Thomas Paine's Age of Reason without having his faith shaken in the Christian religion, and if ever he has read Mirabaud's System of Nature he will find his faith shaken on the subject of all religion. He will see that the whole has arisen from one common fault—the ignorance and credulity of mankind.
For instance, when the use of the telescope and the advanced state of the science of Astronomy has given us ocular and mathematical demonstration, that every orb we see revolving in the wide and infinite expanse of space, and that each of that infinite number of orbs, which something more than hypothesis convinces us do revolve in space, corresponds with a portion of that solar system, of which our parent earth is a part, that they are guided by the same laws and composed of the same species of matter, by which we infer that they bear the same productions, does not the query arise in our minds, which must inevitably strike down the fabric of the Christian religion, that if it was essential for a Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, as old as his father, to pass through the virgin-womb of a woman, to be buffeted, scourged, and put to an ignominious death by a sect of superstitious bigots, who have constantly for the space of eighteen hundred years denied all knowledge of such a person, for the purpose of procuring the future happiness of those animals on this orb whom we call human, and their salvation from the eternal torments which he and his father had prepared for those who should reject them; was it not also essential, that this same Jesus Christ, this only begotten son of God, as old his father, should have submitted to a similar incarnation in a virgin-womb, and have been buffeted, scourged, and executed, as a criminal malefactor, according to the respective customs of treating such characters on the several orbs, or the peculiar part of them on which he might chance or choose to inhabit; was it not essential that he should have performed a similar mission for the similar salvation and future happiness of the several inhabitants or animals denominated human on each and every one of those orbs? Can any priest answer this question? The Man of Science I know will smile at it, and pity the credulity and ignorance of all who have believed, who do believe, or who may believe, such ridiculous nonsense. Then let him come forward and preach up his scientific knowledge, and silence the dogmas of the priest. It is reserved for the Man of Science to rid mankind of this horrid ignorance and credulity, and to impress upon their minds the all-important subject of scientific knowledge. Man does not naturally delight in ignorance and credulity, but he naturally strives to free himself from those vices. There is no truth that you can impress upon the mind of man, but what he will rejoice at feeling it to be truth, and himself undeceived as to former error. It is the interested hypocrite alone, that is alarmed at the progress and power of truth, he whose very trade is the known propagation of falsehood and delusion, the tyrants tool and scourge. All tyranny, oppression, and delusion, have been founded upon the ignorance and credulity of mankind. Knowledge, scientific knowledge, is the power that must be opposed to those evils, and be made to destroy them. Come forward, ye Men of Science, ye must no longer remain in the back ground as trembling cowards, ye must no longer crave protection from, and creep at the pleasure of, your direst foes; grasp at tyranny, at oppression, at delusion, at ignorance, and at credulity, and you shall find yourselves sufficiently powerful to destroy the whole, and emancipate both the mind and the body of man from the slavery of his joint oppressors.
The latter of the before-mentioned works is a most important one, and has hitherto passed through several editions without molestation by the Attorney General, or the Society for propagating Vice. Whatever they may attempt, it will defy the malice of either. Many other very important publications are now in full sale, and from the appetite which I find still exists for them, I have been induced to make this bold appeal to Men of Science, calling upon them to stand forward and vindicate the truth, from the foul grasp and persecution of Superstition; and obtain for the island of Great Britain, the noble appellation of the focus of truth; whence mankind shall be illuminated, and the black and pestiferous clouds of persecution and superstition be banished from the face of the earth; as the only sure prelude to universal peace and harmony among the human race.
DORCHESTER GAOL, MAY 1821.
Eighteenth Month of the Author's Imprisonment, and the Fourth Month of the Imprisonment of his Wife.