conducted by a like necessity, though no human algebra can | |
furnish a key which solves the difficulty? And instead of admiring the | |
order of natural beings, may it not happen, that, could we penetrate into | |
the intimate nature of bodies, we should clearly see why it was | |
absolutely impossible they could ever admit of any other disposition? So | |
dangerous is it to introduce this idea of necessity into the present | |
question! and so naturally does it afford an inference directly opposite | |
to the religious hypothesis! | |
<speaker PHILO>But dropping all these abstractions, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> and confining | |
ourselves to more familiar topics, I shall venture to add an observation, | |
that the argument a priori has seldom been found very convincing, except | |
to people of a metaphysical head, who have accustomed themselves to | |
abstract reasoning, and who, finding from mathematics, that the | |
understanding frequently leads to truth through obscurity, and, contrary | |
to first appearances, have transferred the same habit of thinking to | |
subjects where it ought not to have place. Other people, even of good | |
sense and the best inclined to religion, feel always some deficiency in | |
such arguments, though they are not perhaps able to explain distinctly | |
where it lies; a certain proof that men ever did, and ever will derive | |
their religion from other sources than from this species of reasoning. | |
PART 10 | |
<speaker DEMEA>It is my opinion, I own, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> that each man feels, in a manner, | |
the truth of religion within his own breast, and, from a consciousness of | |
his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek | |
protection from that Being, on whom he and all nature is dependent. So | |
anxious or so tedious are even the best scenes of life, that futurity is | |
still the object of all our hopes and fears. We incessantly look forward, | |
and endeavour, by prayers, adoration, and sacrifice, to appease those | |
unknown powers, whom we find, by experience, so able to afflict and | |
oppress us. Wretched creatures that we are! what resource for us amidst | |
the innumerable ills of life, did not religion suggest some methods of | |
atonement, and appease those terrors with which we are incessantly | |
agitated and tormented? | |
<speaker PHILO>I am indeed persuaded, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that the best, and indeed the only | |
method of bringing every one to a due sense of religion, is by just | |
representations of the misery and wickedness of men. And for that purpose | |
a talent of eloquence and strong imagery is more requisite than that of | |
reasoning and argument. For is it necessary to prove what every one feels | |
within himself? It is only necessary to make us feel it, if possible, | |
more intimately and sensibly. | |
<speaker DEMEA>The people, indeed, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> are sufficiently convinced of this | |
great and melancholy truth. The miseries of life; the unhappiness of man; | |
the general corruptions of our nature; the unsatisfactory enjoyment of | |
pleasures, riches, honours; these phrases have become almost proverbial | |
in all languages. And who can doubt of what all men declare from their | |
own immediate feeling and experience? | |
<speaker PHILO>In this point, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> the learned are perfectly agreed with the | |
vulgar; and in all letters, sacred and profane, the topic of human misery | |
has been insisted on with the most pathetic eloquence that sorrow and | |
melancholy could inspire. The poets, who speak from sentiment, without a | |
system, and whose testimony has therefore the more authority, abound in | |
images of this nature. From Homer down to Dr. Young, the whole inspired | |
tribe have ever been sensible, that no other representation of things | |
would suit the feeling and observation of each individual. | |
<speaker DEMEA>As to authorities, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> you need not seek them. Look round this | |
library of CLEANTHES. I shall venture to affirm, that, except authors of | |
particular sciences, such as chemistry or botany, who have no occasion to | |
treat of human life, there is scarce one of those innumerable writers, | |
from whom the sense of human misery has not, in some passage or other, | |
extorted a complaint and confession of it. At least, the chance is | |
entirely on that side; and no one author has ever, so far as I can | |
recollect, been so extravagant as to deny it. | |
<speaker PHILO>There you must excuse me, said PHILO:<speaker PHILO> LEIBNIZ has denied it; and is | |
perhaps the first [That sentiment had been maintained by Dr. King and some | |
few others before Leibniz; though by none of so great a fame as that | |
German philosopher] who ventured upon so bold and paradoxical an opinion; | |
at least, the first who made it essential to his philosophical system. | |
<speaker DEMEA>And by being the first, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> might he not have been sensible of | |
his error? For is this a subject in which philosophers can propose to | |
make discoveries especially in so late an age? And can any man hope by a | |
simple denial (for the subject scarcely admits of reasoning), to bear | |
down the united testimony of mankind, founded on sense and consciousness? | |
<speaker DEMEA>And why should man, added he,<speaker DEMEA> pretend to an exemption from the lot of all | |
other animals? The whole earth, believe me, PHILO, is cursed and | |
polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. | |
Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and courageous: Fear, | |
anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into | |
life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent: | |
Weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life: and it is | |
at last finished in agony and horror. | |
<speaker PHILO>Observe too, says PHILO,<speaker PHILO> the curious artifices of Nature, in order to | |
embitter the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the | |
weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in | |
their turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without | |
relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which either are | |
bred on the body of each animal, or, flying about, infix their stings in | |
him. These insects have others still less than themselves, which torment | |
them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every | |
animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and | |
destruction. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Man alone, said DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> seems to be, in part, an exception to this rule. | |
For by combination in society, he can easily master lions, tigers, and | |
bears, whose greater strength and agility naturally enable them to prey | |
upon him. | |
<speaker PHILO>On the contrary, it is here chiefly, cried PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that the uniform and | |
equal maxims of Nature are most apparent. Man, it is true, can, by | |
combination, surmount all his real enemies, and become master of the | |
whole animal creation: but does he not immediately raise up to himself | |
imaginary enemies, the demons of his fancy, who haunt him with | |
superstitious terrors, and blast every enjoyment of life? His pleasure, | |
as he imagines, becomes, in their eyes, a crime: his food and repose give | |
them umbrage and offence: his very sleep and dreams furnish new materials | |
to anxious fear: and even death, his refuge from every other ill, | |
presents only the dread of endless and innumerable woes. Nor does the | |
wolf molest more the timid flock, than superstition does the anxious | |
breast of wretched mortals. | |
<speaker PHILO>Besides, consider, DEMEA: This very society, by which we surmount those | |
wild beasts, our natural enemies; what new enemies does it not raise to | |
us? What woe and misery does it not occasion? Man is the greatest enemy | |
of man. Oppression, injustice, contempt, contumely, violence, sedition, | |
war, calumny, treachery, fraud; by these they mutually torment each | |
other; and they would soon dissolve that society which they had formed, | |
were it not for the dread of still greater ills, which must attend their | |
separation. | |
<speaker DEMEA>But though these external insults, said DEMEA, <speaker DEMEA>from animals, from men, | |
from all the elements, which assault us, form a frightful catalogue of | |
woes, they are nothing in comparison of those which arise within | |
ourselves, from the distempered condition of our mind and body. How many | |
lie under the lingering torment of diseases? Hear the pathetic | |
enumeration of the great poet. | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker DEMEA>Intestine stone and ulcer, colic-pangs, | |
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, | |
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, | |
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence. | |
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans: despair | |
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch. | |
And over them triumphant death his dart | |
Shook: but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd | |
With vows, as their chief good and final hope. | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker DEMEA>The disorders of the mind, continued DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> though more secret, are not | |
perhaps less dismal and vexatious. Remorse, shame, anguish, rage, | |
disappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, despair; who has ever passed | |
through life without cruel inroads from these tormentors? How many have | |
scarcely ever felt any better sensations? Labour and poverty, so abhorred | |
by every one, are the certain lot of the far greater number; and those | |
few privileged persons, who enjoy ease and opulence, never reach | |
contentment or true felicity. All the goods of life united would not make | |
a very happy man; but all the ills united would make a wretch indeed; and | |
any one of them almost (and who can be free from every one?) nay often | |
the absence of one good (and who can possess all?) is sufficient to | |
render life ineligible. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as | |
a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded | |
with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a | |
fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, | |
famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him | |
a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an | |
opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a | |
diversity of distress and sorrow. | |
