Theological Essays Part 5

Those who maintain the doctrine of what is called the immortality of the soul, contend for the existence of a living, thinking spirit, which, they say, is not the body, and which, they urge, will continue when the body has ceased. The burden of proving this "soul" rests on those who maintain and a.s.sert it. It is clear that there is no ident.i.ty between life and "soul;" life commences, varies, and ceases, in accordance with the growth, decay, and dissolution of the body. The orthodox contention for soul must be that its existence is independent of the body, and this shows that soul is not life. Nor is there any ident.i.ty between mind and soul. All perception is dependent on the (bodily) perceptive ability and its exercise. All thought has some action of the bodily organism for its immediate antecedent and accompaniment. As the soul is not life, is not mind, and cannot be body, what is it? To call it spirit, and to leave the word spirit undefined is to do nothing. Religionists talk to me of my "soul;" that is, an individual soul continuing to exist, they say, with a continuing consciousness of personal ident.i.ty after "I" am dead.

But if a baby two months old dies, what consciousness of personal ident.i.ty continues in such a case? Or, if an idiot from birth dies at the age of eighteen: or if a person, sane until twenty, becomes insane, lives insane until forty, and then dies: in either of these two cases what is it that is supposed to be the personal ident.i.ty which continues after death? And what is meant by my "soul" living after "I" am dead?

The word "I" to me represents the bodily organism, its vital and mental activities. To tell me that my body dies and that yet my life continues is a contradiction in terms. To declare that my life has ended, but that I continue to think is to affirm a like contradiction. Religionists seem to think that they avoid the difficulty, or turn it upon us, by propounding riddles. They a.n.a.lyse the body, and, giving a list of what they call elementary substances, they say: Can oxygen think? can carbon think? can nitrogen think? and when they have triumphantly gone through the list, they add, that as none of these by itself can think, thought is not a result of matter, but is a quality of soul. This reasoning at best only amounts to declaring, "We know what body is, but we know nothing of soul; as we cannot understand how body, which we do know, can think, we therefore declare that it is soul, which we do not know, that does think." There is a still greater fault in this theological reasoning in favor of the soul, for it a.s.sumes, contrary to experience, that no quality or result can be found in a given combination which is not also discoverable in each or any of the modes, parts, atoms, or elements combined. Yet this is monstrously absurd. Sugar tastes sweet, but neither carbon, nor oxygen, nor hydrogen, separately tasted, exhibits sweetness; yet sugar is the word by which you describe a certain combination of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. I contend that the word "soul," in relation to human, vital, and mental phenomena, occupies an a.n.a.lagous position to that which used to be occupied by such words as "demon," "genii," "gnome," "fairy," "G.o.ds," in relation to general physical phenomena.

The ability to think is never found except as an ability of animal organisation, and the ability is always found higher or lower as the organisation is higher or lower: the exercise of this ability varies in childhood, youth, prime, and old age, and is promoted or hindered by climate, food, and mode of life; yet the orthodox maintainers of soul require us to believe that the ability to think might be found without animal organisation, and might, nay will, exist independent of all vital conditions. They contend that what they call the soul will live when the human being has ceased to live; but they do not explain whether it did live before the human being began to live. The orthodox contend that as what they call the elementary substances, taken separately, do not think, therefore man without a soul cannot think, and that as man does think he must have a soul. This argument, if valid at all, goes much too far; a trout thinks, a carp thinks, a rat thinks, a dog thinks, a horse thinks, and, by parity of reasoning, all these animals should have immortal souls.

It is sometimes urged that to deny the immortality of the soul is to reduce man to the level of the beast, but it is forgotten that mankind are not quite on a level. Take the savage, with lower jaw projecting far in advance, and compare him with Dante, Shakspere,

Milton, or Voltaire. Take the Papuan and Plato; the Esquimaux and Confucius; and then ask whether it is possible to contend that all human beings have equal souls?

The orthodox man declares that my soul is spirit, that my body is matter; that my soul has nothing in common with my body; that it exists entirely independently of my body; that my soul lives after my body has ceased to live; that, after my body has decayed, is disintegrated, and become absorbed in and commingled with the elements, my soul still continues uncorrupted and unaffected. But not a shadow of proof or even of reasonable explanation is offered in support of any clause in this declaration. The word "spirit" is left utterly undefined. No sort of explanation is given of the nexus between the two alleged distinct existences, "body" and "soul." Not a trace is suggested of "soul,"

otherwise than through what are admittedly material conditions.

