Part 5 (1/2)

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT

The first step which leaves behind the idea of a limited and personal God, an extra-cosmic Creator, and leads the student to the point whence Atheisnition that a profound unity of substance underlies the infinite diversities of natural phenomena, the discernment of the One beneath the Many This was the step I had taken ere h, and I had written:--

”It is manifest to all ill take the trouble to think steadily, that there can be only one eternal and underived substance, and thatmanifestations of this one substance The distinction made between matter and spirit is, then, simply made for the sake of convenience and clearness, just as we ht Matter is, in its constituent elements, the same as spirit; existence is _one_, however manifold in its phenomena; life is one, however multiform in its evolution As the heat of the coal differs froment, emotion, and will differ froht But nevertheless they are all equally products of the one sole substance, varying only in their conditions I find myself, then, compelled to believe that one only substance exists in all around me; that the universe is eternal, or at least eternal so far as our faculties are concerned, since we cannot, as soet to the outside of everywhere'; that a Deity cannot be conceived of as apart from the universe; that the Worker and the Work are inextricably interwoven, and in soot so far, ill proceed to exa the existence of that one essence popularly called by the name of _God_, under the conditions strictly defined by the orthodox Having demonstrated, as I hope to do, that the orthodox idea of God is unreasonable and absurd, ill endeavour to ascertain whether _any_ idea of God, worthy to be called an idea, is attainable in the present state of our faculties”

”The Deity must of necessity be that one and only substance out of which all things are evolved, under the uncreated conditions and eternal laws of the universe; He must be, as Theodore Parker somewhat oddly puts it, 'the materiality of matter as well as the spirituality of spirit'--_ie_, these must both be products of this one substance; a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and matter are seen to be but different modes of one essence Thus we identify substance with the all-co we simply reduce to a physical i described by the orthodox as a God possessing the attributes of personality The Deity becomes identified with nature, co-extensive with the universe, but the _God_ of the orthodox no longer exists; we nification of God, and use the word to express a different idea, but we can no longeran individuality which divides Hi to search whether _any_ idea of God was attainable, I came to the conclusion that evidence of the existence of a conscious Poas lacking, and that the ordinary proofs offered were inconclusive; that we could grasp phenomena and no more ”There appears, also, to be a possibility of a ence is, strictly speaking, impossible There cannot be perception, , calm, and still? Our faculties fail us e try to estimate the Deity, and we are betrayed into contradictions and absurdities; but does it therefore follow that He _is_ not? It seems to me that to deny His existence is to overstep the boundaries of our thought-power almost as much as to try and define it We pretend to know the Unknown if we declare Him to be the Unknowable

Unknowable to us at present, yes! Unknowable for ever, in other possible stages of existence? We have reached a region into which we cannot penetrate; here all human faculties fail us;our heads on 'the threshold of the unknown'

”'And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see, But if we could see and hear, this vision--were it not He?'

Thus sings Alfred Tennyson, the poet of metaphysics: '_if_ we could see and hear' Alas! it is always an 'if!'[4]

This refusal to believe without evidence, and the declaration that anything ”behind phenomena” is unknowable to man as at present constituted--these are the two chief planks of the Atheistic platforh and myself In 1876 this position was clearly reaffirmed ”It is necessary to put briefly the Atheistic position, for no position is more continuously and more persistently misrepresented Atheism is _without_ God It does not assert _no_ God 'The Atheist does not say ”There is no God,” but he says, ”I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word God is tono clear or distinct affirmation

I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to h, ”Freethinker's Text-book,” p 118) The Atheist neither affir froe of the universe is extremely limited and very imperfect, the Atheist declines either to deny or to affirard toFurther, he refuses to believe anything concerning that of which he knows nothing, and affirht never to be the object of belief While the Atheist, then, neither affirms nor denies the unknown, he _does_ deny all which conflicts with the knowledge to which he has already attained For example, he _knows_ that one is one, and that three times one are three; he _denies_ that three times one are, or can be, one The position of the Atheist is a clear and a reasonable one: I know nothing about 'God,' and therefore I do not believe in Him or in it; what you tell me about your God is self-contradictory, and is therefore incredible I do not deny 'God,' which is an unknown tongue to me; I do deny your God, who is an impossibility I a on the same lines: ”No man can rationally affirm 'There is no God,' until the word 'God' has for hi that exists is known to hie' The Atheist's denial of the Gods begins only when these Gods are defined or described Never yet has a God been defined in terms which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been described so that a concept of Hiained by the assertors of Deity when they allege that He is incomprehensible If 'God' exists and is incomprehensible, His inco silent about Him, but can never justify the affir of people with damnation if they do not accept them”[6] ”The belief of the Atheist stops where his evidence stops He believes in the existence of the universe, judging the accessible proof thereof to be adequate, and he finds in this universe sufficient cause for the happening of all phenoantic conundruibility to the already sufficiently difficult probles are not fitted to breathe beyond the atlobe, and our faculties cannot breathe outside the atmosphere of the phenomenal”[7] And I summed up this essay with the words: ”I do not believe in God My rounds on which to build up a reasonable faith My heart revolts against the spectre of an Als My conscience rebels against the injustice, the cruelty, the inequality, which surroundpower; in h knowledge, love, and work”[8]