<speaker PHILO>There is no evading such striking instances, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> but by | |
apologies, which still further aggravate the charge. Why have all men, I | |
ask, in all ages, complained incessantly of the miseries of life?... | |
They have no just reason, says one: these complaints proceed only from | |
their discontented, repining, anxious disposition...And can there | |
possibly, I reply, be a more certain foundation of misery, than such a | |
wretched temper? | |
<speaker PHILO>But if they were really as unhappy as they pretend, says my antagonist, | |
why do they remain in life?... | |
<speaker ><speaker PHILO> Not satisfied with life, afraid of death.<speaker > | |
<speaker PHILO>This is the secret chain, say I, that holds us. We are terrified, not | |
bribed to the continuance of our existence. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is only a false delicacy, he may insist, which a few refined spirits | |
indulge, and which has spread these complaints among the whole race of | |
mankind. . . . And what is this delicacy, I ask, which you blame? Is it | |
any thing but a greater sensibility to all the pleasures and pains of | |
life? and if the man of a delicate, refined temper, by being so much more | |
alive than the rest of the world, is only so much more unhappy, what | |
judgement must we form in general of human life? | |
<speaker PHILO>Let men remain at rest, says our adversary, and they will be easy. They | |
are willing artificers of their own misery. . . . No! reply I: an anxious | |
languor follows their repose; disappointment, vexation, trouble, their | |
activity and ambition. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I can observe something like what you mention in some others, replied | |
CLEANTHES:<speaker CLEANTHES> but I confess I feel little or nothing of it in myself, and | |
hope that it is not so common as you represent it. | |
<speaker DEMEA>If you feel not human misery yourself, cried DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> I congratulate you on | |
so happy a singularity. Others, seemingly the most prosperous, have not | |
been ashamed to vent their complaints in the most melancholy strains. Let | |
us attend to the great, the fortunate emperor, CHARLES V, when, tired | |
with human grandeur, he resigned all his extensive dominions into the | |
hands of his son. In the last harangue which he made on that memorable | |
occasion, he publicly avowed, that the greatest prosperities which he had | |
ever enjoyed, had been mixed with so many adversities, that he might | |
truly say he had never enjoyed any satisfaction or contentment. But did | |
the retired life, in which he sought for shelter, afford him any greater | |
happiness? If we may credit his son's account, his repentance commenced | |
the very day of his resignation. | |
<speaker DEMEA>CICERO's fortune, from small beginnings, rose to the greatest lustre and | |
renown; yet what pathetic complaints of the ills of life do his familiar | |
letters, as well as philosophical discourses, contain? And suitably to | |
his own experience, he introduces CATO, the great, the fortunate CATO, | |
protesting in his old age, that had he a new life in his offer, he would | |
reject the present. | |
<speaker DEMEA>Ask yourself, ask any of your acquaintance, whether they would live over | |
again the last ten or twenty years of their life. No! but the next | |
twenty, they say, will be better: | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker DEMEA>And from the dregs of life, hope to receive | |
What the first sprightly running could not give. | |
<speaker > | |
<speaker DEMEA>Thus at last they find (such is the greatness of human misery, it | |
reconciles even contradictions), that they complain at once of the | |
shortness of life, and of its vanity and sorrow. | |
<speaker PHILO>And is it possible, CLEANTHES, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that after all these | |
reflections, and infinitely more, which might be suggested, you can still | |
persevere in your Anthropomorphism, and assert the moral attributes of | |
the Deity, his justice, benevolence, mercy, and rectitude, to be of the | |
same nature with these virtues in human creatures? His power we allow is | |
infinite: whatever he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other | |
animal is happy: therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom | |
is infinite: He is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: But | |
the course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity: therefore it | |
is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compass of human | |
knowledge, there are no inferences more certain and infallible than | |
these. In what respect, then, do his benevolence and mercy resemble the | |
benevolence and mercy of men? | |
<speaker PHILO>EPICURUS's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, | |
but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he | |
malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? | |
<speaker PHILO>You ascribe, CLEANTHES (and I believe justly), a purpose and intention to | |
Nature. But what, I beseech you, is the object of that curious artifice | |
and machinery, which she has displayed in all animals? The preservation | |
alone of individuals, and propagation of the species. It seems enough for | |
her purpose, if such a rank be barely upheld in the universe, without any | |
care or concern for the happiness of the members that compose it. No | |
resource for this purpose: no machinery, in order merely to give pleasure | |
or ease: no fund of pure joy and contentment: no indulgence, without some | |
want or necessity accompanying it. At least, the few phenomena of this | |
nature are overbalanced by opposite phenomena of still greater importance. | |
<speaker PHILO>Our sense of music, harmony, and indeed beauty of all kinds, gives | |
satisfaction, without being absolutely necessary to the preservation and | |
propagation of the species. But what racking pains, on the other hand, | |
arise from gouts, gravels, megrims, toothaches, rheumatisms, where the | |
injury to the animal machinery is either small or incurable? Mirth, | |
laughter, play, frolic, seem gratuitous satisfactions, which have no | |
further tendency: spleen, melancholy, discontent, superstition, are pains | |
of the same nature. How then does the Divine benevolence display itself, | |
in the sense of you Anthropomorphites? None but we Mystics, as you were | |
pleased to call us, can account for this strange mixture of phenomena, by | |
deriving it from attributes, infinitely perfect, but incomprehensible. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>And have you at last, said CLEANTHES smiling,<speaker CLEANTHES> betrayed your intentions, | |
PHILO? Your long agreement with DEMEA did indeed a little surprise me; | |
but I find you were all the while erecting a concealed battery against | |
me. And I must confess, that you have now fallen upon a subject worthy of | |
your noble spirit of opposition and controversy. If you can make out the | |
present point, and prove mankind to be unhappy or corrupted, there is an | |
end at once of all religion. For to what purpose establish the natural | |
attributes of the Deity, while the moral are still doubtful and | |
uncertain? | |
<speaker DEMEA>You take umbrage very easily, replied DEMEA,<speaker DEMEA> at opinions the most | |
innocent, and the most generally received, even amongst the religious and | |
devout themselves: and nothing can be more surprising than to find a | |
topic like this, concerning the wickedness and misery of man, charged | |
with no less than Atheism and profaneness. Have not all pious divines and | |
preachers, who have indulged their rhetoric on so fertile a subject; have | |
they not easily, I say, given a solution of any difficulties which may | |
attend it? This world is but a point in comparison of the universe; this | |
life but a moment in comparison of eternity. The present evil phenomena, | |
therefore, are rectified in other regions, and in some future period of | |
existence. And the eyes of men, being then opened to larger views of | |
things, see the whole connection of general laws; and trace with | |
adoration, the benevolence and rectitude of the Deity, through all the | |
mazes and intricacies of his providence. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>No! replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> No! These arbitrary suppositions can never be | |
admitted, contrary to matter of fact, visible and uncontroverted. Whence | |
can any cause be known but from its known effects? Whence can any | |
hypothesis be proved but from the apparent phenomena? To establish one | |
hypothesis upon another, is building entirely in the air; and the utmost | |
we ever attain, by these conjectures and fictions, is to ascertain the | |
bare possibility of our opinion; but never can we, upon such terms, | |
establish its reality. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>The only method of supporting Divine benevolence, and it is what I | |
willingly embrace, is to deny absolutely the misery and wickedness of | |
man. Your representations are exaggerated; your melancholy views mostly | |
fictitious; your inferences contrary to fact and experience. Health is | |
more common than sickness; pleasure than pain; happiness than misery. And | |
for one vexation which we meet with, we attain, upon computation, a | |
hundred enjoyments. | |
<speaker PHILO>Admitting your position, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> which yet is extremely doubtful, | |
you must at the same time allow, that if pain be less frequent than | |
pleasure, it is infinitely more violent and durable. One hour of it is | |
often able to outweigh a day, a week, a month of our common insipid | |
enjoyments; and how many days, weeks, and months, are passed by several | |
in the most acute torments? Pleasure, scarcely in one instance, is ever | |
able to reach ecstasy and rapture; and in no one instance can it continue | |
for any time at its highest pitch and altitude. The spirits evaporate, | |
the nerves relax, the fabric is disordered, and the enjoyment quickly | |
degenerates into fatigue and uneasiness. But pain often, good God, how | |
often! rises to torture and agony; and the longer it continues, it | |
becomes still more genuine agony and torture. Patience is exhausted, | |
courage languishes, melancholy seizes us, and nothing terminates our | |
misery but the removal of its cause, or another event, which is the sole | |
cure of all evil, but which, from our natural folly, we regard with still | |
greater horror and consternation. | |
<speaker PHILO>But not to insist upon these topics, continued PHILO,<speaker PHILO> though most | |
obvious, certain, and important; I must use the freedom to admonish you, | |
CLEANTHES, that you have put the controversy upon a most dangerous issue, | |
