We forgive the sublime contradictions in the stately march of this Pagan praise. Augustine was a noble old saint, but he had a Pagan intellect to the end.
The 'Limits of Atheism' which obviously present themselves to those who reflect upon them, rescue it from the imputation of lawlessness. Positivism engrafts upon it practical aims. Exactness of speech necessitates exactness of thought, and dictates modesty of pretension. Dispassionateness of judgment checks invective, dogmatism, prejudice, or unfairness; and Reliance upon Humanity tends to self-trust, self-direction, and chastity of worship. Why should persons who hold the views of Affirmative Atheism under these 'Limits' be treated in the witness-box as public liars—men whose reiterated profession is—that they 'sum up personal duty in Honour, which is respecting the Truth; in Morality, which is acting the Truth; and in Love, which is serving the Truth.'*
* 'Last Trial for Atheism,' p. 100.
Plato in his 'Laws,' remarks that 'Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding.' This just opinion, if applied to mere sensualists, who disbelieve in God because his holiness is a restraint upon their infamous passions, has since been applied to the pure thinkers like Spinoza, to whom it is an insult and an outrage. Let us see how little such a remark is applicable to those who thoughtfully pause before adopting a creed which, however dictated by a feeling of piety, is far less reverential than thoughtful silence.
If we suppose an interposing Providence to direct the affairs of this world, what scenes of sorrow must meet his eye? Condemned to poverty and pain, how many human beings are there whose every word is a prayer, and every thought a throb, and every pulsation a pang? Is it not far more reverential to struggle for the right with what powers we have, and with what Secular light is vouchsafed, and own Theism inscrutable, than connect all this misery with the name of God? The theory of a God of Prayer who hears and aids, of a Providence who orders and controls, all issues to one great Will, and who receives at last the sorrow-stricken, the worn, struggling and weary spirit, after those conflicts which all who think, and feel, and aspire, encounter, are primitive and enduring conceptions, which all humanity, in every age and in every slime, cherishes in its perplexity and clings to in its weakness. It is not Cosmism which seeks or wishes to disprove this theory. Alas! the God of Prayer does not exist. I say it not in wantonness, or recklessness, nor in any proud spirit of defiance, nor in any hard spirit of denial, nor in outrage, nor wilful scepticism, nor simulated disbelief. It appears to me an austere fact, which all who observe must see, which all who are frank must own. Yet I know not that I ought to say 'Alas it is so.' Why should any man mourn at truth? What right have I to arraign the facts of Nature. To mourn what is—is to condemn what is. Sorrow is censure when it relates to what is possibly the order of God. What authority have I to look on Nature awful in its glories and mysteries, and by the implication included in my grief, to judge it and say it is not what it should be? My scrutiny ought rather to be directed to my weakness. True reverence lies rather in accepting unmurmuringly the order of things we find; in believing in the completeness and self sufficiency of nature and humanity, and that these contain within them elements of self-sustainment. Our duty is to search there for Truth, to work there patiently for Progress, to regard the humblest conquest there with glad surprise. All virtue is summed up in service and endurance. A wise humility in expectation is surely the first element of reverence. As to the Future Life of man, the whole question lies in a narrow compass. The immortality of the soul is one of those problems which you approach with breathless perplexity. Is it possible that every human being brought into existence, in the caprices of lust and vice, is a candidate for heaven, and a burden upon the celestial taxes, and an inmate of the great Poor House or Reformatory of eternity? Is it in the power of ignorance, profligacy, and passion, to crowd the porticoes of Paradise with illicit offspring? Can it be true that every being born is liable to eternal perdition for acts done before it had existence—or for offences it was predestined to commit, or in the course of events may commit? It is better never to be born than to incur this frightful risk. Is it worth while to live at all the prey of these awful anxieties, to sport for a few years on the borders of Hell? Who would enter the dance of life with the devil for a partner? The toad that croaks his hideous existence away in the marsh; the very dog whom men caress, and kick, and despise; the slimy worm that crawls the grave yard, leads a life of dignity and undimmed bliss, compared with the dread responsibilities and never-ending horrors thus imposed on human consciousness. No man will persuade me that God would bring into existence any creature liable to so frightful a fate. The belief in annihilation is a creed of holiness, in comparison with the creed of the popular religion. If, on the other hand, the future life include no hopeless horror, but a state of purification, of restoration, of atonement, of instruction and progress, however arduous, protracted, and slow, I am willing to believe in it, to hope in it, and rejoice in it. I ask no golden crown—I covet no angel wings—I crave no presumptuous seat of honour at the right hand of God. I supplicate for no effeminate security—no eternity of indolence and singing—I am prepared for toil as well as enjoyment. The instinct of adventure is strong within me. Study and danger are welcome to me—even suffering, if it bring deeper knowledge, purity and improvement. I do not wish to be a 'Saint made perfect,' lingering through an eternity of monotony, in which there is nothing further to realise, but desire rather to enter upon the eternal discipline of indefinite progress. There never were disbelievers in a tolerable immortality. The question is not—is such a state desirable? but—is it true? The vital inquiry is—are we to conduct life on the basis of what we hope or what we know? He who believes in what he wishes, and is willing to teach as true what he desires, has already passed through the gates of superstition.
