Heresy: Its Utility And Morality. A Plea And A Justification

As for the Bible, there was no longer an affected reverence for every yod or comma, church traditions were ignored wherever inconsistent with reason, and the law itself was boldly challenged when its letter was against the spirit of human progress.

One of the greatest promoters of heresy in England was Ralph Cudworth, born 1617, died 1688. He wrote to combat the atheistical tenets which were then commencing to obtain popularity in England, and was a controversialist so fair and candid in the statement of the opinions of his antagonists, that he was actually charged with heresy himself, and the epithets of Arian, Socinian, Deist, and even Atheist were freely levelled against him. "He has raised," says Dryden, "such strong objections against the being of a God and Providence, that many think he has not answered them." The clamour of bigotry seems to have discouraged Cudworth, and he left many of his works unprinted. Cousin describes him as "a Platonist, of a firm and profound mind, who bends somewhat under the weight of his erudition."

Thomas Burnet, born 1635, died 1715, a clergyman of the Church of England, who, though high in favour with King William and the famous Archbishop Tillotson, is said to have been shut out from preferment in the church chiefly, if not entirely, on account of his many heterodox views. He did not accept the orthodox notions on the Mosaic account of the creation, fall, and deluge. Regarding the account of the fall as allegorical, he argued for the ultimate salvation of everyone, and of course denied the doctrine of eternal torment.

In a curious passage relating to the equivocations of a large number of the clergy in openly taking the oath of allegiance to William III., while secretly supporting James as King, Burnet says, "the prevarication of too many in so sacred a matter contributed not a little to fortify the growing atheism of the time."

As Descartes and Spinoza had been foremost on the continent, so was Locke in England, and no sketch of the progress of heresy during the seventeenth century would be deserving serious regard which did not accord a prominent place to John Locke, whom G. H. Lewes calls "one of the wisest of Englishmen," and of whom Buckle speaks as "an innovator in his philosophy, and an Unitarian in his creed." He was born in 1632, and died 1704. Locke, according to his own fashion, was a sincere and earnest Christian; but this has not saved him from being furiously assailed for the materialistic character of his philosophy, and many have been ready to assert that Locke's principles "lead to Atheism." In politics Locke laid down, that unjust and unlawful force on the part of the government might and ought to be resisted by force on the part of the citizens. He urged that on questions of theology there ought to be no penalties consequent upon the reception or rejection of any particular religious opinion. How far those were right who regarded Locke's metaphysical reasoning as; dangerous to orthodoxy may be, judged by the following extract on the origin of ideas: – : "Follow a child from its birth and observe the alterations that time makes, and you shall find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, the more it has matter to think on. After some time, it begins to know the objects, which being most familiar with it, have made lasting impressions. Thus it comes, by degrees, to know the persons it daily converses with, and distinguish them from strangers; which are instances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to it; and so we may observe, how the mind, by degrees improves in these, and advances to the exercise of those other faculties of enlarging, compounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning about them, and reflecting upon all these.

"If it shall be demanded then, when a man begins to have any ideas? I think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. For since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind, before the senses have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval with sensation; which is such an impression or emotion, made in some part of the body, as produces some perception in the understanding. It is about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects, that the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call perception, remembering, consideration, reasoning, &c.

"In time, the mind comes to reflect on its own operations, about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These are the impressions that are made on our senses by outward objects, that are extrinsical to the mind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and proper to itself, which, when reflected on by itself, becoming also objects of its contemplation, are, as I have said, the original of all knowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through the senses, by outward objects, or by its own operations, when it reflects on them. This is the first step a man makes towards the discovery of anything, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rise and footing here: in all that good extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote speculations, it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its contemplation.

"In this part, the understanding is merely passive; and whether or no it will have these beginnings, and, as it were, materials of knowledge, is not in its own power. For the objects of our senses do, many of them, obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds, whether we will or no; and the operations of our minds will not let us be without, at least, some obscure notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks. These simple ideas, when offered to the mind, the understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are imprinted, nor blot them out and make new ones itself, than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects set before it do therein produce. As the bodies that surround us do diversely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the impressions, and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that are annexed to them."