and are unawares introducing a total scepticism into the most essential | |
articles of natural and revealed theology. What! no method of fixing a | |
just foundation for religion, unless we allow the happiness of human | |
life, and maintain a continued existence even in this world, with all our | |
present pains, infirmities, vexations, and follies, to be eligible and | |
desirable! But this is contrary to every one's feeling and experience: It | |
is contrary to an authority so established as nothing can subvert. No | |
decisive proofs can ever be produced against this authority; nor is it | |
possible for you to compute, estimate, and compare, all the pains and all | |
the pleasures in the lives of all men and of all animals: And thus, by | |
your resting the whole system of religion on a point, which, from its | |
very nature, must for ever be uncertain, you tacitly confess, that that | |
system is equally uncertain. | |
<speaker PHILO>But allowing you what never will be believed, at least what you never | |
possibly can prove, that animal, or at least human happiness, in this | |
life, exceeds its misery, you have yet done nothing: For this is not, by | |
any means, what we expect from infinite power, infinite wisdom, and | |
infinite goodness. Why is there any misery at all in the world? Not by | |
chance surely. From some cause then. Is it from the intention of the | |
Deity? But he is perfectly benevolent. Is it contrary to his intention? | |
But he is almighty. Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning, so | |
short, so clear, so decisive; except we assert, that these subjects | |
exceed all human capacity, and that our common measures of truth and | |
falsehood are not applicable to them; a topic which I have all along | |
insisted on, but which you have, from the beginning, rejected with scorn | |
and indignation. | |
<speaker PHILO>But I will be contented to retire still from this entrenchment, for I | |
deny that you can ever force me in it. I will allow, that pain or misery | |
in man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the Deity, even | |
in your sense of these attributes: What are you advanced by all these | |
concessions? A mere possible compatibility is not sufficient. You must | |
prove these pure, unmixed, and uncontrollable attributes from the present | |
mixed and confused phenomena, and from these alone. A hopeful | |
undertaking! Were the phenomena ever so pure and unmixed, yet being | |
finite, they would be insufficient for that purpose. How much more, where | |
they are also so jarring and discordant! | |
<speaker PHILO>Here, CLEANTHES, I find myself at ease in my argument. Here I triumph. | |
Formerly, when we argued concerning the natural attributes of | |
intelligence and design, I needed all my sceptical and metaphysical | |
subtlety to elude your grasp. In many views of the universe, and of its | |
parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes | |
strike us with such irresistible force, that all objections appear (what | |
I believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms; nor can we then | |
imagine how it was ever possible for us to repose any weight on them. But | |
there is no view of human life, or of the condition of mankind, from | |
which, without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral attributes, | |
or learn that infinite benevolence, conjoined with infinite power and | |
infinite wisdom, which we must discover by the eyes of faith alone. It is | |
your turn now to tug the labouring oar, and to support your philosophical | |
subtleties against the dictates of plain reason and experience. | |
PART 11 | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I scruple not to allow, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> that I have been apt to suspect | |
the frequent repetition of the word infinite, which we meet with in all | |
theological writers, to savour more of panegyric than of philosophy; and | |
that any purposes of reasoning, and even of religion, would be better | |
served, were we to rest contented with more accurate and more moderate | |
expressions. The terms, admirable, excellent, superlatively great, wise, | |
and holy; these sufficiently fill the imaginations of men; and any thing | |
beyond, besides that it leads into absurdities, has no influence on the | |
affections or sentiments. Thus, in the present subject, if we abandon all | |
human analogy, as seems your intention, DEMEA, I am afraid we abandon all | |
religion, and retain no conception of the great object of our adoration. | |
If we preserve human analogy, we must for ever find it impossible to | |
reconcile any mixture of evil in the universe with infinite attributes; | |
much less can we ever prove the latter from the former. But supposing the | |
Author of Nature to be finitely perfect, though far exceeding mankind, a | |
satisfactory account may then be given of natural and moral evil, and | |
every untoward phenomenon be explained and adjusted. A less evil may then | |
be chosen, in order to avoid a greater; inconveniences be submitted to, | |
in order to reach a desirable end; and in a word, benevolence, regulated | |
by wisdom, and limited by necessity, may produce just such a world as the | |
present. You, PHILO, who are so prompt at starting views, and | |
reflections, and analogies, I would gladly hear, at length, without | |
interruption, your opinion of this new theory; and if it deserve our | |
attention, we may afterwards, at more leisure, reduce it into form. | |
<speaker PHILO>My sentiments, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> are not worth being made a mystery of; and | |
therefore, without any ceremony, I shall deliver what occurs to me with | |
regard to the present subject. It must, I think, be allowed, that if a | |
very limited intelligence, whom we shall suppose utterly unacquainted | |
with the universe, were assured, that it were the production of a very | |
good, wise, and powerful Being, however finite, he would, from his | |
conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it from what we find | |
it to be by experience; nor would he ever imagine, merely from these | |
attributes of the cause, of which he is informed, that the effect could | |
be so full of vice and misery and disorder, as it appears in this life. | |
Supposing now, that this person were brought into the world, still | |
assured that it was the workmanship of such a sublime and benevolent | |
Being; he might, perhaps, be surprised at the disappointment; but would | |
never retract his former belief, if founded on any very solid argument; | |
since such a limited intelligence must be sensible of his own blindness | |
and ignorance, and must allow, that there may be many solutions of those | |
phenomena, which will for ever escape his comprehension. But supposing, | |
which is the real case with regard to man, that this creature is not | |
antecedently convinced of a supreme intelligence, benevolent, and | |
powerful, but is left to gather such a belief from the appearances of | |
things; this entirely alters the case, nor will he ever find any reason | |
for such a conclusion. He may be fully convinced of the narrow limits of | |
his understanding; but this will not help him in forming an inference | |
concerning the goodness of superior powers, since he must form that | |
inference from what he knows, not from what he is ignorant of. The more | |
you exaggerate his weakness and ignorance, the more diffident you render | |
him, and give him the greater suspicion that such subjects are beyond the | |
reach of his faculties. You are obliged, therefore, to reason with him | |
merely from the known phenomena, and to drop every arbitrary supposition | |
or conjecture. | |
<speaker PHILO>Did I show you a house or palace, where there was not one apartment | |
convenient or agreeable; where the windows, doors, fires, passages, | |
stairs, and the whole economy of the building, were the source of noise, | |
confusion, fatigue, darkness, and the extremes of heat and cold; you | |
would certainly blame the contrivance, without any further examination. | |
The architect would in vain display his subtlety, and prove to you, that | |
if this door or that window were altered, greater ills would ensue. What | |
he says may be strictly true: The alteration of one particular, while the | |
other parts of the building remain, may only augment the inconveniences. | |
But still you would assert in general, that, if the architect had had | |
skill and good intentions, he might have formed such a plan of the whole, | |
and might have adjusted the parts in such a manner, as would have | |
remedied all or most of these inconveniences. His ignorance, or even your | |
own ignorance of such a plan, will never convince you of the | |
impossibility of it. If you find any inconveniences and deformities in | |
the building, you will always, without entering into any detail, condemn | |
the architect. | |
<speaker PHILO>In short, I repeat the question: Is the world, considered in general, and | |
as it appears to us in this life, different from what a man, or such a | |
limited being, would, beforehand, expect from a very powerful, wise, and | |
benevolent Deity? It must be strange prejudice to assert the contrary. | |
And from thence I conclude, that however consistent the world may be, | |
allowing certain suppositions and conjectures, with the idea of such a | |
Deity, it can never afford us an inference concerning his existence. The | |
consistence is not absolutely denied, only the inference. Conjectures, | |
especially where infinity is excluded from the Divine attributes, may | |
perhaps be sufficient to prove a consistence, but can never be | |
foundations for any inference. | |
<speaker PHILO>There seem to be four circumstances, on which depend all, or the greatest | |
part of the ills, that molest sensible creatures; and it is not | |
impossible but all these circumstances may be necessary and unavoidable. | |
We know so little beyond common life, or even of common life, that, with | |
regard to the economy of a universe, there is no conjecture, however | |
wild, which may not be just; nor any one, however plausible, which may | |
not be erroneous. All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep | |
ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and | |
not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is | |
supported by no appearance of probability. Now, this I assert to be the | |
case with regard to all the causes of evil, and the circumstances on | |
which it depends. None of them appear to human reason in the least degree | |
necessary or unavoidable; nor can we suppose them such, without the | |
utmost license of imagination. | |
<speaker PHILO>The first circumstance which introduces evil, is that contrivance or | |
economy of the animal creation, by which pains, as well as pleasures, are | |
employed to excite all creatures to action, and make them vigilant in the | |