Those who allege that there is a distinct "soul" which is to live for ever should also explain whether or not this soul has always existed-i.e. whether my soul existed prior to the commencement and clearly traceable growth of my body? And where? And for how long? If it did exist prior to my commencement in the womb, how was it then identifiable as my soul? If prior to my body it was not so identifiable, how will it be identifiable after my body has ceased? If the soul existed prior to my body, had it always existed? If yes, do you mean that each soul is eternal? That no soul has ever begun to be?

If you argue for the eternity of the soul, you deny G.o.d as universal creator; if you contend that soul commenced or was commenced, you should also admit that it may finish or be finished. If the soul existed prior to my body, had it been waiting inactive, but ready to occupy my body?

And if yes, when did the occupation commence? And was the soul always existing perfect and unimprovable? If after vitalisation the unborn child dies, what becomes of the soul? and what is it in such a case that evidences that the particular soul had ever existed? If after birth the baby dies before it thinks, though after it has breathed, where in this case is the trace of the soul? If it should be conceded that my soul only began with my body, why is it to be maintained that it will not cease with my body? If, as is pretended, my "soul" is not identifiable with my body, how is it that all intellectual manifestations are affected by my bodily condition, growth, health, decay? If the soul is immortal and immaterial, how is it that temporary pressure on the brain may paralyse and prevent all mental manifestation, and that fracture by a poker or by a bullet may annihilate the possibility of any further mental activity? Henri Taine and Charles Darwin have very carefully noted for us the evidence of gradual growth of sensitive ability and of mind in children. Those who tell us of soul-which is, they say, not body, nor quality of body, nor result of body, nor influenced by body-should at least explain to us how it is that all manifestations which they say are peculiar to soul keep pace with, and are limited by, the development of body.

What the orthodox claim under the word soul is really the totality of mental ability-founded in perception-and its exercise; dependent, first, on the perceptive ability of the perceiver, and, secondly, on the range of the activity of such ability. Even two individuals of similar perceptive ability may have a varied store of perceptions, and later perceptions in each case, even of identical phenomena, may in consequence have different values. The memory of perception, comparison of and distinguishment between perceptions, thoughts upon and concepts as to perceptions, memory, comparison and distinguishment of all or any of these, the various mental processes included in doubting, believing, reasoning, willing, etc., all these-which I contend are the consequences of vital organisation, commence with it, are strengthened and weakened, and, which I maintain, cease with it-are included by the orthodox under the word "soul." None of the orthodox, and few of the spiritualists, contend that the "memory" of the rat, the cow, or the horse is to survive the decease of rat, cow, and horse. Scarcely anyone is hardy enough to maintain that the ghost of the thinking sheep persists with active thought after the slaughterhouse and dinner of roast mutton. Yet if one range of animal mental ability is to be cla.s.sified as immortal, why not all? Why claim immortality for the "soul" of the idiot, and deny it to the thought, memory, reason, faith, doubt, and will of the retriever? None claim immortality for the brightness of the steel when oxidation has so disfigured the surface that rust has superseded all brilliance; none claim immortality for the sweet odor of the rose when the vegetable ma.s.s emits only unpleasant smells and exhibits unsightly rottenness; none claim immortality for the color of the beautiful lily decayed and withered away. Those who claim immortality for what they call the "soul" should first clearly define it, and then at least try to prove that the attributes they claim for soul are not the attributes of what we know as living body.