These views of existence naturally colour all views of life and of the existence of the Soul And here steps in the profound difference between Atheism and Pantheism; both posit an Existence at present inscrutable by human faculties, of which all phenomena are modes; but to the Atheist that Existence ent, while to the Pantheist it ent To the one, life and consciousness are attributes, properties, dependent upon arrangements of matter; to the other they are fundamental, essential, and only liements of matter Despite the attraction held forshich Science was beginning to exercise over me drove me to seek for the explanation of all probleist and the chemist They had done so much, explained so ht, the one safe ground is that of experiony of doubt made me very slow to believe where I could not prove So I was fain to regard life as an attribute, and this again strengthened the Atheistic position

”Scientifically regarded, life is not an entity but a property; it is not a mode of existence, but a characteristic of certain eeer be present; we call the result of the changed arrangement death Life and death are two convenient words for expressing the general outcoements of matter, one of which is always found to precede the other”[9] And then, having resorted to chemistry for one illustration, I took another froies, facility for seeing and presenting which has ever been one of the secrets of andist Like pictures, they impress the mind of the hearer with a vivid sense of reality ”Every one knows the exquisite iridiscence of mother-of-pearl, the tender, delicate hues whichwith soft radiance How different is the dull, dead surface of a piece of wax Yet take that dull, black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of theof the shell, and when you raise it the seven-hued glory shall sh it be to the naked eye imperceptible, all the surface of the es and furrows, like the surface of a newly-ploughed field; and when the waves of light coed surface, they are broken like the waves on a shi+ngly shore, and are flung backwards, so that they cross each other and the oncoht is made up of waves of seven colours, and these waves differ in length each fro them backward separately, and each ray reaches the eye by itself; so that the colour of the ht waves, and coain

Give the dull, black wax the sa from that of the shell To apply our illustration: as the colour belongs to one arranges to soements of matter and is their resultant, while the resultant of other arrange naturally was applied to the existence of ”spirit” in ued that mental activity, the doanisation ”When the babe is born it shows no sign of er and repletion, cold and warin to function; still more slowly muscular movements, at first aimless and reflex, become co-ordinated and consciously directed

There is no sign here of an intelligent spirit controlling aintelligence, developing _pari passu_ with the organisroith it, and the childish , half-informed, unbalanced youthful mind of the youth; with maturity of years coorous and in their prie comes on and the bodily functions decay, the e passes into senility, and body and mind sink into second childhood Has the ianisation, or is it dwelling in sorrow, bound in its 'house of clay'? If this be so, the 'spirit' must be unconscious, or else separate from the very individual whose essence it is supposed to be, for the old man does not suffer when his mind is senile, but is contented as a little child And not only is this constant, sirowth and decay of body and mind to be observed, but we know that mental functions are disordered and suspended by various physical conditions Alcohol, s, fever, disorder the mind; a blow on the cranium suspends its functions, and the 'spirit' returns with the surgeon's trepanning Does the 'spirit' take part in dreams?

Is it absent frohter when the madman murders, or does it helplessly watch its own instru actions at which it shudders? If it can only work here through an organised in its independent life, severed from all hich it was identified? Can it, in its 'dise in common with its past?”[11]

It will be seen that my unbelief in the existence of the Soul or Spirit was aAs I wrote in 1885: ”For ladly believe in a happy iladly believe that all misery and crime and poverty will disappear in 1885--_if I could_ But I am unable to believe an iht in support of it Iht forward in its favour I cannot believe only because I wish”[12] Such was the philosophy by which I lived from 1874 to 1886, when first some researches that will be dealt with in their proper place, and which led me ultian to shake my confidence in its adequacy