great work of self-preservation. Now pleasure alone, in its various | |
degrees, seems to human understanding sufficient for this purpose. All | |
animals might be constantly in a state of enjoyment: but when urged by | |
any of the necessities of nature, such as thirst, hunger, weariness; | |
instead of pain, they might feel a diminution of pleasure, by which they | |
might be prompted to seek that object which is necessary to their | |
subsistence. Men pursue pleasure as eagerly as they avoid pain; at least | |
they might have been so constituted. It seems, therefore, plainly | |
possible to carry on the business of life without any pain. Why then is | |
any animal ever rendered susceptible of such a sensation? If animals can | |
be free from it an hour, they might enjoy a perpetual exemption from it; | |
and it required as particular a contrivance of their organs to produce | |
that feeling, as to endow them with sight, hearing, or any of the senses. | |
Shall we conjecture, that such a contrivance was necessary, without any | |
appearance of reason? and shall we build on that conjecture as on the | |
most certain truth? | |
<speaker PHILO>But a capacity of pain would not alone produce pain, were it not for the | |
second circumstance, viz. the conducting of the world by general laws; | |
and this seems nowise necessary to a very perfect Being. It is true, if | |
everything were conducted by particular volitions, the course of nature | |
would be perpetually broken, and no man could employ his reason in the | |
conduct of life. But might not other particular volitions remedy this | |
inconvenience? In short, might not the Deity exterminate all ill, | |
wherever it were to be found; and produce all good, without any | |
preparation, or long progress of causes and effects? | |
<speaker PHILO>Besides, we must consider, that, according to the present economy of the | |
world, the course of nature, though supposed exactly regular, yet to us | |
appears not so, and many events are uncertain, and many disappoint our | |
expectations. Health and sickness, calm and tempest, with an infinite | |
number of other accidents, whose causes are unknown and variable, have a | |
great influence both on the fortunes of particular persons and on the | |
prosperity of public societies; and indeed all human life, in a manner, | |
depends on such accidents. A being, therefore, who knows the secret | |
springs of the universe, might easily, by particular volitions, turn all | |
these accidents to the good of mankind, and render the whole world happy, | |
without discovering himself in any operation. A fleet, whose purposes | |
were salutary to society, might always meet with a fair wind. Good | |
princes enjoy sound health and long life. Persons born to power and | |
authority, be framed with good tempers and virtuous dispositions. A few | |
such events as these, regularly and wisely conducted, would change the | |
face of the world; and yet would no more seem to disturb the course of | |
nature, or confound human conduct, than the present economy of things, | |
where the causes are secret, and variable, and compounded. Some small | |
touches given to CALIGULA's brain in his infancy, might have converted | |
him into a TRAJAN. One wave, a little higher than the rest, by burying | |
CAESAR and his fortune in the bottom of the ocean, might have restored | |
liberty to a considerable part of mankind. There may, for aught we know, | |
be good reasons why Providence interposes not in this manner; but they | |
are unknown to us; and though the mere supposition, that such reasons | |
exist, may be sufficient to save the conclusion concerning the Divine | |
attributes, yet surely it can never be sufficient to establish that | |
conclusion. | |
<speaker PHILO>If every thing in the universe be conducted by general laws, and if | |
animals be rendered susceptible of pain, it scarcely seems possible but | |
some ill must arise in the various shocks of matter, and the various | |
concurrence and opposition of general laws; but this ill would be very | |
rare, were it not for the third circumstance, which I proposed to | |
mention, viz. the great frugality with which all powers and faculties are | |
distributed to every particular being. So well adjusted are the organs | |
and capacities of all animals, and so well fitted to their preservation, | |
that, as far as history or tradition reaches, there appears not to be any | |
single species which has yet been extinguished in the universe. Every | |
animal has the requisite endowments; but these endowments are bestowed | |
with so scrupulous an economy, that any considerable diminution must | |
entirely destroy the creature. Wherever one power is increased, there is | |
a proportional abatement in the others. Animals which excel in swiftness | |
are commonly defective in force. Those which possess both are either | |
imperfect in some of their senses, or are oppressed with the most craving | |
wants. The human species, whose chief excellency is reason and sagacity, | |
is of all others the most necessitous, and the most deficient in bodily | |
advantages; without clothes, without arms, without food, without lodging, | |
without any convenience of life, except what they owe to their own skill | |
and industry. In short, nature seems to have formed an exact calculation | |
of the necessities of her creatures; and, like a rigid master, has | |
afforded them little more powers or endowments than what are strictly | |
sufficient to supply those necessities. An indulgent parent would have | |
bestowed a large stock, in order to guard against accidents, and secure | |
the happiness and welfare of the creature in the most unfortunate | |
concurrence of circumstances. Every course of life would not have been so | |
surrounded with precipices, that the least departure from the true path, | |
by mistake or necessity, must involve us in misery and ruin. Some | |
reserve, some fund, would have been provided to ensure happiness; nor | |
would the powers and the necessities have been adjusted with so rigid an | |
economy. The Author of Nature is inconceivably powerful: his force is | |
supposed great, if not altogether inexhaustible: nor is there any reason, | |
as far as we can judge, to make him observe this strict frugality in his | |
dealings with his creatures. It would have been better, were his power | |
extremely limited, to have created fewer animals, and to have endowed | |
these with more faculties for their happiness and preservation. A builder | |
is never esteemed prudent, who undertakes a plan beyond what his stock | |
will enable him to finish. | |
<speaker PHILO>In order to cure most of the ills of human life, I require not that man | |
should have the wings of the eagle, the swiftness of the stag, the force | |
of the ox, the arms of the lion, the scales of the crocodile or | |
rhinoceros; much less do I demand the sagacity of an angel or cherubim. I | |
am contented to take an increase in one single power or faculty of his | |
soul. Let him be endowed with a greater propensity to industry and | |
labour; a more vigorous spring and activity of mind; a more constant bent | |
to business and application. Let the whole species possess naturally an | |
equal diligence with that which many individuals are able to attain by | |
habit and reflection; and the most beneficial consequences, without any | |
allay of ill, is the immediate and necessary result of this endowment. | |
Almost all the moral, as well as natural evils of human life, arise from | |
idleness; and were our species, by the original constitution of their | |
frame, exempt from this vice or infirmity, the perfect cultivation of | |
land, the improvement of arts and manufactures, the exact execution of | |
every office and duty, immediately follow; and men at once may fully | |
reach that state of society, which is so imperfectly attained by the best | |
regulated government. But as industry is a power, and the most valuable | |
of any, Nature seems determined, suitably to her usual maxims, to bestow | |
it on men with a very sparing hand; and rather to punish him severely for | |
his deficiency in it, than to reward him for his attainments. She has so | |
contrived his frame, that nothing but the most violent necessity can | |
oblige him to labour; and she employs all his other wants to overcome, at | |
least in part, the want of diligence, and to endow him with some share of | |
a faculty of which she has thought fit naturally to bereave him. Here our | |
demands may be allowed very humble, and therefore the more reasonable. If | |
we required the endowments of superior penetration and judgement, of a | |
more delicate taste of beauty, of a nicer sensibility to benevolence and | |
friendship; we might be told, that we impiously pretend to break the | |
order of Nature; that we want to exalt ourselves into a higher rank of | |
being; that the presents which we require, not being suitable to our | |
state and condition, would only be pernicious to us. But it is hard; I | |
dare to repeat it, it is hard, that being placed in a world so full of | |
wants and necessities, where almost every being and element is either our | |
foe or refuses its assistance ... we should also have our own temper to | |
struggle with, and should be deprived of that faculty which can alone | |
fence against these multiplied evils. | |
<speaker PHILO>The fourth circumstance, whence arises the misery and ill of the | |
universe, is the inaccurate workmanship of all the springs and principles | |
of the great machine of nature. It must be acknowledged, that there are | |
few parts of the universe, which seem not to serve some purpose, and | |
whose removal would not produce a visible defect and disorder in the | |
whole. The parts hang all together; nor can one be touched without | |
affecting the rest, in a greater or less degree. But at the same time, it | |
must be observed, that none of these parts or principles, however useful, | |
are so accurately adjusted, as to keep precisely within those bounds in | |
which their utility consists; but they are, all of them, apt, on every | |
occasion, to run into the one extreme or the other. One would imagine, | |
that this grand production had not received the last hand of the maker; | |
so little finished is every part, and so coarse are the strokes with | |
which it is executed. Thus, the winds are requisite to convey the vapours | |
along the surface of the globe, and to assist men in navigation: but how | |
oft, rising up to tempests and hurricanes, do they become pernicious? | |
Rains are necessary to nourish all the plants and animals of the earth: | |
but how often are they defective? how often excessive? Heat is requisite | |
to all life and vegetation; but is not always found in the due | |
proportion. On the mixture and secretion of the humours and juices of the | |
body depend the health and prosperity of the animal: but the parts | |
perform not regularly their proper function. What more useful than all | |