The word "mind" describes all the possible states of consciousness of each animal; but as after its death there is no longer in that case any continuing animal, so neither is there any possibly continuing mind. But it is only in connexion with the mental and vital processes that there is any shadow of attempt by theologians to in any fas.h.i.+on identify soul, and therefore when life has ceased and consciousness is consequently no longer, there is not even the faintest trace of aught remaining to which the word "soul" can with any reasonableness be applied from the theological standpoint. Dr. John Drysdale says: "The mind, looked at in its complete state, in its unity, personality, obedience to laws of its own, apparent spontaneity of action and controlling power over the body, and in the total dissimilarity of all its phenomena from all known bodily and material effects, has been almost universally ascribed to the working of an immaterial substance added to organised matter. But such a substance is quite as hypothetical as the potentiality of mind lying in matter, and hence it explains nothing; whereas, if we grant the possibility of consciousness as a concomitant of certain material changes, the peculiarities of mind as an action or function require no further explanation than the conditions of those changes;" and, he adds, "it may be held proved in physiology that for every feeling, every thought, and every volition, a correlative change takes place in the nerve-matter, and, given this special change in every respect identical, a similar state of circ.u.mstances will always arise; that this process occupies time, that it requires a due supply of oxygenated blood, that it is interrupted or destroyed by whatever impairs the integrity of the nerve-matter, and, lastly, it is exhausted by its own activity and requires rest."

"If," says the same writer, "the mind is merely a function of the material organism, it must necessarily perish with it. If mind and life are a compound of matter and some diffused ethereal spiritual substance, then at death a personal continuance is equally impossible. If mind is a spirit at all, it must be a definite, indivisible piece of spiritual substance; and if naturally indestructible and immortal as the personal human individual, it must be equally so in all individuals which display mind. Now, it is too late in the day to require a single sentence in proof of the existence of mind in animals; therefore, if the possession of mind naturally involves the immortality of the soul, the latter must be shared equally with the animals who certainly also possess the conscious Ego;" and Dr. J. Drysdale maintains that mind is essentially of the same nature in animals and in man, although of higher and wider scope in the latter, and that in all cases mind is a function of organised matter and necessarily perishes when that organisation ceases.

In all animals the living brain is essential to all phases of thought.

The thought-ability of any animal is always in precise proportion to the perfection and activity of the brain. The power of developing thought grows, diminishes, and ceases, the cessation always being complete when the brain ceases to perform its vital functions. If the brain is injured the thought-ability is impaired, the thinking deranged. Yet who to-day would think it wise or necessary, with evidence of aberration of thought resulting from local injury, to treat it as a case of demoniacal possession?

One other difficulty in the discussion of this question is that new discoveries are not taken into account by our spiritual antagonists in estimating the value of old formulas. Two thousand three hundred years ago demonology had not yet pa.s.sed into the region of fable. Socrates spoke of the soul as if it had been specially infused into the body by the G.o.ds, and declared "that the soul which resides in thy body can govern it at pleasure;" but such discoveries have since been made in physiology and psychology that were Socrates alive to-day Aristodemus might now well make answers to the old Greek sage which were then impossible. Plato, too, contended for the immortality of the human soul, but under cover of this line of reasoning he also offered proof that the world was an animal and had a like soul. Plato's orthodox admirers today carefully avoid Plato's presentation of the earth as an animal with an immortal soul. David Ma.s.son attributes to Auguste Comte the first open and clear adoption of a position on the soul question which rendered evasion difficult. "Previous physiological psychologists, including phrenologists, had generally shrunk from the extreme to which their opponents had said they were committed. They had kept up the time-honored distinction between mind and body; they had used language implying a recognition of some unknown anima, or vital principle, concealed behind the animal organism; some of them had even been anxious to vindicate their belief in the immateriality or transcendental nature of this principle. But Comte ended all that s.h.i.+lly-shallying. Mind, he said, is the name for the functions of brain and nerve; mind is brain and nerve. This destroyed, that ceases."

In his "Enigmas of Life" William Rathbone Greg concedes that "visible and ascertainable phenomena give no countenance to the theory of a future or spiritual life." He urges that a sense of ident.i.ty, a conscious continuity of the Ego, is an essential element of the doctrine, and Mr. Greg speaks of this as accounting for "the astonis.h.i.+ng doctrine of the resurrection of the body which has so strangely and thoughtlessly found its way into the popular creed. The primitive parents or congealers of that creed-whoever they may have been-innocent of all science, and oddly muddled in their metaphysics, but resolute in their conviction that the same persons who died here should be, in very deed, the same who should rise hereafter-systematised their antic.i.p.ations into the notion that the grave should give up its actual inmates for their ordained transformation and their allotted fate. The current notion of the approaching end of the world, no doubt helped to blind them to the vulnerability, and indeed the fatal self-contradictions, of the form in which they had embodied their faith.