The distinction pointed out by Lewes between Locke and Hobbes and Gassendi, is that the two latter taught that all our ideas were derived from sensations, while Locke said there were two sources, not one source, and these two were sensation and reflection. Locke was in style a more popular writer than Hobbes, and the heretical effect of the doctrines on the mind not being so immediately perceived in consequence of Locke's repeated declarations in favour of Christianity, his metaphysical productions were more widely read than those of Hobbes; but Locke really teaches the same doctrine as that laid down by Robert Owen in his views on the formation of character; and his views on sensation, as the primary source of ideas, are fatal to all notions of innate ideas and of freewill. Voltaire, speaking of Locke, says: – "'We shall, perhaps, never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not.' This judicious and guarded observation was considered by more than one divine, as neither more nor less than a scandalous and impious declaration, that the soul is material and mortal. Some English devotees, after their usual manner, sounded the alarm. The superstitious are in society what poltroons are in an army – they both feel and excite causeless terror. The cry was, that Mr. Locke wished to overturn religion; the subject, however, had nothing to do with religion at all; it was purely a philosophical question, and perfectly independent of faith and revelation."

One clergyman, the Rev. William Carrol, wrote, charging Atheism as the result of Locke's teachings. The famous Sir Isaac Newton even grew so alarmed with the materialistic tendency of Locke's philosophy, that when John Locke was reported sick and unlikely to live, it is credibly stated that Newton went so far as to say that it would be well if the author of the essay on the Understanding were already dead. In 1689, one Cassimer Leszynski, a Polish knight, was burned at Warsaw for denying the being and providence of a God; but there are no easy means of learning whether the charge arose from prejudice on the part of his accusers, or whether this unfortunate gentleman really held Atheistic views.

Peter Bayle, born at Carlat, in Foix, 1647, died in Holland, 1706, was a writer of great power and brilliancy and wide learning. Without standing avowedly on the side of scepticism, he did much to promote sceptical views amongst the rapidly growing class of men of letters. He declared that it was better to be an Atheist, than to have a false or unworthy idea of God; that a man can be at the same time an Atheist and an honest man, and that a people without a religion is capable of good order. Bayle's writings grew more heretical towards the latter part of his career, and he suffered considerable persecution at the hands of the Church, for having spoken too plainly of the character of David. He said that "if David was the man after God's own heart, it must have been by his penitence, not by his crimes." Bayle might have added, that the record ot David's penitence is not easily discoverable in any part of the narrative of his life.

Matthew Tindal, born 1656, died 1733, was, though the son of a clergyman of the Established Church, one of the first amongst the school of Deistical writers who became so prominent in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Dr. Pye Smith catalogues him as "an Atheist," but we know no ground for this. He was a zealous controversialist, and commencing by attacking priests, he continued his attack against the revelation they preached. He was a frequent writer, but his "Christianity as old as the Creation" is his chief work, and the one which has provoked the greatest amount of discussion. It was published nearly at the close of his life, and after he had seen others of his writings burned by the common hangman. Dr. Matthew Tindal helped much to shake belief in the Bible, those who wrote against him did much more; if no one had replied to Tindal, his attacks on; revelation would have been read by few, but in answering the heretic, Bishop Waterland and his confreres gave wider circulation to Tindal's heresy.