the passions of the mind, ambition, vanity, love, anger? But how oft do | |
they break their bounds, and cause the greatest convulsions in society? | |
There is nothing so advantageous in the universe, but what frequently | |
becomes pernicious, by its excess or defect; nor has Nature guarded, with | |
the requisite accuracy, against all disorder or confusion. The | |
irregularity is never perhaps so great as to destroy any species; but is | |
often sufficient to involve the individuals in ruin and misery. | |
<speaker PHILO>On the concurrence, then, of these four circumstances, does all or the | |
greatest part of natural evil depend. Were all living creatures incapable | |
of pain, or were the world administered by particular volitions, evil | |
never could have found access into the universe: and were animals endowed | |
with a large stock of powers and faculties, beyond what strict necessity | |
requires; or were the several springs and principles of the universe so | |
accurately framed as to preserve always the just temperament and medium; | |
there must have been very little ill in comparison of what we feel at | |
present. What then shall we pronounce on this occasion? Shall we say that | |
these circumstances are not necessary, and that they might easily have | |
been altered in the contrivance of the universe? This decision seems too | |
presumptuous for creatures so blind and ignorant. Let us be more modest | |
in our conclusions. Let us allow, that, if the goodness of the Deity (I | |
mean a goodness like the human) could be established on any tolerable | |
reasons a priori, these phenomena, however untoward, would not be | |
sufficient to subvert that principle; but might easily, in some unknown | |
manner, be reconcilable to it. But let us still assert, that as this | |
goodness is not antecedently established, but must be inferred from the | |
phenomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference, while there are | |
so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might so easily have | |
been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on | |
such a subject. I am Sceptic enough to allow, that the bad appearances, | |
notwithstanding all my reasonings, may be compatible with such attributes | |
as you suppose; but surely they can never prove these attributes. Such a | |
conclusion cannot result from Scepticism, but must arise from the | |
phenomena, and from our confidence in the reasonings which we deduce from | |
these phenomena. | |
<speaker PHILO>Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated | |
and organised, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety | |
and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living | |
existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive | |
to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How | |
contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but | |
the idea of a blind Nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, | |
and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her | |
maimed and abortive children! | |
<speaker PHILO>Here the MANICHAEAN system occurs as a proper hypothesis to solve the | |
difficulty: and no doubt, in some respects, it is very specious, and has | |
more probability than the common hypothesis, by giving a plausible | |
account of the strange mixture of good and ill which appears in life. But | |
if we consider, on the other hand, the perfect uniformity and agreement | |
of the parts of the universe, we shall not discover in it any marks of | |
the combat of a malevolent with a benevolent being. There is indeed an | |
opposition of pains and pleasures in the feelings of sensible creatures: | |
but are not all the operations of Nature carried on by an opposition of | |
principles, of hot and cold, moist and dry, light and heavy? The true | |
conclusion is, that the original Source of all things is entirely | |
indifferent to all these principles; and has no more regard to good above | |
ill, than to heat above cold, or to drought above moisture, or to light | |
above heavy. | |
<speaker PHILO>There may four hypotheses be framed concerning the first causes of the | |
universe: that they are endowed with perfect goodness; that they have | |
perfect malice; that they are opposite, and have both goodness and | |
malice; that they have neither goodness nor malice. Mixed phenomena can | |
never prove the two former unmixed principles; and the uniformity and | |
steadiness of general laws seem to oppose the third. The fourth, | |
therefore, seems by far the most probable. | |
<speaker PHILO>What I have said concerning natural evil will apply to moral, with little | |
or no variation; and we have no more reason to infer, that the rectitude | |
of the Supreme Being resembles human rectitude, than that his benevolence | |
resembles the human. Nay, it will be thought, that we have still greater | |
cause to exclude from him moral sentiments, such as we feel them; since | |
moral evil, in the opinion of many, is much more predominant above moral | |
good than natural evil above natural good. | |
<speaker PHILO>But even though this should not be allowed, and though the virtue which | |
is in mankind should be acknowledged much superior to the vice, yet so | |
long as there is any vice at all in the universe, it will very much | |
puzzle you Anthropomorphites, how to account for it. You must assign a | |
cause for it, without having recourse to the first cause. But as every | |
effect must have a cause, and that cause another, you must either carry | |
on the progression in infinitum, or rest on that original principle, who | |
is the ultimate cause of all things... | |
<speaker DEMEA>Hold! hold! cried DEMEA:<speaker DEMEA> Whither does your imagination hurry you? I | |
joined in alliance with you, in order to prove the incomprehensible | |
nature of the Divine Being, and refute the principles of CLEANTHES, who | |
would measure every thing by human rule and standard. But I now find you | |
running into all the topics of the greatest libertines and infidels, and | |
betraying that holy cause which you seemingly espoused. Are you secretly, | |
then, a more dangerous enemy than CLEANTHES himself? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>And are you so late in perceiving it? replied CLEANTHES.<speaker CLEANTHES> Believe me, | |
DEMEA, your friend PHILO, from the beginning, has been amusing himself at | |
both our expense; and it must be confessed, that the injudicious | |
reasoning of our vulgar theology has given him but too just a handle of | |
ridicule. The total infirmity of human reason, the absolute | |
incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature, the great and universal misery, | |
and still greater wickedness of men; these are strange topics, surely, to | |
be so fondly cherished by orthodox divines and doctors. In ages of | |
stupidity and ignorance, indeed, these principles may safely be espoused; | |
and perhaps no views of things are more proper to promote superstition, | |
than such as encourage the blind amazement, the diffidence, and | |
melancholy of mankind. But at present... | |
<speaker PHILO>Blame not so much, interposed PHILO,<speaker PHILO> the ignorance of these reverend | |
gentlemen. They know how to change their style with the times. Formerly | |
it was a most popular theological topic to maintain, that human life was | |
vanity and misery, and to exaggerate all the ills and pains which are | |
incident to men. But of late years, divines, we find, begin to retract | |
this position; and maintain, though still with some hesitation, that | |
there are more goods than evils, more pleasures than pains, even in this | |
life. When religion stood entirely upon temper and education, it was | |
thought proper to encourage melancholy; as indeed mankind never have | |
recourse to superior powers so readily as in that disposition. But as men | |
have now learned to form principles, and to draw consequences, it is | |
necessary to change the batteries, and to make use of such arguments as | |
will endure at least some scrutiny and examination. This variation is the | |
same (and from the same causes) with that which I formerly remarked with | |
regard to Scepticism. | |
Thus PHILO continued to the last his spirit of opposition, and his censure | |
of established opinions. But I could observe that DEMEA did not at all | |
relish the latter part of the discourse; and he took occasion soon after, | |
on some pretence or other, to leave the company. | |
PART 12 | |
After DEMEA's departure, CLEANTHES and PHILO continued the conversation | |
in the following manner.<speaker CLEANTHES> Our friend, I am afraid, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> will | |
have little inclination to revive this topic of discourse, while you are | |
in company; and to tell truth, PHILO, I should rather wish to reason with | |
either of you apart on a subject so sublime and interesting. Your spirit | |
of controversy, joined to your abhorrence of vulgar superstition, carries | |
you strange lengths, when engaged in an argument; and there is nothing so | |
sacred and venerable, even in your own eyes, which you spare on that | |
occasion. | |
<speaker PHILO>I must confess, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> that I am less cautious on the subject of | |
Natural Religion than on any other; both because I know that I can never, | |
on that head, corrupt the principles of any man of common sense; and | |
because no one, I am confident, in whose eyes I appear a man of common | |
sense, will ever mistake my intentions. You, in particular, CLEANTHES, | |
with whom I live in unreserved intimacy; you are sensible, that | |
notwithstanding the freedom of my conversation, and my love of singular | |
arguments, no one has a deeper sense of religion impressed on his mind, | |
or pays more profound adoration to the Divine Being, as he discovers | |
himself to reason, in the inexplicable contrivance and artifice of | |
nature. A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes every where the most | |
careless, the most stupid thinker; and no man can be so hardened in | |
absurd systems, as at all times to reject it. That Nature does nothing in | |
vain, is a maxim established in all the schools, merely from the | |
contemplation of the works of Nature, without any religious purpose; and, | |
from a firm conviction of its truth, an anatomist, who had observed a new | |
organ or canal, would never be satisfied till he had also discovered its | |
use and intention. One great foundation of the Copernican system is the | |
maxim, That Nature acts by the simplest methods, and chooses the most | |
proper means to any end; and astronomers often, without thinking of it, | |
lay this strong foundation of piety and religion. The same thing is | |
observable in other parts of philosophy: And thus all the sciences almost | |
lead us insensibly to acknowledge a first intelligent Author; and their | |