Of course, if they had taken time to think, or if the Fathers of the Church had been more given to thinking in the rigid meaning of the word, they would have discovered that this special form rendered that faith absurd, indefensible, and virtually impossible. They did not know, or they never considered, that the buried body soon dissolves into its elements, which, in the course of generations and centuries, pa.s.s into other combinations, form part of other living creatures, feed and const.i.tute countless organisations one after another; so that when the graves are summoned 'to give up the dead that are in them,' and the sea 'the dead that are in it,' they will be called on to surrender what they no longer possess, and what no supernatural power can give back to them.

It never occurred to those creed makers, who thus took upon themselves to carnalise an idea into a fact, that for every atom that once went to make up the body they committed to the earth, there would be scores of claimants before the Great Day of Account; and that even Omnipotence could scarcely be expected to make the same component part be in two or ten places at once. The original human frames, therefore, _could not be had when_, as supposed, they would be wanted." And in his "Creed of Christendom" he writes: "Appearances all testify to the reality and permanence of death; a fearful onus of proof lies upon those who contend that these appearances are deceptive. When we interrogate the vast universe of organisation, we see not simply life and death, but gradually growing life and gradually approaching death. After death, all that we have ever _known_ of man is gone; all we have ever seen of him is dissolved into its component elements; it does not _disappear_ so as to leave us at liberty to imagine that it may have gone to exist elsewhere, but is actually used up as materials for other purposes."

There is one alleged "indication of immortality" which Mr. Greg twice repeats, and to which we will offer a word of reply. His statement is as follows:

"I refer to that _spontaneous_, irresistible, and, perhaps, nearly universal, feeling we all experience on watching, just after death, the body of someone we have intimately known; the conviction, I mean a sense, a consciousness, an impression _which you have to fight against if you wish to disbelieve or shake it off_ that the form lying there is not the Ego you have loved. It does not produce the effect of that person's personality. You miss the Ego though you have the frame. The visible Presence only makes more vivid the sense of actual Absence.

Every feature, every substance, every phenomenon is there, and is unchanged. You have seen the eyes as firmly closed, the limbs as motionless, the breath almost as imperceptible, the face as fixed and expressionless before, in sleep or in trance, without the same peculiar sensation. The impression made is indefinable, and is not the result of any conscious process of thought-that that body, quite unchanged to the eye, is not, and never was your friend-the Ego you were conversant with; and that his or her individuality was not the garment before you _plus_ a galvanic current; that, in fact, the Ego you knew once and seek still, _was not that-is not there_. And if not there, it must be _elsewhere or nowhere_, and 'nowhere,' I believe, modern science will not suffer us to predicate of either force or substance that once has been."

Undoubtedly the dead body is not the living human being you loved. It has ceased to live. Every phenomenon is not there unchanged, the whole of the vital phenomena are wanting; there is a complete change so far as organic functional activity is concerned. Even the body itself is not quite unchanged to the eye. There is in most cases, and especially to skilled vision, an easily detectible difference between a living man and a corpse. To say that the Ego is not there, and if not there must be elsewhere, is to use an absurd phrase. Take an ordinary drinking-gla.s.s and crush it into powder, or shatter it into fragments, the drinking-gla.s.s is not there, nor is it elsewhere; the combination which made up drinking-gla.s.s no longer exists. Ego does not denote body only, it denotes living body with personal characteristics. Take a bright steel blade, let the surface be oxidised, and the brightness is no longer there, nor is it elsewhere; it is only that the conditions which were resultant in brightness no longer exist.

It used to be the fas.h.i.+on to argue at one time as if the majority of, if not the whole of, the human race accepted, without doubt, the dogma of the immortality of the soul; but such a contention is to-day utterly impossible. Strauss, Buchner, Haeckel, Clifford, and a host of others, take ground as representatives of thousands of heterodox Europeans, and even in the pulpit itself orthodoxy is suspect. The Reverend Edward White declares the "natural eternity of souls as a positive dogma to be dest.i.tute of all evidence from nature or revelation;" and he refers to "scientific biologists of the first rank, who, after careful study of the phenomena of brain-production and mind-evolution throughout living nature, and of the phenomena of waste and destruction in unfinished organisms, declare it to be the height of absurdity to maintain" this immortality doctrine; and Mr. White reminds us that 480 millions of Buddhists on the continent of Asia all believe in the "extinction of individual being." It is only fair, however, to add here that scholars still dispute as to whether or not "nirvana" should be read as meaning annihilation.