Amid outer storm and turmoil and conflict, I found it satisfy my intellect, while lofty ideals of htly so, for I ithout God, and loried in the name then, as it is dear to my heart now, for all the associations hich it is connected ”Atheist is one of the grandest titles a man can wear; it is the Order of Merit of the world's heroes Most great discoverers,philosophers, ress, have in their turn had flung at therave of Copernicus; it was clamoured round the death-pile of Bruno; it was yelled at Vanini, at Spinoza, at Priestley, at Voltaire, at Paine; it has become the laurel-bay of the hero, the halo of the martyr; in the world's history it has ress, and where the cry of 'Atheist' is raised theretaken towards the redemption of humanity The saviours of the world are too often howled at as Atheists, and then worshi+pped as Deities The Atheists are the vanguard of the arht, on whom falls the brunt of the battle, and are shi+vered the hardest of the blows; their feet trample down the thorns that others may tread unwounded; their bodies fill up the ditch that, by the bridge thus made, others ress, honour to the vanguard of Liberty's arotten heaven, and who in their zeal for otten God”[13]

This poor sketch of the conception of the universe, to which I had conquered my way at the cost of so much pain, and which was the inner centre round which my life revolved for twelve years, ed sorely when it is scouted as vile or conderown anthropomorphic deities, and it leaves us face to face with Nature, open to all her purifying, strengthening inspirations ”There is only one kind of prayer,” it says, ”which is reasonable, and that is the deep, silent adoration of the greatness and beauty and order around us, as revealed in the realms of non-rational life and in Humanity; asour heads before the laws of the universe, and mould our lives into obedience to their voice, we find a strong, calm peace steal over our hearts, a perfect trust in the ultiht, a quiet deterh ideals, before those lives which show us 'how high the tides of Divine life have risen in the human world,' we stand with hushed voice and veiled face; frole to excel The contethens, it ennobles The other part of prayer is work; from contemplation to labour, from the forest to the street

Study nature's laws, conform to them, work in har, an adoration of the universal wisdom, and a true obedience to the universal law”[14]

To a woman of my te of the world, the elevation of humanity, a lofty systeical, intellectual conception of the universe; and the total loss of all faith in a righteous God onlynature of duty and the overwhel importance of conduct In 1874 this conviction found voice in a pamphlet on the ”True Basis of Morality,” and in all the years of anda on the platform of the National Secular Society no subject was more frequently dealt with in rowth and the duty of ht was more constantly in my mind than that of the importance of morals, and it was voiced at the very outset of er lest ”in these stirring tiht conduct should be cast aside ere new ones were firmly established, I wrote: ”It therefore becoht, and who ventures to attack the dogmas of the Churches, and to strike down the superstitions which enslave men's intellect, to beware how he uproots sanctions of morality which he is too weak to replace, or how, before he is prepared with better ones, he removes the barriers which do yet, however poorly, to some extent check vice and repress crime That which touches h and pure morality is the life-blood of humanity; mistakes in belief are inevitable, and are of little moment; mistakes in life destroy happiness, and their destructive consequences spread far and wide It is, then, a very i to take away from the world the authority on which has hitherto been based all its round whereupon may safely be built up the fair edifice of a noble life”

I then proceeded to analyse revelation and intuition as a basis forboth, I asserted: ”The true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the proeneral welfare and happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we ued for this basis, showing that the effort after virtue was implied in the search for happiness: ”Virtue is an indispensable part of all true and solid happiness But it is, after all, only reasonable that happiness should be the ulti, if we live, as we do, in a realm of law Obedience to law must necessarily result in harmony, and disobedience in discord But if obedience to law result in harh nature obedience to law results in happiness, and through obedience each living thing fulfils the perfection of its being, and in that perfection finds its true happiness” It seemed to me most iion, and to give it a basis of its own: ”As, then, the grave subject of the existence of Deity is a matter of dispute, it is evidently of deep ied into this battlefield, to stand or totter with the various theories of the Divine nature which huht creates and destroys If we can found y, we shall do humanity a service which can scarcely be overestimated” A study of the facts of nature, of the consequences of man in society, seemed sufficient for such a basis

”Our faculties do not suffice to tell us about God; they do suffice to study phenomena, and to deduce laws from correlated facts Surely, then, we should do wisely to concentrate our strength and our energies on the discovery of the attainable, instead of on the search after the unknowable If we are told that morality consists in obedience to the supposed will of a supposed perfectlywe please God, then we are at once placed in a region where our faculties are useless to us, and where our judgment is at fault But if we are told that we are to lead noble lives, because nobility of life is desirable for itself alone, because in so doing we are acting in har we spread happiness around our pathway and gladden our fellow- forward to meet the call, and chords are struck in our hearts which respond in music to the touch”