authority is often so much the greater, as they do not directly profess | |
that intention. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is with pleasure I hear GALEN reason concerning the structure of the | |
human body. The anatomy of a man, says he [De formatione foetus], discovers | |
above 600 different muscles; and whoever duly considers these, will find, | |
that, in each of them, Nature must have adjusted at least ten different | |
circumstances, in order to attain the end which she proposed; proper | |
figure, just magnitude, right disposition of the several ends, upper and | |
lower position of the whole, the due insertion of the several nerves, | |
veins, and arteries: So that, in the muscles alone, above 6000 several | |
views and intentions must have been formed and executed. The bones he | |
calculates to be 284: The distinct purposes aimed at in the structure of | |
each, above forty. What a prodigious display of artifice, even in these | |
simple and homogeneous parts! But if we consider the skin, ligaments, | |
vessels, glandules, humours, the several limbs and members of the body; | |
how must our astonishment rise upon us, in proportion to the number and | |
intricacy of the parts so artificially adjusted! The further we advance | |
in these researches, we discover new scenes of art and wisdom: But descry | |
still, at a distance, further scenes beyond our reach; in the fine | |
internal structure of the parts, in the economy of the brain, in the | |
fabric of the seminal vessels. All these artifices are repeated in every | |
different species of animal, with wonderful variety, and with exact | |
propriety, suited to the different intentions of Nature in framing each | |
species. And if the infidelity of GALEN, even when these natural sciences | |
were still imperfect, could not withstand such striking appearances, to | |
what pitch of pertinacious obstinacy must a philosopher in this age have | |
attained, who can now doubt of a Supreme Intelligence! | |
<speaker PHILO>Could I meet with one of this species (who, I thank God, are very rare), | |
I would ask him: Supposing there were a God, who did not discover himself | |
immediately to our senses, were it possible for him to give stronger | |
proofs of his existence, than what appear on the whole face of Nature? | |
What indeed could such a Divine Being do, but copy the present economy of | |
things; render many of his artifices so plain, that no stupidity could | |
mistake them; afford glimpses of still greater artifices, which | |
demonstrate his prodigious superiority above our narrow apprehensions; | |
and conceal altogether a great many from such imperfect creatures? Now, | |
according to all rules of just reasoning, every fact must pass for | |
undisputed, when it is supported by all the arguments which its nature | |
admits of; even though these arguments be not, in themselves, very | |
numerous or forcible: How much more, in the present case, where no human | |
imagination can compute their number, and no understanding estimate their | |
cogency! | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>I shall further add, said CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> to what you have so well urged, that | |
one great advantage of the principle of Theism, is, that it is the only | |
system of cosmogony which can be rendered intelligible and complete, and | |
yet can throughout preserve a strong analogy to what we every day see and | |
experience in the world. The comparison of the universe to a machine of | |
human contrivance, is so obvious and natural, and is justified by so many | |
instances of order and design in Nature, that it must immediately strike | |
all unprejudiced apprehensions, and procure universal approbation. | |
Whoever attempts to weaken this theory, cannot pretend to succeed by | |
establishing in its place any other that is precise and determinate: It | |
is sufficient for him if he start doubts and difficulties; and by remote | |
and abstract views of things, reach that suspense of judgement, which is | |
here the utmost boundary of his wishes. But, besides that this state of | |
mind is in itself unsatisfactory, it can never be steadily maintained | |
against such striking appearances as continually engage us into the | |
religious hypothesis. A false, absurd system, human nature, from the | |
force of prejudice, is capable of adhering to with obstinacy and | |
perseverance: But no system at all, in opposition to a theory supported | |
by strong and obvious reason, by natural propensity, and by early | |
education, I think it absolutely impossible to maintain or defend. | |
<speaker PHILO>So little, replied PHILO,<speaker PHILO> do I esteem this suspense of judgement in the | |
present case to be possible, that I am apt to suspect there enters | |
somewhat of a dispute of words into this controversy, more than is | |
usually imagined. That the works of Nature bear a great analogy to the | |
productions of art, is evident; and according to all the rules of good | |
reasoning, we ought to infer, if we argue at all concerning them, that | |
their causes have a proportional analogy. But as there are also | |
considerable differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional | |
difference in the causes; and in particular, ought to attribute a much | |
higher degree of power and energy to the supreme cause, than any we have | |
ever observed in mankind. Here then the existence of a DEITY is plainly | |
ascertained by reason: and if we make it a question, whether, on account | |
of these analogies, we can properly call him a mind or intelligence, | |
notwithstanding the vast difference which may reasonably be supposed | |
between him and human minds; what is this but a mere verbal controversy? | |
No man can deny the analogies between the effects: To restrain ourselves | |
from inquiring concerning the causes is scarcely possible. From this | |
inquiry, the legitimate conclusion is, that the causes have also an | |
analogy: And if we are not contented with calling the first and supreme | |
cause a GOD or DEITY, but desire to vary the expression; what can we call | |
him but MIND or THOUGHT, to which he is justly supposed to bear a | |
considerable resemblance? | |
<speaker PHILO>All men of sound reason are disgusted with verbal disputes, which abound | |
so much in philosophical and theological inquiries; and it is found, that | |
the only remedy for this abuse must arise from clear definitions, from | |
the precision of those ideas which enter into any argument, and from the | |
strict and uniform use of those terms which are employed. But there is a | |
species of controversy, which, from the very nature of language and of | |
human ideas, is involved in perpetual ambiguity, and can never, by any | |
precaution or any definitions, be able to reach a reasonable certainty or | |
precision. These are the controversies concerning the degrees of any | |
quality or circumstance. Men may argue to all eternity, whether HANNIBAL | |
be a great, or a very great, or a superlatively great man, what degree of | |
beauty CLEOPATRA possessed, what epithet of praise LIVY or THUCYDIDES is | |
entitled to, without bringing the controversy to any determination. The | |
disputants may here agree in their sense, and differ in the terms, or | |
vice versa; yet never be able to define their terms, so as to enter into | |
each other's meaning: Because the degrees of these qualities are not, | |
like quantity or number, susceptible of any exact mensuration, which | |
may be the standard in the controversy. That the dispute concerning | |
Theism is of this nature, and consequently is merely verbal, or perhaps, | |
if possible, still more incurably ambiguous, will appear upon the | |
slightest inquiry. I ask the Theist, if he does not allow, that there is | |
a great and immeasurable, because incomprehensible difference between the | |
human and the divine mind: The more pious he is, the more readily will he | |
assent to the affirmative, and the more will he be disposed to magnify | |
the difference: He will even assert, that the difference is of a nature | |
which cannot be too much magnified. I next turn to the Atheist, who, I | |
assert, is only nominally so, and can never possibly be in earnest; and I | |
ask him, whether, from the coherence and apparent sympathy in all the | |
parts of this world, there be not a certain degree of analogy among all | |
the operations of Nature, in every situation and in every age; whether | |
the rotting of a turnip, the generation of an animal, and the structure | |
of human thought, be not energies that probably bear some remote analogy | |
to each other: It is impossible he can deny it: He will readily | |
acknowledge it. Having obtained this concession, I push him still further | |
in his retreat; and I ask him, if it be not probable, that the principle | |
which first arranged, and still maintains order in this universe, bears | |
not also some remote inconceivable analogy to the other operations of | |
nature, and, among the rest, to the economy of human mind and thought. | |
However reluctant, he must give his assent. Where then, cry I to both | |
these antagonists, is the subject of your dispute? The Theist allows, | |
that the original intelligence is very different from human reason: The | |
Atheist allows, that the original principle of order bears some remote | |
analogy to it. Will you quarrel, Gentlemen, about the degrees, and enter | |
into a controversy, which admits not of any precise meaning, nor | |
consequently of any determination? If you should be so obstinate, I | |
should not be surprised to find you insensibly change sides; while the | |
Theist, on the one hand, exaggerates the dissimilarity between the | |
Supreme Being, and frail, imperfect, variable, fleeting, and mortal | |
creatures; and the Atheist, on the other, magnifies the analogy among all | |
the operations of Nature, in every period, every situation, and every | |
position. Consider then, where the real point of controversy lies; and if | |
you cannot lay aside your disputes, endeavour, at least, to cure | |
yourselves of your animosity. | |
<speaker PHILO>And here I must also acknowledge, CLEANTHES, that as the works of Nature | |
have a much greater analogy to the effects of our art and contrivance, | |
than to those of our benevolence and justice, we have reason to infer, | |
that the natural attributes of the Deity have a greater resemblance to | |
those of men, than his moral have to human virtues. But what is the | |
consequence? Nothing but this, that the moral qualities of man are more | |
defective in their kind than his natural abilities. For, as the Supreme | |
Being is allowed to be absolutely and entirely perfect, whatever differs | |
most from him, departs the furthest from the supreme standard of | |
rectitude and perfection. | |
<speaker PHILO>It seems evident that the dispute between the Skeptics and Dogmatists | |
