CHAPTER XI. "THE AGE OF REASON"
The reception which the "Age of Reason" met is its sufficient justification. The chief priests and preachers answered it with personal abuse and slander, revealing by such fruits the nature of their tree, and confessing the feebleness of its root, either in reason or human affection.
Lucian, in his "[—Greek—]" represents the gods as invisibly present at a debate, in Athens, on their existence. Damis, who argues from the evils of the world that there are no gods, is answered by Timocles, a theological professor with large salary. The gods feel doleful, as the argument goes against them, until their champion breaks out against Damis,—"You blasphemous villain, you! Wretch! Accursed monster!" The chief of the gods takes courage, and exclaims: "Well done, Timocles! give him hard words. That is your strong point. Begin, to reason and you will be dumb as a fish."
So was it in the age when the Twilight of the Gods was brought on by faith in the Son of Man. Not very different was it when this Son of Man, dehumanized by despotism, made to wield the thunderbolts of Jove, reached in turn his inevitable Twilight. The man who pointed out the now admitted survivals of Paganism in the despotic system then called Christianity, who said, "the church has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in the pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty," was denounced as a sot and an adulterer. These accusations, proved in this work unquestionably false, have accumulated for generations, so that a mountain of prejudice must be tunnelled before any reader can approach the "Age of Reason" as the work of an honest and devout mind.
It is only to irrelevant personalities that allusion is here made. Paine was vehement in his arraignment of Church and Priesthood, and it was fair enough for them to strike back with animadversions on Deism and Infidelity. But it was no answer to an argument against the antiquity of Genesis to call Paine a drunkard, had it been true. This kind of reply was heard chiefly in America. In England it was easy for Paine's chief antagonist, the Bishop of Llandaff, to rebuke Paine's strong language, when his lordship could sit serenely in the House of Peers with knowledge that his opponent was answered with handcuffs for every Englishman who sold his book. But in America, slander had to take the place of handcuffs.
Paine is at times too harsh and militant. But in no case does he attack any person's character. Nor is there anything in his language, wherever objectionable, which I have heard censured when uttered on the side of orthodoxy. It is easily forgotten that Luther desired the execution of a rationalist, and that Calvin did burn a Socinian. The furious language of Protestants against Rome, and of Presbyterians against the English Church, is considered even heroic, like the invective ascribed to Christ, "Generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell!" Although vehement language grates on the ear of an age that understands the real forces of evolution, the historic sense remembers that moral revolutions have been made with words hard as cannon-balls. It was only when soft phrases about the evil of slavery, which "would pass away in God's good time," made way for the abolitionist denunciation of the Constitution as "an agreement with hell," that the fortress began to fall. In other words, reforms are wrought by those who are in earnest.* It is difficult in our time to place one's self in the situation of a heretic of Paine's time. Darwin, who is buried in Westminster, remembered the imprisonment of some educated men for opinions far less heretical than his own. George III. egoistic insanity appears (1892) to have been inherited by an imperial descendant, and should Germans be presently punished for their religion, as Paine's early followers were in England, we shall again hear those words that are the "half-battles" preceding victories.
* "In writing upon this, as upon every other subject, I
speak a language plain and intelligible. I deal not in hints
and intimations. I have several reasons for this: first,
that I may be clearly understood; secondly, that it may be
seen I am in earnest; and thirdly, because it is an affront
to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance."—Paine's
reply to Bishop Watson.
There is even greater difficulty in the appreciation by one generation of the inner sense of the language of a past one. The common notion that Paines "Age of Reason" abounds in "vulgarity" is due to the lack of literary culture in those—probably few—who have derived that impression from its perusal. It is the fate of all genius potent enough to survive a century that its language will here and there seem coarse. The thoughts of Boccaccio, Rabelais, Shakespeare,—whose works are commonly expurgated,—are so modern that they are not generally granted the allowances conceded to writers whose ideas are as antiquated as their words. Only the instructed minds can set their classic nudities in the historic perspective that reveals their innocency and value. Paine's book has done as much to modify human belief as any ever written. It is one of the very few religious works of the last century which survives in unsectarian circulation. It requires a scholarly perception to recognize in its occasional expressions, by some called "coarse," the simple Saxon of Nor-folkshire. Similar expressions abound in pious books of the time; they are not censured, because they are not read. His refined contemporary antagonists—Dr. Watson and Dr. Priestley—found no fault with Paine's words, though the former twice accuses his assertions as "indecent." In both cases, however, Paine is pointing out some biblical triviality or indecency—or what he conceived such. I have before me original editions of both Parts of the "Age of Reason" printed from Paine's manuscripts. Part First may be read by the most prudish parent to a daughter, without an omission. In Part Second six or seven sentences might be omitted by the parent, where the writer deals, without the least prurience, with biblical narratives that can hardly be daintily touched. Paine would have been astounded at the suggestion of any impropriety in his expressions. He passes over four-fifths of the passages in the Bible whose grossness he might have cited in support of his objection to its immorality. "Obscenity," he says, "in matters of faith, however wrapped up, is always a token of fable and imposture; for it is necessary to our serious belief in God that we do not connect it with stories that run, as this does, into ludicrous interpretations. The story [of the miraculous conception] is, upon the face of it, the same kind of story as that of Jupiter and Leda."
* "An Apology for the Bible. By R. Llandaff" [Dr.
Richard Watson].