A quotation from Dr. Henry Maudsley may fitly terminate this brief essay: "To those who cannot conceive that any organisation of matter, however complete, should be capable of such exalted functions as those which are called mental, is it really more conceivable that any organisation of matter can be the mechanical instrument of the complex manifestations of an immaterial mind? It is strangely overlooked by many who write on this matter that the brain is not a dead instrument, but a living organ, with functions of a higher kind than those of any other bodily organ, insomuch as its organic nature and structure far surpa.s.s those of any other organs. What, then, are those functions if they are not mental? No one thinks it necessary to a.s.sume an immaterial liver behind the hepatic structure, in order to account for its functions. But so far as the nature of nerve and the complex structure of the cerebral convolutions exceed in dignity the hepatic elements and structure, so far must the material functions of the brain exceed those of the liver.

Men are not sufficiently careful to ponder the wonderful operations of which matter is capable, or to reflect on the changes effected by it which are continually before their eyes. Are the properties of a chemical compound less mysterious essentially because of the familiarity with which we handle them? Consider the seed dropped into the ground; it swells with germinating energy, bursts its integuments, sends upwards a delicate shoot, which grows into a stem, putting forth in due season its leaves and flowers. And yet all these processes are operations of matter, for it is not thought necessary to a.s.sume an immaterial or spiritual plant which effects its purposes through the agency of the material structure which we observe. Surely there are here exhibited properties of matter wonderful enough to satisfy anyone of the powers that may be inherent in it. Are we, then, to believe that the highest and most complex development of organic structure is not capable of even more wonderful operations? Would you have the human body, which is a microcosm containing all the forms and powers of matter, organised in the most delicate and complex manner, to possess lower powers than those forms of matter exhibit separately in nature? Trace the gradual development of the nervous system through the animal series, from its first germ to its most complex evolution, and let it be declared at what point it suddenly loses all its inherent properties as living structure, and becomes the mere mechanical instrument of a spiritual ent.i.ty. In what animal, or in what cla.s.s of animals, does the immaterial principle abruptly intervene, and supersede the agency of matter, becoming the entirely distinct cause of a similar, though more exalted, order of phenomena? The burden of proving that the _deus ex machina_ of a spiritual ent.i.ty intervenes somewhere, and where it intervenes, clearly lies upon those who make the a.s.sertion, or who need the hypothesis. They are not justified in arbitrarily fabricating a hypothesis entirely inconsistent with experience of the orderly development of nature, which even postulates a domain of nature that human senses cannot take any cognisance of, and in then calling upon those who reject their a.s.sumption to disprove it."

IS THERE A G.o.d

THE initial difficulty is in defining the word "G.o.d." It is equally impossible to intelligently affirm or deny any proposition unless there is at least an understanding, on the part of the affirmer or denier, of the meaning of every word used in the proposition. To me the word "G.o.d"

standing alone is a word without meaning. I find the word repeatedly used even by men of education and refinement, and who have won reputation in special directions of research, rather to ill.u.s.trate their ignorance than to explain their knowledge. Various sects of Theists do affix arbitrary meanings to the word "G.o.d," but often these meanings are in their terms selfcontradictory, and usually the definition maintained by one sect of Theists more or less contradicts the definition put forward by some other sect. With the Unitarian Jew, the Trinitarian Christian, the old Polytheistic Greek, the modern Universalist, or the Calvinist, the word "G.o.d" will in each case be intended to express a proposition absolutely irreconcilable with those of the other sects. In this brief essay, which can by no means be taken as a complete answer to the question which forms its t.i.tle, I will for the sake of argument take the explanation of the word "G.o.d" as given with great carefulness by Dr.

Robert Flint, Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, in two works directed by him against Atheism. He defines G.o.d ("Ant.i.theistic Theories," p. 1,) as "a supreme, self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous and benevolent being who is distinct from and independent of what he has created;" ("Theism," p. 1,) as "a self-existent, eternal being, infinite in power and wisdom, and perfect in holiness and goodness, the maker of heaven and earth;" and (p. 18,) "the creator and preserver of nature, the governor of nations, the heavenly father and judge of man;" (p. 18,) "one infinite personal;" (p. 42,) "the one infinite" being" who "is a person-is a free and loving intelligence;"

(p. 59,) "the creator, preserver, and ruler of all finite beings;" (p.