John Toland was born Nov. 30,1670, at Londonderry, but was educated in Scotland. He died 1722. His publications were all about the close of the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and the ability of his contributions to popular instruction may be judged by the abusive epithets heaped upon him by his opponents. While severely attacking the bulk of the clergy as misleaders of the people, and while also assailing some of the chief orthodox notions, he yet, either in order to escape the law, or from the effect of his religious education, professed a respect for what he was pleased to call true Christianity, but which we should be inclined to consider, at the least, somewhat advanced Unitarianism. At last, however, his works were ordered to be burned by the common hangman, and to escape arrest and prosecution he had to flee to the Continent. Dr. J. Pye Smith describes Toland as a Pantheist, and calls his Pantheisticon "an Atheistic Liturgy." In one of Toland's essays he laments "how hard it is to come to a truth yourself, and how dangerous a thing to publish to others." The publications ot Toland were none of them very bulky although numerous, and as most of them were fiercely assailed by the orthodox clergy, they helped to excite popular interest in England, in the critical examination of the Scriptures and the doctrines therein taught.

Besides the few authors to whom attention is here drawn, there were numerous men who – each for a little while, and often coming out from the lower ranks of the people themselves – stirred the hitherto almost stagnant pool of popular thought with some daring utterance or extravagant statement. Fanatics some, mystics some, alchemists some, materialists some, but all crude and imperfect in their grasp of the subject they advocated, they nevertheless all helped to agitate the human mind, to render it more restless and inquiring, and thus they all promoted the march of heresy.

One feature of the history of the seventeenth century shows how much philosophy had gained ground, and how deep its roots were striking throughout the European world – viz., that nearly all the writers wrote in the vulgar tongue of their country, or there were published editions of their works in that tongue. A century earlier, and but few escaped from the narrow bonds of learned Latin: two centuries before, and none got outside the Latin folios; but in this century theology, metaphysics, philosophy, and politics are discussed in French, German, English, and Italian. The commonest reader may peruse the most learned author, for the writing is in a language which he cannot help knowing.

There were in this century a large number of writers in England and throughout Europe, who, taking the Bible as a starting-point and limitation for their philosophy, broached wonderful theories as to creation, &c, in which reason and revelation were sought to be made harmonious. Enfield, a most orthodox writer, in his "History of Philosophy" says, "Who does not perceive, from the particulars which have been related concerning these Scriptural philosophers, that their labours, however well intended, have been of little benefit to philosophy? Their fundamental error has consisted in supposing that the sacred Scriptures were intended, not only to instruct men in all things necessary to their salvation, but to teach the true principles of physical and metaphysical science." How pregnant the admission that revelation and science cannot be expected to accord – an admission which in truth declares that in all philosophical research it is necessary to go beyond the Bible, if not to go against it – an admission which involves the declaration, that so long as men are bound by the letter of the Bible, so long all philosophical progress is impossible.

In this century the English Church lost much of the political power it had hitherto wielded. It was in 1625, that William, Bishop of Lincoln, was dismissed from the office of Lord Keeper, and since his day no ecclesiastic has held the great seal of England, and to-day who even in the Church itself would dream of trying to make a bishop Lord Chancellor? The church lost ground in the conflict with Charles, but this it might perhaps have recovered, but it suffered irretrievably loss of prestige in its struggle with William.

CHAPTER IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The eighteenth century deserves that the penman who touches its records shall have some virility; for these records contain, not only the narrative of the rapid growth of the new philosophy in France, England, and Germany, where its roots had been firmly struck in the previous century, but they also give the history of a glorious endeavour on the part of a down-trodden and long-suffering people, weakened and degraded by generations of starvation and oppression, to break the yoke of tyranny and superstition. Eighteenth century historians can write how the men of France, after having been cursed by a long race of kings, who never dreamed of identifying their interests with those of the people; after enduring centuries of tyranny from priests, whose only Gods were power, pleasure, and Mammon, and at the hands of nobles, who denied civil rights to their serfs; at last, could endure no longer, but electrified into life by eighteenth century heresy, "spurned under foot the idols of tyranny and superstition," and sought "by the influence of reason to erect on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil and religious liberty." Why Frenchmen then failed in giving permanent success to their heroic endeavour, and why France, despite the wonderful recent progress in thought, is even yet cursed with corrupt imperialism and state superstition, is not difficult to explain, when we consider that every tyranny in Europe united against that young republic to which the monarchy had bequeathed a legacy of a wretched pauper people, a people whose minds had been hitherto wholly in the hands of the priests, whose passions had revolted against wrong, but whose brains were yet too weak for the permanent enjoyment of the freedom temporarily resulting from physical effort. Eighteenth century heresy is especially noticeable for its immediate connection with political change. For the first time in European history, the great mass commenced to yearn for the assertion in government of democratic principles. The French Republican Revolution which overthrew Louis XVI. and the Bastile, was only possible because the heretical teachers who preceded it, had weakened the divine right of kingcraft; and it was ultimately unsuccessful, only because an overwhelming majority of the people were as yet not sufficiently released from the thraldom of the church, and therefore fell before the allied despotisms of Europe, who were aided by the Catholic priests, who naturally plotted against the spirit which seemed likely to make men too independent to be pious.

