"Why do you make the Supreme Being resemble an eastern tyrant? Why make him punish slight faults with eternal torment? Why thus put the name of the Divinity at the bottom of the portrait of the devil? Why oppress the soul with a load of fear, break its springs, and of a worshipper of Jesus make a vile, pusillanimous slave? It is the malignant who paint a malignant G-od. What is their devotion? A veil for their crimes."
"Let not the rewards of heaven be made the price of trifling religious operations, which convey a diminutive idea of the Eternal and a false conception of virtue; its rewards should never be assigned to fasting, haircloth, a blind submission, and self-castigation. The man who places these operations among the virtues, might as well place those of leaping, dancing, and tumbling on the rope." "Humility may be held in veneration by the dwellers in a monastery or a convent, it favours the meanness and idleness of a monastic life. But ought the humility to be regarded as the virtue of the people? No." Speaking of the Pagan systems, Helvetius says, "All the fables of mythology were mere emblems of certain principles of nature."
Baron d'Holbach, a native of the Palatinate, born January 1723, died 21st January, 1789, deserves special notice, as being the man whose house was the gathering place of the knot of writers and thinkers, who struck light and life into the dark and deadened brain of France. He is generally reputed to have been the author of that well-known work, the "System of Nature," which was issued as if by Mirabaud. This work, although it was fiercely assailed at the time, by the pen of Voltaire, and by the plaidorie of the prosecuting Avocat-General, and has since been attacked by hundreds who have never read it, yet remains a wonderfully popular exposition of the power-gathering heresy of the century, and, as far as we are aware, has never received efficient reply. Probably next to Paine's works, it had in England during the second quarter of this century, the widest circulation of any anti-theological book, and this circulation extending through the manufacturing ranks. In the eighteenth century Mirabaud could, in England, only be found in the hands of the few, but fifty years had wondrously multiplied the number of readers.
Joseph Priestley was born near Leeds, 13th March, 1733, and being towards the latter part of his life driven out of England, by the persecuting spirit evinced towards him, and which had been specially excited by his republican tendencies, he died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, on the 6th Feb., 1804. Originally a Church of England clergyman, his first notable inclination to heterodoxy manifested itself in hesitation as to the doctrine of the atonement. He ultimately rejected the immortality and immateriality of the soul, argued for necessitarianism, and earned considerable unpopularity by the boldness of some of his sentiments on political as well as theological matters. Priestley was one of the rapidly multiplying instances of heresy alike in religion and politics, but he provoked the most bitter antagonism. His works were burned by the common hangman, his house, library, and scientific instruments were destroyed by an infuriate and pious mob. Despite all this, his heresy, according to his own view of it, was not of a very outrageous character, for he believed in Deity, in revealed religion, and in Christianity, rather putting the blame on misconduct of alleged Christians. He said: "The wretched forms under which Christianity has long been generally exhibited, and its degrading alliance with, or rather its subjection to a power wholly heterogeneous to it, and which has employed it for the most unworthy purposes, has made it contemptible and odious in the eyes of all sensible men, who are now everywhere casting off the very profession and every badge of it. Enlightened Christians must themselves, in some measure, join with unbelievers in exposing whatever will not bear examination in or about religion." His writings on scientific topics were most voluminous; his most heretical volumes are those on "Matter and Spirit."
Edward Gibbon was born at Putney, the 27th April, 1737, and died 16th January, 1794. He was a polished and painstaking writer, aristocratic in his tendencies and associations, who had educated himself into a disbelief in the principal dogmas of Christianity, but who loved the peace and quietude of an easy life too much to enter the lists as an active antagonist of the Church. His works, especially the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," have been regarded as infidel in their tendency, rather from what has been left unsaid than from the direct statements against Christianity. The sneer at the evidence of prophecy, or the doubt of the reality of miraculous evidences, is guardedly expressed. It is only when Gibbon can couch his lance against some reckless and impudent forger of Christian Evidences, such as Eusebius, that you have anything like a bold condemnation. A prophecy or a miracle is treated tenderly, and if killed, it is rather with over-affectionate courtesy than by rough handling. In some parts of his vindications of the attacked passages, Gibbon's scepticism finds vent in the collection and quotation of unpleasantly heretical views of others, but he carefully avoids committing himself to very distinct personal declarations of disbelief; he claims to be the unbiassed historian recording fact, and leaving others to form their own conclusions. It would perhaps be most appropriate to express his convictions as to the religions of the world, in nearly the same words as he used to characterise the various modes of worship at Rome, "all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful."