65,) "not only the ultimate cause, but the supreme intelligence;" and (p. 74,) "the supreme moral intelligence is an unchangeable being." That is, in the above statements "G.o.d" is defined by Professor Flint to be: _A supreme, self-existent, the one infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, unchangeable, righteous, and benevolent, personal being, creator and preserver of nature, maker of heaven and earth; who is distinct from and independent of what he has created, who is a free, loving, supreme, moral intelligence, the governor of nations, the heavenly father and judge of man._

The two volumes, published by William Blackwood and Son, from which this definition has been collected, form the Baird Lectures in favor of Theism for the years 1876 and 1877. Professor Flint has a well-deserved reputation as a clear thinker and writer of excellent ability as a Theistic advocate. I trust, therefore, I am not acting unfairly in criticising his definition. My first objection is, that to me the definition is on the face of it so self-contradictory that a negative answer must be given to the question, Is there such a G.o.d? The a.s.sociation of the word "supreme" with the word "infinite" as descriptive of a "personal being" is utterly confusing. "Supreme" can only be used as expressing comparison between the being to whom it is applied, and some other being with whom that "supreme" being is a.s.sumed to have possible points of comparison and is then compared. But "the one infinite being" cannot be compared with any other infinite being, for the wording of the definition excludes the possibility of any other infinite being, nor could the infinite being-for the word "one" may be dispensed with, as two infinite beings are unthinkable-be compared with any finite being. "Supreme" is an adjective of relation and is totally inapplicable to "the infinite." It can only be applied to one of two or more finites. "Supreme" with "omnipotent" is pleonastic. If it is said that the word "supreme" is now properly used to distinguish between the Creator and the created, the governor and that which is governed, then it is clear that the word "supreme" would have been an inapplicable word of description to "the one infinite being" prior to creation, and this would involve the declaration that the exact description of the unchangeable has been properly changed, which is an absurdity. The definition affirms "creation," that is, affirms "G.o.d" existing prior to such creation-i.e., then the sole existence; but the word "supreme"

could not then apply. An existence cannot be described as "highest" when there is none other; therefore, none less high. The word "supreme" as a word of description is absolutely contradictory of Monism. Yet Professor Flint himself says ("Anti-Theistic Theories," p. 132), "that reason, when in quest of an ultimate explanation of things, imperatively demands unity, and that only a Monistic theory of the universe can deserve the name of a philosophy." Professor Flint has given no explanation of the meaning he attaches to the word "self-existent." Nor, indeed, has he given any explanation of any of his words of description. By self-existent I mean that to which you cannot conceive antecedent. By "infinite" I mean immeasurable, illimitable, indefinable; i.e., that of which I cannot predicate extension, or limitation of extension. By "eternal" I mean illimitable, indefinable, i.e., that of which I cannot predicate limitation of duration or progression of duration.

"Nature" is with me the same as "universe," the same as "existence;"

i.e., I mean by it: The totality of all phenomena, and of all that has been, is, or may be necessary for the happening of each and every phenomenon. It is from the very terms of the definition, self-existent, eternal, infinite. I cannot think of nature commencement, discontinuity, or creation. I am unable to think backward to the possibility of existence not having been. I cannot think forward to the possibility of existence ceasing to be. I have no meaning for the word "create" except to denote change of condition. Origin of "universe" is to me absolutely unthinkable. Sir William Hamilton ("Lectures and Discussions," p. 610) affirms: that when aware of a new appearance we are utterly unable to conceive that there has originated any new existence; that we are utterly unable to think that the complement of existence has ever been either increased or diminished; that we can neither conceive nothing becoming something, or something becoming nothing. Professor Flint's definition affirms "G.o.d" as existing "distinct from, and independent of, what he has created." But what can such words mean when used of the "infinite?" Does "distinct from" mean separate from? Does the "universe"

existing distinct from G.o.d mean in addition to? and in other place than?

or, have the words no meaning?