To honour the brave, to reverence the good, to give thanks to the martyr, to be re-united to those you have loved and lost; if these be the incidents of immortality, there never was a disbeliever in it. The Cosmist only deplores the scantiness of the proof. There is no scepticism here which is wilful. Every doubt is reluctant, every misgiving is a self-denial.
The popular theology, it must be owned, has many repulsive aspects. The vulgarest and most illiterate believer is encouraged to profess a familiar and confident knowledge, hidden from the profoundest philosophers. It is an unanswerable position, that had God spoken, the universe would have been convinced. Had Deity desired that his personal existence should be daily recognised and eternally bruited abroad among men, he would have placarded the fact on the walls of nature in letters of light—so luminous, that time should never pale them; so indelibly, that the war of elements should never efface them; so plainly and conclusively, that no priest should ever be able to misconstrue them; and no wayfarer, in this hurrying world, ever be in doubt about them. As this is not so, the great secret is left evidently to silent thought and reverent conjecture, of which even mere negative Atheism is a reserved expression, and Cosmism a scheme of philosophical adoration.
Here is a particle of matter. It may be amber, or a ruby, or a stone. Whence came the electrical properties of the one, the lurid brilliancy of the other, or the density of the stone? These qualities are wonders and miracles through all time. Science finds them marvels and leaves them mysteries. The philosopher is no more provided with a solution than the peasant. Indeed, the wonder of the philosopher has a deeper intensity. He sweeps with his eye, and bends his ear over a wider field of nature, and no sign rewards his scrutiny, no response repays his attention. Look at this humble, secure, and commonplace stone! We neglect it with the eye, we spurn it with the foot—it is not worth raising from the shore. Yet no book was ever written, no message was ever delivered, no romance ever depicted, no epic ever sung, containing such wondrous interest as the story of this stone, could any man tell it. What thronging conjectures! what unbidden and tumultuous memories rise as we contemplate its possible mutations of existence! History was unwritten when it first slept in the earth. What generations of men have lived and struggled, and died since it was first broken from the rock! Great battles, changing the fate of dynasties, and involving the servitude of races, have been fought over its calm resting place. Possibly thousands of years ago the mastodon trod upon it, and the ichthyosaurus paddled it into the sea. Ancient waves may have washed it into the ocean, before the first ship was launched by the first mariner. In the silent and wondrous caverns of the great deep, which no plummet has fathomed and no eye has ever seen, it has lain in regal rest. What monsters have glared at it! what tempests have raged, what tornadoes have broken over it! what earthquakes may have tossed it up from its hiding place. On what shore did it reappear? Did some Assyrian lover watch the wave which washed it up? Did some young Pharaoh play with it? Has it been imbedded in the walls of Troy? Did Achilles plant his spear by it? Did it lie on the plains of Marathon on the morning of the memorable battle? Has it been dyed by the blood of Caesar in the streets of Rome? Have Chaldean shepherds picked it up as the orient morning sun broke over their silent plains?
When all these and a thousand other questions have been answered, its history is not begun. Its elements are indestructible. The parts of which it is composed were never created—in some form, in some world, they always existed. Where were they when the earth was without form or void? To what astral system did the matter of this pebble once belong? Of what star did it form a part? Where was it before time on this planet began to be? If matter has existed for ever, this stone in its countless transmutations is a geological Wandering Jew of eternity. If we cannot tell the history of a single stone, who shall tell the history of God? If a poor pebble be a surpassing mystery, who shall understand the Deity? What must be the pretension, the presumption to infinite capacity of that man who, pausing not in reverent humility in the presence of these myriad miracles which crowd before him, yet tells us in confident and dogmatic tones, that he
'Looks through Nature up to Nature's God?'