Pierre John George Cabanis, born at Conac, near Breves, 6th June, 1757, died 6th May, 1808, following Condillac in many respects, was one of those whose physiological investigations have opened out wide fields of knowledge in psychology, and who did much to promote the establishment in France, America, and England, of a new school of Freethinkers. "Subject to the action of external bodies," he says, "man finds in the impressions these bodies make on his organs, at once his knowledge and the causes of his continued existence, for to live is to feel; and in that admirable chain of phenomena which constitute his existence, every want depends on the development of some faculty; every faculty by its very development satisfies some want, and the faculties grow by exercise, as the wants extend with the facility of satisfying them. By the continual action of external bodies on the senses of man, results the most remarkable part of his existence. But is it true that the nervous centres only receive and combine the impressions which reach them from the bodies? Is it true that no image or idea is formed in the brain, and that no determination of the sensitive organ takes place, other than by virtue of these same impressions on the senses strictly so-called? The faculty of feeling and of spontaneous movement forms the character of animal nature. The faculty of feeling consists in the property possessed by the nervous system of being warned by the impressions produced on its different parts, and notably on its extremities. These impressions are internal or external. External impressions, when perception is distinct, are called sensations. Internal impressions are very often vague and confused, and the animal is then only warned by their effects, and does not clearly distinguish their connection with the causes. The former result from the application of external objects to the organs of sense, and on them ideas depend. The latter result from the development of the regular functions, or from the maladies to which each organ is subject; and from these issue those determinations which bear the name of instincts. Feeling and movement are linked together. Every movement is determined by an impression, and the nerves, as the organs of feeling, animate and direct the motor organs. In feeling, the nervous organ reacts on itself. In movement it reacts on other parts, to which it communicates the contractile faculty, the simple and fecund principle of all animal movement. Finally, the vital functions can exercise themselves by the influence of some nervous ramifications, isolated from the system—the distinctive faculties can develope themselves, even when the brain is almost wholly destroyed, and when it seems wholly inactive. But for the formation of thoughts, it is necessary that the brain should exist, and be in a healthy condition; it is the special organ of thought." Thomas Paine, the most famous Deist of modern times, was born at Thetford on the 29th January, 1737, and died 8th June, 1809. It will hardly be untrue to say that the famous "rebellious needleman" has been the most popular writer in Great Britain and America against revealed religion, and that his works, from their plain, clear language, have in those countries had, and still have, a far wider circulation than those of any other modern sceptical author. His anti-theology was allied to his republicanism; he warred alike against church and throne, and his impeachment of each was couched in the plainest Anglo-Saxon. His name became at the same time a word of terror to the aristocracy and to the clergy. In England numerous prosecutions were commenced against the vendors of his political and theological works, and against persons suspected of giving currency to his views. The peace-officers searched poor men's houses to discover his dreaded works. Lancashire and Yorkshire artisans read him by stealth, and assembled in corners of fields that they might discuss the "Age of Reason," and yet be safe from surprise by the authorities. Heavy sentences were passed upon men convicted of promulgating his opinions; but all without effect, the forbidden fruit found eager gatherers. Paine appears to have been tinged with scepticism from his early boyhood, but it was as a democratic writer that he first achieved literary fame. His "Age of Reason" was the culminating blow which the dying eighteenth century aimed at the Hebrew and Christian records. Theretofore scholarly philosophers, metaphysicians, and critics had written for their fellows, and whether or not any of the mass read and understood, the authors cared but little. Now the people were addressed by one of themselves in language startling in its plainness. Paine was not a deep examiner of metaphysical problems, but he was terribly in earnest in his rejection of an impossible creed.