Of all words in Professor Flint's definition, which would be appropriate if used of human beings, I mean the same as I should mean if I used the same words in the highest possible degree of any human being. Here I maintain the position taken by John Stuart Mill in his examination of Sir W. Hamilton (p. 122). Righteousness and benevolence are two of the words of description included in the definition of this creator and governor of nations. But is it righteous and benevolent to create men and govern nations so that the men act criminally and the nations seek to destroy one another in war? Professor Flint does not deny ("Theism,"

p. 256) "that G.o.d could have originated a sinless moral system," and he adds: "I have no doubt that G.o.d has actually made many moral beings who are certain never to oppose their own wills to his, or that he might, if he had so pleased, have created only such angels as were sure to keep their first estate." But it is inaccurate to describe a "G.o.d" as righteous or benevolent who, having the complete power to originate a sinless moral system, is admitted to have originated a system in which sinfulness and immorality were not only left possible, but have actually, in consequence of G.o.d's rule and government, become abundant.

It cannot be righteous for the "omnipotent" to be making human beings contrived and designed by his omniscience so as to be fitted for the commission of sin. It cannot be benevolent in "G.o.d" to contrive and create a h.e.l.l in which he is to torment the human beings who have sinned because made by him in sin. "G.o.d," if omnipotent and omniscient, could just as easily, and much more benevolently, have contrived that there should never be any sinners, and, therefore, never any need for h.e.l.l or torment.

The Rev. R.A. Armstrong, with whom I debated this question, says:-

"'Either,' argues Mr. Bradlaugh, in effect, 'G.o.d could make a world without suffering, or he could not. If he could and did not, he is not all-good. If he could not, he is not all-powerful.' The reply is, What do you mean by all-powerful? If you mean having power to reconcile things in themselves contradictory, we do not hold that G.o.d is all-powerful. But a humanity, from the first enjoying immunity from suffering, and yet possessed of n.o.bility of character, is a self-contradictory conception."

That is, Mr. Armstrong thinks that a "sinless moral system from the first is a self-contradictory conception."

It is difficult to think a loving governor of nations arranging one set of cannibals to eat, and another set of human beings to be eaten by their fellow-men. It is impossible to think a loving creator and governor contriving a human being to be born into the world the pre-natal victim of transmitted disease. It is repugnant to reason to affirm this "free loving supreme moral intelligence" planning and contriving the enduring through centuries of criminal cla.s.ses, plague-spots on civilisation.

The word "unchangeable" contradicts the word "creator." Any theory of creation must imply some period when the being was not yet the creator, that is, when yet the creation was not performed, and the act of creation must in such case, at any rate, involve temporary or permanent change in the mode of existence of the being creating. So, too, the words of description "governor of nations" are irreconcileable with the description "unchangeable," applied to a being alleged to have existed prior to the creation of the "nations," and therefore, of course, long before any act of government could be exercised.

To speak of an infinite personal being seems to me pure contradiction of terms. All attempts to think "person" involve thoughts of the limited, finite, conditioned. To describe this infinite personal being as distinct from some thing which is postulated as "what he has created" is only to emphasise the contradiction, rendered perhaps still more marked when the infinite personal being is described as "intelligent."

The Rev. R.A. Armstrong, in a prefatory note to the report of his debate with myself on the question "Is it reasonable to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d?" says: "I have ventured upon alleging an intelligent cause of the phenomena of the universe, in spite of the fact that in several of his writings Mr.

Bradlaugh has described intelligence as implying limitations. But though intelligence, as known to us in man, is always hedged within limits, there is no difficulty in conceiving each and every limit as removed. In that case the essential conception of intelligence remains the same precisely, although the change of conditions revolutionises its mode of working." This, it seems to me, is not accurate. The word intelligence can only be accurately used of man, as in each case meaning the totality of mental ability, its activity and result. If you eliminate in each case all possibilities of mental ability there is no "conception of intelligence" left, either essential or otherwise. If you attempt to remove the limits, that is the organisation, the intelligence ceases to be thinkable. It is unjustifiable to talk of "change of conditions" when you remove the word intelligence as a word of application to man or other thinking animal, and seek to apply the word to the unconditional.

As an Atheist I affirm one existence, and deny the possibility of more than one existence; by existence meaning, as I have already stated, "the totality of all phenomena, and of all that has been, is, or may be necessary for the happening of any and every phenomenon." This existence I know in its modes, each mode being distinguished in thought by its qualities. By "mode" I mean each cognised condition; that is, each phenomenon or aggregation of phenomena. By "quality" I mean each characteristic by which in the act of thinking I distinguish.