It was to the establishies, this that was to me of supreme moment ”Amid the fervid movement of society, with its wild theories and crude social reforainst oppression and its unconsidered notions of wider freedoladder life, it is of vital importance that morality should stand on a foundation unshakable; that so through all political and religious revolutions hurow purer and nobler, may rise upwards into settled freedom, and not sink doards into anarchy Only utility can afford us a sure basis, the reasonableness of which will be accepted alike by thoughtful student and hard-headed artisan Utility appeals to all alike, and sets in action motives which are found equally in every humas pass away, that superstition vanishes, and the clear light of freedoenerated earth--but well only if hter and closer the links of trustworthiness, of honour, and of truth Equality before the law is necessary and just; liberty is the birthright of every lorify the race But little worth these priceless jewels, little worth liberty and equality with all their promise for mankind, little worth even wider happiness, if that happiness be selfish, if true fraternity, true brotherhood, do not knit man to man, and heart to heart, in loyal service to the coood”[15]

To the forwarding of this s seemed to me necessary--an Ideal which should stir the e of the sources of evil and of theof the first I threw all the passion ofto paint the Ideal in colours which should enthral and fascinate, so that love and desire to realise ht stir ion, then truly was I the lorifying of the Ideal full satisfaction for the loftiest emotions To meet the fascination exercised over e of htly is the ideal Christian type of humanity a Man of Sorrows Jesus, orn and wasted body; with sad, thin lips, curved into a azing up to heaven because despairing of earth; bowed down and aged with grief and pain, broken-hearted with long anguish, broken-spirited with unresisted ill-usage--such is the ideal man of the Christian creed Beautiful with a certain pathetic beauty, telling of the long travail of earth, eloquent of the sufferings of humanity, but not the model type to which lorious And, therefore, in radiant contrast with this, stands out in the sunshi+ne and under the blue suony, the fair ideal Hu and fair, perfect in physical developlorious in self-reliant poith lips bent fir into soft curves of passion and of pity; with deep, far-seeing eyes, gazing piercingly into the secrets of the unknown, and resting lovingly on the beauties around hi to work in the present; with heart full of hope which the future shall realise; lad with his labour and beautiful with his skill--this, this is the Ideal Man, enshrined in the Atheist's heart The ideal humanity of the Christian is the humanity of the slave, poor, meek, broken-spirited, humble, submissive to authority, however oppressive and unjust; the ideal humanity of the Atheist is the humanity of the free man who knows no lord, who brooks no tyranny, who relies on his own strength, who makes his brother's quarrel his, proud, true-hearted, loyal, brave”[16]

A one-sided view? Yes But a very natural outcome of a sunny nature, for years held down by unhappiness and the harshness of an outgrown creed It was the rebound of such a nature suddenly set free, rejoicing in its liberty and self-conscious strength, and it carried with it a great power of rousing the sympathetic enthusiasm of men and women, deeply conscious of their own restrictions and their own longings It was the cry of the freed soul that had found articulate expression, and the many inarticulate and prisoned souls answered to it tus With hot insistence I battled for the inspiration to be drawn frorandeur of which hu all beauty out of huive us cold duty for filial obedience, and inexorable law in the place of God'? All beauty fro part of the great life of the universe, no beauty in conscious harmony with Nature, no beauty in faithful service, no beauty in ideals of every virtue? 'All hope'?

Why, I give you ive you certainty; if I bid you labour for this world, it is with the knowledge that this world will repay you a, thousand-fold, because society will grow purer, freedolad What is your heaven? A heaven in the clouds! I point to a heaven attainable on earth 'All warmth'? What! you serve warmly a God unknown and invisible, in a sense the projected shadow of your own is, and can only serve coldly your brother who the lot of the sad, in refor equal justice for rich and poor? You find war the cloud glories of heaven, but none in creating substantial glories on earth?' All inspiration'? If you want inspiration to feeling, to sentiment, perhaps you had better keep to your Bible and your creeds; if you want inspiration to work, go and walk through the East of London, or the back streets of Manchester You are inspired to tenderness as you gaze at the wounds of Jesus, dead in Judaea long ago, and find no inspiration in the wounds of land of to-day? You 'have tears to shed for Him,' but none for the sufferer at your doors? His passion arouses your sympathies, but you see no pathos in the passion of the poor? Duty is colder than 'filial obedience'?

What do you oodness and love--is it not so? Then how is duty cold? I offer you ideals for your hoe: here is Truth for your Mistress, to whose exaltation you shall devote your intellect; here is Freedoht; here is Love for your Inspirer, who shall influence your every thought; here is Man for your Master--not in heaven, but on earth--to whose service you shall consecrate every faculty of your being 'Inexorable law in the place of God'? Yes; a stern certainty that you shall not waste your life, yet gather a rich reward at the close; that you shall not sow ladness; that you shall not be selfish, yet be croith love; nor shall you sin, yet find safety in repentance True, our creed _is_ a stern one, stern with the beautiful sternness of Nature

But if we be in the right, look to yourselves; laws do not check their action for your ignorance; fire will not cease to scorch, because you 'did not know'”[17]