is entirely verbal, or at least regards only the degrees of doubt and | |
assurance which we ought to indulge with regard to all reasoning; and such | |
disputes are commonly, at the bottom, verbal, and admit not of any precise | |
determination. No philosophical Dogmatist denies that there are | |
difficulties both with regard to the senses and to all science, and that | |
these difficulties are in a regular, logical method, absolutely | |
insolvable. No Skeptic denies that we lie under an absolute necessity, | |
notwithstanding these difficulties, of thinking, and believing, and | |
reasoning, with regard to all kinds of subjects, and even of frequently | |
assenting with confidence and security. The only difference, then, between | |
these sects, if they merit that name, is, that the Sceptic, from habit, | |
caprice, or inclination, insists most on the difficulties; the Dogmatist, | |
for like reasons, on the necessity. | |
<speaker PHILO>These, CLEANTHES, are my unfeigned sentiments on this subject; and these | |
sentiments, you know, I have ever cherished and maintained. But in | |
proportion to my veneration for true religion, is my abhorrence of vulgar | |
superstitions; and I indulge a peculiar pleasure, I confess, in pushing | |
such principles, sometimes into absurdity, sometimes into impiety. And | |
you are sensible, that all bigots, notwithstanding their great aversion | |
to the latter above the former, are commonly equally guilty of both. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>My inclination, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> lies, I own, a contrary way. Religion, | |
however corrupted, is still better than no religion at all. The doctrine | |
of a future state is so strong and necessary a security to morals, that | |
we never ought to abandon or neglect it. For if finite and temporary | |
rewards and punishments have so great an effect, as we daily find; how | |
much greater must be expected from such as are infinite and eternal? | |
<speaker PHILO>How happens it then, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> if vulgar superstition be so salutary to | |
society, that all history abounds so much with accounts of its pernicious | |
consequences on public affairs? Factions, civil wars, persecutions, | |
subversions of government, oppression, slavery; these are the dismal | |
consequences which always attend its prevalency over the minds of men. If | |
the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we | |
are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend | |
it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those | |
in which it is never regarded or heard of. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>The reason of this observation, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> is obvious. The proper | |
office of religion is to regulate the heart of men, humanise their | |
conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order, and obedience; and as | |
its operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of morality and | |
justice, it is in danger of being overlooked, and confounded with these | |
other motives. When it distinguishes itself, and acts as a separate | |
principle over men, it has departed from its proper sphere, and has | |
become only a cover to faction and ambition. | |
<speaker PHILO>And so will all religion, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> except the philosophical and | |
rational kind. Your reasonings are more easily eluded than my facts. The | |
inference is not just, because finite and temporary rewards and | |
punishments have so great influence, that therefore such as are infinite | |
and eternal must have so much greater. Consider, I beseech you, the | |
attachment which we have to present things, and the little concern which | |
we discover for objects so remote and uncertain. When divines are | |
declaiming against the common behaviour and conduct of the world, they | |
always represent this principle as the strongest imaginable (which indeed | |
it is); and describe almost all human kind as lying under the influence | |
of it, and sunk into the deepest lethargy and unconcern about their | |
religious interests. Yet these same divines, when they refute their | |
speculative antagonists, suppose the motives of religion to be so | |
powerful, that, without them, it were impossible for civil society to | |
subsist; nor are they ashamed of so palpable a contradiction. It is | |
certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural honesty and | |
benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most pompous views | |
suggested by theological theories and systems. A man's natural | |
inclination works incessantly upon him; it is for ever present to the | |
mind, and mingles itself with every view and consideration: whereas | |
religious motives, where they act at all, operate only by starts and | |
bounds; and it is scarcely possible for them to become altogether | |
habitual to the mind. The force of the greatest gravity, say the | |
philosophers, is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least | |
impulse: yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will, in the end, | |
prevail above a great impulse; because no strokes or blows can be | |
repeated with such constancy as attraction and gravitation. | |
<speaker PHILO>Another advantage of inclination: It engages on its side all the wit and | |
ingenuity of the mind; and when set in opposition to religious | |
principles, seeks every method and art of eluding them: In which it is | |
almost always successful. Who can explain the heart of man, or account | |
for those strange salvos and excuses, with which people satisfy | |
themselves, when they follow their inclinations in opposition to their | |
religious duty? This is well understood in the world; and none but fools | |
ever repose less trust in a man, because they hear, that from study and | |
philosophy, he has entertained some speculative doubts with regard to | |
theological subjects. And when we have to do with a man, who makes a | |
great profession of religion and devotion, has this any other effect upon | |
several, who pass for prudent, than to put them on their guard, lest they | |
be cheated and deceived by him? | |
<speaker PHILO>We must further consider, that philosophers, who cultivate reason and | |
reflection, stand less in need of such motives to keep them under the | |
restraint of morals; and that the vulgar, who alone may need them, are | |
utterly incapable of so pure a religion as represents the Deity to be | |
pleased with nothing but virtue in human behaviour. The recommendations | |
to the Divinity are generally supposed to be either frivolous | |
observances, or rapturous ecstasies, or a bigoted credulity. We need not | |
run back into antiquity, or wander into remote regions, to find instances | |
of this degeneracy. Amongst ourselves, some have been guilty of that | |
atrociousness, unknown to the Egyptian and Grecian superstitions, of | |
declaiming in express terms, against morality; and representing it as a | |
sure forfeiture of the Divine favour, if the least trust or reliance be | |
laid upon it. | |
<speaker PHILO>But even though superstition or enthusiasm should not put itself in | |
direct opposition to morality; the very diverting of the attention, the | |
raising up a new and frivolous species of merit, the preposterous | |
distribution which it makes of praise and blame, must have the most | |
pernicious consequences, and weaken extremely men's attachment to the | |
natural motives of justice and humanity. | |
<speaker PHILO>Such a principle of action likewise, not being any of the familiar | |
motives of human conduct, acts only by intervals on the temper; and must | |
be roused by continual efforts, in order to render the pious zealot | |
satisfied with his own conduct, and make him fulfil his devotional task. | |
Many religious exercises are entered into with seeming fervour, where the | |
heart, at the time, feels cold and languid: A habit of dissimulation is | |
by degrees contracted; and fraud and falsehood become the predominant | |
principle. Hence the reason of that vulgar observation, that the highest | |
zeal in religion and the deepest hypocrisy, so far from being | |
inconsistent, are often or commonly united in the same individual | |
character. | |
<speaker PHILO>The bad effects of such habits, even in common life, are easily imagined; | |
but where the interests of religion are concerned, no morality can be | |
forcible enough to bind the enthusiastic zealot. The sacredness of the | |
cause sanctifies every measure which can be made use of to promote it. | |
<speaker PHILO>The steady attention alone to so important an interest as that of eternal | |
salvation, is apt to extinguish the benevolent affections, and beget a | |
narrow, contracted selfishness. And when such a temper is encouraged, it | |
easily eludes all the general precepts of charity and benevolence. | |
<speaker PHILO>Thus, the motives of vulgar superstition have no great influence on | |
general conduct; nor is their operation favourable to morality, in the | |
instances where they predominate. | |
<speaker PHILO>Is there any maxim in politics more certain and infallible, than that | |
both the number and authority of priests should be confined within very | |
narrow limits; and that the civil magistrate ought, for ever, to keep his | |
fasces and axes from such dangerous hands? But if the spirit of popular | |
religion were so salutary to society, a contrary maxim ought to prevail. | |
The greater number of priests, and their greater authority and riches, | |
will always augment the religious spirit. And though the priests have the | |
guidance of this spirit, why may we not expect a superior sanctity of | |
life, and greater benevolence and moderation, from persons who are set | |
apart for religion, who are continually inculcating it upon others, and | |
who must themselves imbibe a greater share of it? Whence comes it then, | |
that, in fact, the utmost a wise magistrate can propose with regard to | |
popular religions, is, as far as possible, to make a saving game of it, | |
and to prevent their pernicious consequences with regard to society? | |
Every expedient which he tries for so humble a purpose is surrounded with | |
inconveniences. If he admits only one religion among his subjects, he | |
must sacrifice, to an uncertain prospect of tranquillity, every | |
consideration of public liberty, science, reason, industry, and even his | |
own independency. If he gives indulgence to several sects, which is the | |
wiser maxim, he must preserve a very philosophical indifference to all of | |
them, and carefully restrain the pretensions of the prevailing sect; | |
otherwise he can expect nothing but endless disputes, quarrels, factions, | |
persecutions, and civil commotions. | |
<speaker PHILO>True religion, I allow, has no such pernicious consequences: but we must | |