The distinction between the Agnostic and the Atheist is that either the Agnostic postulates an unknowable, or makes a blank avowal of general ignorance. The Atheist does not do either; there is of course to him much that is yet unknown, every effort of inquiry brings some of this within reach of knowing. With "the unknowable" conceded, all scientific teaching would be illusive. Every real scientist teaches without reference to "G.o.d" or "the unknowable." If the words come in as part of the yesterday habit still clinging to-day, the scientist conducts his experiments as though the words were not. Every operation of life, of commerce, of war, of statesmans.h.i.+p, is dealt with as though G.o.d were nonexistent. The general who asks G.o.d to give him victory, and who thanks G.o.d for the conquest, would be regarded as a lunatic by his Theistic brethren, if he placed the smallest reliance on G.o.d's omnipotence as a factor in winning the fight. Cannon, gunpowder, shot, sh.e.l.l, dynamite, provision, men, horses, means of transport, the value of these all estimated, then the help of "G.o.d" is added to what is enough without G.o.d to secure the triumph. The surgeon who in performing some delicate operation relied on G.o.d instead of his instruments-the physician who counted on the unknowable in his prescription-these would have poor clientele even amongst the orthodox; save the peculiar people the most pious would avoid their surgical or medical aid. The "G.o.d" of the Theist, the "unknowable" of the Agnostic, are equally opposed to the Atheistic affirmation. The Atheist enquires as to the unknown, affirms the true, denies the untrue. The Agnostic knows not of any proposition whether it be true or false.

Pantheists affirm one existence, but Pantheists declare that at any rate some qualities are infinite, e.g. that existence is infinitely intelligent. I, as an Atheist, can only think qualities of phenomena. I know each phenomenon by its qualities. I know no qualities except as the qualities of some phenomenon.

So long as the word "G.o.d" is undefined I do not deny "G.o.d." To the question, Is there such a G.o.d as defined by Professor Flint, I am compelled to give a negative reply. If the word "G.o.d" is intended to affirm Dualism, then as a Monist I negate "G.o.d."

The attempts to prove the existence of G.o.d may be divided into three cla.s.ses:-1. Those which attempt to prove the objective existence of G.o.d from the subjective notion of necessary existence in the human mind, or from the a.s.sumed objectivity of s.p.a.ce and time, interpreted as the attributes of a necessary substance. 2. Those which "essay to prove the existence of a supreme self-existent cause, from the mere fact of the existence of the world by the application of the principle of causality, starting with the postulate of any single existence whatsoever, the world, or anything in the world, and proceeding to argue backwards or upwards, the existence of one supreme cause is held to be regressive inference from the existence of these effects." But it is enough to answer to these attempts, that if a supreme existence were so demonstrable, that bare ent.i.ty would not be identifiable with "G.o.d." "A demonstration of a primitive source of existence is of no formal theological value. It is an absolute zero."

3. The argument from design, or adaptation, in nature, the fitness of means to an end, implying, it is said, an architect or designer. Or, from the order in the universe, indicating, it is said, an orderer or lawgiver, whose intelligence we thus discern.

But this argument is a failure, because from finite instances differing in character it a.s.sumes an infinite cause absolutely the same for all.

Divine unity, divine personality, are here utterly unproved. "Why should we rest in our inductive inference of one designer from the alleged phenomena of design, when these are claimed to be so varied and so complex?"

If the inference from design is to avail at all, it must avail to show that all the phenomena leading to misery and mischief, must have been designed and intended by a being finding pleasure in the production and maintenance of this misery and mischief. If the alleged constructor of the universe is supposed to have designed one beneficent result, must he not equally be supposed to have designed all results? And if the inference of benevolence and goodness be valid for some instances, must not the inference of malevolence and wickedness be equally valid from others? If, too, any inference is to be drawn from the ill.u.s.tration of organs in animals supposed to be specially contrived for certain results, what is the inference to be drawn from the many abortive and incomplete organs, muscles, nerves, etc., now known to be traceable in man and other animals? What inference is to be drawn from each instance of deformity or malformation? But the argument from design, if it proved anything, would at the most only prove an arranger of pre-existing material; it in no sense leads to the conception of an originator of substance.