In Germany the liberation of the masses from the dominion of the Church of Rome was effected with the, at first, active believing concurrence of the nation; in England this was not so, Protestantism here was the result rather of the influence and interests of the King and Court, and of the indifference of the great body of the people. The Reformed Church of England, sustained by the crown and aristocracy, has generally left the people to find their own way to heaven or hell, and has only required abstinence from avowed denial of, or active opposition to, its tenets. Its ministers have usually preached with the same force to a few worshippers scattered over their grand cathedrals and numerous churches as to a thronging crowd, but in each these there has been a lack of vitality in the sermon. It is only when the material interests of the church have been apparently threatened that vigour has been shown on the part of its teachers.

It is a curious fact, and one for comment hereafter, that while in the modern struggle for the progress of heresy, its sixteenth century pages present many most prominent Italian names, when we come to the eighteenth century, there are but few such names worthy special notice; it is no longer from the extreme South, but from France, Germany, and England that you have the great array of Freethinking warriors. Those whom Italy boasts too are now nearly all in the Idealistic ranks.

We commenced the list by a brief reference to Bernard Mandeville, a Dutch physician, born at Dordrecht in 1670 and who died in 1733; a writer with great power as a satirist, whose fable of the "Bees, or Private Vices made Public Benefits," not only served as source for much of Helvetius, but had the double honour of an indictment at the Middlesex session, and an answer from the pen of Bishop Berkeley.

One of the early, and perhaps one of the most important promoters of heresy in the United Kingdom, was George Berkeley, an Irishman by birth. He was born on the 12th of March, 1684, at Kilcrin, and died at Oxford in 1753. It was this writer to whom Pope assigned "every virtue under heaven," and of whom Byron wrote: —

 
"When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,'
And proved it – 'twas no matter what he said:
They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,
Too subtle for the airiest human head;
And yet who can believe it?"
 

A writer in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana describes him as "the one, perhaps, whose heart was most free from scepticism, and whose understanding was most prone to it." Berkeley is here dealt with as one specially contributing to the growth of sceptical thought, and not as an Idealist only. Arthur Collier published, about the same time as Berkeley, several works in which absolute Idealim is advocated. Collier and Berkeley were mouthpieces for the expression of an effort at resistance against the growing Spinozistic school. They wrote against substance assumed as the "noumenon lying underneath all phenomena – the substratum supporting all qualities – the something in which all accidents inhere." Collier and his writings are almost unknown; Berkeley's name has become famous, and his arguments have served to excite far wider scepticism than have those of any other Englishman of his age. Most religious men who read him misunderstand him, and nearly all misrepresent his theory. Hume, speaking of Berkeley, says, "Most of the writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found, either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics, as well as against the Atheists and Freethinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction," Berkeley wrote for those who "want a demonstration of the existence and immateriality of God, or the natural immortality of the soul," and his philosophy was intended to check materialism. The key-note ot his works may be found in his declaration, "The only thing whose existence I deny, is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance." The definition given by Berkeley of matter is one which no materialist will be ready to accept, i.e.f "an inert, senseless substance in which extension, figure, and motion do actually exist." The "Principles of Human Knowledge" is the work in which Berkeley's Idealism is chiefly set forth, and many have been the volumes and pamphlets written in reply. Whatever might have been Berkeley's intention as to refuting scepticism, the result of his labours was to increase it in no ordinary degree; Dr. Pye Smith thug summarises Berkeley's views: – "He denied the existence of matter as a cause of our perceptions, but firmly maintained the existence of created and dependent spirits, of which every man is one; that to suppose the existence of sensible qualities and of a material world, is an erroneous deduction from the fact of our perceptions; that those perceptions are-nothing but ideas and thoughts in our minds; that these are produced in perfect uniformity, order, and consistency in all minds, so that their occurrence is according to fixed rules which may be called the laws of nature; that that Deity is either the immediate or the mediate cause of these perceptions, by his universal operation on created minds; and that the created mind has a power of managing these perceptions, so that volitions arise, and all the phenomena of moral action and responsibility. The great reply to this is, that it is a hypothesis which cannot be proved, which is highly improbable, and which seems to put upon the Deity the inflicting on man a perpetual delusion."