treat of religion, as it has commonly been found in the world; nor have I | |
any thing to do with that speculative tenet of Theism, which, as it is a | |
species of philosophy, must partake of the beneficial influence of that | |
principle, and at the same time must lie under a like inconvenience, of | |
being always confined to very few persons. | |
<speaker PHILO>Oaths are requisite in all courts of judicature; but it is a question | |
whether their authority arises from any popular religion. It is the | |
solemnity and importance of the occasion, the regard to reputation, and | |
the reflecting on the general interests of society, which are the chief | |
restraints upon mankind. Custom-house oaths and political oaths are but | |
little regarded even by some who pretend to principles of honesty and | |
religion; and a Quaker's asseveration is with us justly put upon the same | |
footing with the oath of any other person. I know, that POLYBIUS | |
[Lib. vi. cap. 54.] ascribes the infamy of GREEK faith to the prevalency of | |
the EPICUREAN philosophy: but I know also, that Punic faith had as bad a | |
reputation in ancient times as Irish evidence has in modern; though we | |
cannot account for these vulgar observations by the same reason. Not to | |
mention that Greek faith was infamous before the rise of the Epicurean | |
philosophy; and EURIPIDES [Iphigenia in Tauride], in a passage which I | |
shall point out to you, has glanced a remarkable stroke of satire against | |
his nation, with regard to this circumstance. | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>Take care, PHILO, replied CLEANTHES,<speaker CLEANTHES> take care: push not matters too far: | |
allow not your zeal against false religion to undermine your veneration | |
for the true. Forfeit not this principle, the chief, the only great | |
comfort in life; and our principal support amidst all the attacks of | |
adverse fortune. The most agreeable reflection, which it is possible for | |
human imagination to suggest, is that of genuine Theism, which represents | |
us as the workmanship of a Being perfectly good, wise, and powerful; who | |
created us for happiness; and who, having implanted in us immeasurable | |
desires of good, will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will | |
transfer us into an infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy those | |
desires, and render our felicity complete and durable. Next to such a | |
Being himself (if the comparison be allowed), the happiest lot which we | |
can imagine, is that of being under his guardianship and protection. | |
<speaker PHILO>These appearances, said PHILO,<speaker PHILO> are most engaging and alluring; and with | |
regard to the true philosopher, they are more than appearances. But it | |
happens here, as in the former case, that, with regard to the greater | |
part of mankind, the appearances are deceitful, and that the terrors of | |
religion commonly prevail above its comforts. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is allowed, that men never have recourse to devotion so readily as | |
when dejected with grief or depressed with sickness. Is not this a proof, | |
that the religious spirit is not so nearly allied to joy as to sorrow? | |
<speaker CLEANTHES>But men, when afflicted, find consolation in religion, replied CLEANTHES. | |
<speaker PHILO>Sometimes, said PHILO:<speaker PHILO> but it is natural to imagine, that they will form | |
a notion of those unknown beings, suitably to the present gloom and | |
melancholy of their temper, when they betake themselves to the | |
contemplation of them. Accordingly, we find the tremendous images to | |
predominate in all religions; and we ourselves, after having employed the | |
most exalted expression in our descriptions of the Deity, fall into the | |
flattest contradiction in affirming that the damned are infinitely | |
superior in number to the elect. | |
<speaker PHILO>I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a popular religion, which | |
represented the state of departed souls in such a light, as would render | |
it eligible for human kind that there should be such a state. These fine | |
models of religion are the mere product of philosophy. For as death lies | |
between the eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shocking | |
to Nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the regions which lie beyond | |
it; and suggest to the generality of mankind the idea of CERBERUS and | |
FURIES; devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is true, both fear and hope enter into religion; because both these | |
passions, at different times, agitate the human mind, and each of them | |
forms a species of divinity suitable to itself. But when a man is in a | |
cheerful disposition, he is fit for business, or company, or | |
entertainment of any kind; and he naturally applies himself to these, and | |
thinks not of religion. When melancholy and dejected, he has nothing to | |
do but brood upon the terrors of the invisible world, and to plunge | |
himself still deeper in affliction. It may indeed happen, that after he | |
has, in this manner, engraved the religious opinions deep into his | |
thought and imagination, there may arrive a change of health or | |
circumstances, which may restore his good humour, and raising cheerful | |
prospects of futurity, make him run into the other extreme of joy and | |
triumph. But still it must be acknowledged, that, as terror is the | |
primary principle of religion, it is the passion which always | |
predominates in it, and admits but of short intervals of pleasure. | |
<speaker PHILO>Not to mention, that these fits of excessive, enthusiastic joy, by | |
exhausting the spirits, always prepare the way for equal fits of | |
superstitious terror and dejection; nor is there any state of mind so | |
happy as the calm and equable. But this state it is impossible to | |
support, where a man thinks that he lies in such profound darkness and | |
uncertainty, between an eternity of happiness and an eternity of misery. | |
No wonder that such an opinion disjoints the ordinary frame of the mind, | |
and throws it into the utmost confusion. And though that opinion is | |
seldom so steady in its operation as to influence all the actions; yet it | |
is apt to make a considerable breach in the temper, and to produce that | |
gloom and melancholy so remarkable in all devout people. | |
<speaker PHILO>It is contrary to common sense to entertain apprehensions or terrors upon | |
account of any opinion whatsoever, or to imagine that we run any risk | |
hereafter, by the freest use of our reason. Such a sentiment implies both | |
an absurdity and an inconsistency. It is an absurdity to believe that the | |
Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a | |
restless appetite for applause. It is an inconsistency to believe, that, | |
since the Deity has this human passion, he has not others also; and, in | |
particular, a disregard to the opinions of creatures so much inferior. | |
<speaker PHILO>To know God, says SENECA, is to worship him. All other worship is indeed | |
absurd, superstitious, and even impious. It degrades him to the low | |
condition of mankind, who are delighted with entreaty, solicitation, | |
presents, and flattery. Yet is this impiety the smallest of which | |
superstition is guilty. Commonly, it depresses the Deity far below the | |
condition of mankind; and represents him as a capricious DEMON, who | |
exercises his power without reason and without humanity! And were that | |
Divine Being disposed to be offended at the vices and follies of silly | |
mortals, who are his own workmanship, ill would it surely fare with the | |
votaries of most popular superstitions. Nor would any of human race merit | |
his favour, but a very few, the philosophical Theists, who entertain, or | |
rather indeed endeavour to entertain, suitable notions of his Divine | |
perfections: As the only persons entitled to his compassion and | |
indulgence would be the philosophical Sceptics, a sect almost equally | |
rare, who, from a natural diffidence of their own capacity, suspend, or | |
endeavour to suspend, all judgement with regard to such sublime and such | |
extraordinary subjects. | |
<speaker PHILO>If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain, | |
resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least | |
undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the universe | |
probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this | |
proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular | |
explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can | |
be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect | |
as it is, can be carried no further than to the human intelligence, and | |
cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other | |
qualities of the mind; if this really be the case, what can the most | |
inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, | |
philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs, and | |
believe that the arguments on which it is established exceed the | |
objections which lie against it? Some astonishment, indeed, will | |
naturally arise from the greatness of the object; some melancholy from | |
its obscurity; some contempt of human reason, that it can give no | |
solution more satisfactory with regard to so extraordinary and | |
magnificent a question. But believe me, CLEANTHES, the most natural | |
sentiment which a well-disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a | |
longing desire and expectation that Heaven would be pleased to dissipate, | |
at least alleviate, this profound ignorance, by affording some more | |
particular revelation to mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, | |
attributes, and operations of the Divine object of our faith. A person, | |
seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will | |
fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: While the haughty | |
Dogmatist, persuaded that he can erect a complete system of Theology by | |
the mere help of philosophy, disdains any further aid, and rejects this | |
adventitious instructor. To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of | |
letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, | |
believing Christian; a proposition which I would willingly recommend to | |
the attention of PAMPHILUS: And I hope CLEANTHES will forgive me for | |
interposing so far in the education and instruction of his pupil. | |
<speaker PAMPHILUS>CLEANTHES and PHILO pursued not this conversation much further: and as | |
nothing ever made greater impression on me, than all the reasonings of | |
that day, so I confess, that, upon a serious review of the whole, I | |
cannot but think, that PHILO's principles are more probable than DEMEA's; | |
but that those of CLEANTHES approach still nearer to the truth. |
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