Charles Prangois Dupuis was born near Chaumont, in France, the 16th Oct., 1742, died 29th Sept., 1809. He played a prominent part in the great revolutionary movement, and was Secretary to the National Convention. His famous work, "L'Origine de tous les Cultes," is one of the grand heresy marks of the eighteenth century. Himself a Pantheist, he searched through the mythic traditions of the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and the Hebrews, and as a result, sought to demonstrate a common origin for all religions. Dr. John Pye Smith classes Dupuis as an Atheist, but this is most certainly an incorrect classification. He did not believe in creation, nor could he go outside the universe to search for its cause, but he regarded God as "la force universelle et eternellement active" and which permeated and animated everything. Dupuis was an example of a new and rapidly increasing class of Freethinking writers—i.e., those who, not content with doubting the divine origin of the religions they attacked, sought to explain the source and progress of the various systems. He urges that all religions find their base in the attempts at personification of some one or other, or of the whole of the forces of the universe, and shows what an important part the sun and moon have been made to play in the Egyptian, Greek, and Hindoo Mythologies. He argues that the fabulous biographies of Hercules, Bacchus, Osiris, Mithra, and Jesus, find their common origin in the sun-worship, thus cloaked and hidden from the vulgar in each country. He does not attack the Hebrew Records as simply inaccurate, but endeavours to show clear Sabaistic foundation for many of the most important narratives. The works of Dupuis and Dulaure should be read together; they contain the most complete amongst the many attempts to trace out the common origins of the various mythologies of the world. In the ninth chapter of Dupuis' great work, he deals with the "fable made upon the sun adored under the name of Christ," "un dieu qui ait mange autrefois sur la terre, et qu'on y mange aujourd'hui," and unquestionably urges strange points of coincidence. It is only astrologically that the 25th of December can be fixed, he argues, as the birthday of Mithra and of Jesus, then born of the celestial Virgin. Our Easter festivities for the resurrection of Jesus, are but another form of the more ancient rejoicings at that season for Adonis, the sun-God, restored to the world after his descent into the lower regions. He recalls that the ancient Druidic worship recognised the Virgin suckling the child, and gathers together many illustrations favourable to his theory. Here we do no more than point out that while reason was rapidly releasing itself from priestly thraldom, heretics were not content to deny the divine origin of Christianity, but sought to trace its mundane or celestial source, and strip it of its fabulous plumage.
Constantine Francis Chassebeuuf Count Volney, born at Craon in Anjou, February 3rd, 1757, died 1820. He was a Deist. In his two great works, "The Ruins of Empires," and "New Researches on Ancient History," he advances many of the views brought forward by Dupuis, from whom he quotes, but his volumes are much more readable than those of the author of the "Origin of all Religions." Volney appears to have been one of the first to popularise many of Spinoza's Biblical criticisms. He denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He wrote most vigorously against kingcraft as well as priestcraft, regarding all systems of monarchy and religion as founded on the ignorance and servility, the superstition and weakness of the people. He puts the following into the mouth of Ma-hommedan priests replying to Christian preachers: "We maintain that your gospel morality is by no means characterised by the perfection you ascribe to it. It is not true that it has introduced into the world new and unknown virtues; for example, the equality of mankind in the eyes of God, and the fraternity and benevolence which are the consequence of this equality, were tenets formerly professed by the sect of Hermetics and Samaneans, from whom you have your descent. As to forgiveness of injuries, it had been taught by the Pagans themselves; but in the latitude you give to it, it ceases to be a virtue, and becomes an immorality and a crime. Your boasted precept, to him that strikes thee on thy right cheek turn the other also, is not only contrary to the feelings of man, but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice; it emboldens the wicked by impunity, degrades the virtuous by the servility to which it subjects them; delivers up the world to disorder and tyranny, and dissolves the bands of society—such is the true spirit of your doctrine. The precepts and parables of your Gospel also never represent God other than as a despot, acting by no rule of equity; than as a partial father treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater favour than his obedient and virtuous children; than as a capricious master giving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour, as to those who have borne the burthen and heat of the day, and preferring the last comers to the first. In short, your morality throughout is unfriendly to human intercourse; a code of misanthropy calculated to give men a disgust for life and society, and attach them to solitude and celibacy. With respect to the manner in which you have practised your boasted doctrine, we in our turn appeal to the testimony of fact, and ask, was it your evangelical meekness and forbearance which excited those endless wars among your sectaries, those atrocious persecutions of what you call heretics, those crusades against the Arians, the Manichseans, and the Protestants, not to mention those which you have committed against us, nor the sacrilegious associations still subsisting among you, formed of men who have sworn to perpetuate them?* Was it the charity of your Gospel that led you to exterminate whole nations in America, and to destroy the empires of Mexico and Peru; that makes you still desolate Africa, the inhabitants of which you sell like cattle, notwithstanding the abolition of slavery that you pretend your religion has effected; that makes you ravage India whose domain you usurp; in short, is it charity that has prompted you for three centuries past to disturb the peaceful inhabitants of three continents, the most prudent of whom, those of Japan and China, have been constrained to banish you from their country, that they might escape your chains and recover their domestic tranquillity?"
* The oath taken by the Knights of the Order of Malta is to
kill, or make the Mahometans prisoners, for the glory of
God.
During the early part of the eighteenth century, magazines and other periodicals began to grow apace, and pamphlets multiplied exceedingly in this country. Addison, Steele, Defoe, and Dean Swift all helped in the work of popular education, and often in a manner probably unanticipated by themselves. Dean Swifts satire against scepticism was fiercely powerful; but his onslaughts against Roman Catholics and Presbyterians made far more sceptics than his other writings had made churchmen.