The weakness of Berkeley's system as a mere question of logic is, that while he requires the most rigorous demonstration of the existence of what he defines as matter, he assumes an eternal spirit with various attributes, and also creates spirits of various sorts. He creates the states of mind resulting from the sensation of surrounding phenomena into ideas, existing independent of the ego, when in truth, man's ideas are not in addition to man's mind; but the aggregate of sensative ability, and the result of its exercise is the mind, just as the aggregate of functional ability and activity is life. The foundation of Berkeley's faith in the invisible "eternal spirit" in angels as "created spirits," is difficult to discover, when you accept his argument for the rejection of visible phenomena. He in truth should have rejected everything save his own mind, for the mental processes are clearly not always reliable. In dreams, in delirium, in insanity, in temporary disease of particular nerves of sensation, in some phases of magnetic influence, the ideas which Berkeley sustains so forcibly are admittedly delusions. As in George Berkeley, so we have in Bishop Butler, an illustration of the endeavour to check the rapidly enlarging scepticism of this century. Joseph Butler was born in 1692, died 1752, and will be long known by his famous work on the "Analogy of Religion" to the course of nature. In this place it is not our duty to do more than point out a few features of the argument, observing that this elaborate piece of special pleading for natural and revealed religion, is evidence that danger was apprehended by the clergy, from the spread of Freethought views amongst the masses. A popular reply was written to provide against the growing popular objection; Bishop Butler argues that "we know that we are endued with certain capacities of action, of happiness and misery; for we are conscious of acting, of enjoying pleasure, and of suffering pain. Now that we have these powers and capacities before death, is a presumption that we shall retain them through, and after death; indeed a probability of it abundantly sufficient to act upon, unless there be some positive reason to think that death is the destruction of those living powers." It may be fairly submitted in reply, that here the argument from analogy is as utterly faulty, as if in the spring season a traveller should say of a wayside pool, it is here before the summer sun shines upon it, and will be here during and after the summer drought, when ordinary experience would teach him that as the pool is only gathered during the rainy season in the hollow ground, so in the dry hot summer days, it will be gradually evaporated under the blazing rays of the July sun. As to the human capacities, experience teaches us that they have changed with the condition of the body; emotional feelings and animal passions, the gratification of which ensured temporary pleasure or pain, have varied, have been newly felt, and have died out in different periods and conditions of our lives, and the presumption is against the complete endurance of all these "capacities for action," &c., even during the whole life, and much more strongly, therefore, against their endurance after death. Besides which – continuing the argument from analogy – my "capacities" having only been manifested since my body has existed, and in proportion to my physical ability, the presumption is rather that the manifestation which commenced with the body, will finish as the body finishes. Further, it is fair to presume that "death is the destruction of those living powers," for death is the cessation of organic functional activity; a cessation consequent on some change or destruction of organisation. Of course, the word "destruction" is not here used in any sense of annihilation of substance, but as meaning such a change of condition that vital phenomena are no longer manifested. But, says Butler, "we know not at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones, and these effects do in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent." Here, perhaps, there is an unjustifiable assumption in the words "living agent," for if by living agent is only meant the animal which dies, then the destruction of flesh, skin, and bones does fairly imply the destruction of the living agent, but if by living agent is intended more than this, then the argument is speciously and unfairly worded. But beyond this, if Bishop Butler's argument has any value, it proves too much. He says – "Nor can we find anything throughout the whole analogy of nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever lose their living powers… by death." That is, Bishop Butler applies his argument for a future state of existence, not only to man, but to the whole animal kingdom; and it may be fairly conceded that there is as much ground to presume that man will live again, as there is that the worm will live again, which, being impaled upon a hook, is eaten by the gudgeon, or that the gudgeon will live again which, threaded as a bait, is torn and mangled to death by a ravenous pike, or that the pike will live again after it has been kept out of water till rigid, then gutted, scaled, stuffed with savoury condiments, broiled, and ultimately eaten by Piscator and his family. Bishop Butler's argument, that because pleasure or pain is uniformly found to follow the acting or not acting in some particular manner, there is presumptive analogy in favour of future rewards and punishments by Deity, appears weak in the extreme. According to Butler, God is the author of nature. Nature's laws are such, that punishment, immediate or remote, follows non-observance, and reward, more or less immediate, is the result of observance; and because God is by Butler's argument, assumed as the author of nature, and has therefore already punished or rewarded once; we are following Butler, to presume that he will after death punish or reward again for an action upon which he has already adjudicated. In his chapter on the Moral Government of God, Butler says, "As the manifold appearances of design and of final causes in the constitution of the world, prove it to be the work of an intelligent mind, so the particular final causes of pleasure and pain distributed amongst his creatures, prove that they are under his government – what may be called his natural government of creatures endowed with sense and reason." But taking Bishop Butler's own position, what sort of government is demonstrated by this argument from analogy? God, according to Bishop Butler's reasoning, designed the whale to swallow the Clio Borealis, which latter he designed to be so swallowed, but which he nevertheless invested with some 300,000 suckers, to enable it in its turn to seize the minute animalcule on which it lives. God designed Brutus to kill Caesar, Orsini to be beheaded by Louis Napoleon. These, according to Butler, would be all under the special control of God's government. Deity would guide the Clio Borealis into the mouth of the whale, guide the dagger of Brutus, and arrange for the enjoyment of the cancan by princes of the blood royal. Bishop Butler's theory that our present life is a state of trial and probation, is met by the difficulty, that while he assumes the justice and benevolence of God as moral governor, he has the fact, that many exist with organisations and capacities so originally different, that it is manifestly most unfair to put one and the same reward, or one and this same publishment for all. The Esquimaux or Negro is not on a level at the outset of life with the Caucasian races. How from analogy can any one argue in favour of the doctrine that an impartial judge who had started them in the race of life unfairly matched, would put the same prize before all, none of the starters being handicapped? Bishop Butler's argument on the doctrine of necessity, is that which one might expect to find from a hired nisi prius advocate, but which is read with regret coming from the pen of a gentleman, who ought to be striving to convince his erring brethren by the words of truth alone. He says, suppose a child to be educated from his earliest youth in the principles of "fatalism," what then? The reply is, that a necessitarian knowing that a certain education of the human mind was most conducive to human happiness, would strive to impart to his children education of that character. That a worse "fatalism" is inculcated in the doctrine of a fore-ordaining and ever-directing providence, planning and controlling every one of the child's actions, than ever was taught in necessitarian essays. That the child would be taught the laws of existence, and would be shown how certain conduct resulted in pleasure, and certain other conduct was during life attended with pain, and that the result of such teaching would be far more efficacious in its moral results, than the inculcation of a present responsibility, and an ultimate heaven and hell, in which latter doctrine, nearly all Christians profess to believe, but nearly all act as if it were not of the slightest consequence whether any such paradise or infernal region exists.