Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever

by William Hammon; Matthew Turner

It is next said, that virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice. This also is but a weak argument for the moral government of the universe, unless it be for a moral government by chance. Virtue ought to be the certain and immediate parent of happiness, if a moral governor existed with an uncontrouled dominion. If virtue tends to happiness, or has only a better chance of doing so, it is allowed, that a sensible atheist should hold it right to be virtuous. The latter end of a righteous man is certainly more likely to be happy than that of an unrighteous one. But let an atheist be righteous, and he can be as certain of happiness in his latter end as any other. Let another life be desirable, as it certainly is, his doubts upon it will not prevent it. Who could wish an end better or more happy than that of Mr. Hume, who most indubitably was an atheist. But if an atheist be not so good as a Theist, Dr. Priestley perhaps, will allow him to be better than a sceptic, as any principles for systematising nature are better than none at all. A Theist is not without his doubts as well as the sceptic; an atheist, once firmly becoming so, will never doubt more; for we may venture to say no miracles or new appearances will present themselves to him to draw his belief aside.

Still every thing is as God intended it—so asserts Dr. Priestley; and therefore it cannot by him be denied that crimes and vices, are of his intention. The Theist exclaims in triumph, "He that made the eye, must he not see?" But who made the eye? Or grant that God made the eye, which can only see in the light, must he necessarily see in the dark? It is again asserted, "the power which formed an eye had something in view as certainly as he that constructed a telescope. If any Being formed any eye, grant it. But if the eye exists necessarily as a part of nature; as much as any other matter, or combination of matter, necessarily existed, the result of the argument is intirely different.

It is far from being a necessary part of the atheist's creed to exclude design from the universe. He places that design in the energy of nature, which Dr. Priestley gives to some other extraneous Being. It is rather inconsistent also in him to say, that an atheist rightly judging of his own situation upon his own principles, ought not to hold himself quite secure from a future state of responsibility and existences, and yet to say he must in his own ideas hold himself soon to be excluded for ever from life.

As to the immutability of the Deity, it is difficult to guess how that is proved, except by the argument of Lucus a non lucendo, because every thing is changing here; therefore the Deity never changes; which is neither an argument a priori nor posteriore, but sui generis, merely applicable to the Deity.

From the imperial infinite intelligence of the Deity an argument is formed of his unity. Dr. Priestley says, "that two infinite intelligent Beings would coincide, and therefore that there can only be one such Being." Two parallels will never coincide. That is one of the first axioms of Euclid, in whom Dr. Priestley believes as much as in his bible. If the Beings are infinite in extent and magnitude they must certainly coincide, but if they are only infinite in intelligence, it does not seem to be necessary that they should.

The ubiquity of God is proved in this short way: "God made every thing, God controuls every thing. No power can act but where it is. Therefore God is present every where." The workman must certainly be present at his work, but when the work is done he may go about other business. If all the properties of matter, such as gravity, elasticity and other such existed only by the perpetual leave and agency of the Deity, it may be argued he is in all places where matter is. Space, empty space will still exist without him. In this mode of proof Dr. Priestley must, contrary to the Newtonian system argue for a Plenum, before he proves the ubiquity. He cannot exclude space from his mind, nor can he exclude gravity from matter. Yet can he admit matter as well as space to be eternal, because he will not allow the inactivity of God." "If God's works had a beginning he must have been for a whole eternity inactive." He seems to have an odd notion of eternity, for he there allows it could have an end. The argument would be fairer in concluding "he must have been inactive or doing something else."

The Deity set up, if not the creator of matter, is at least the matter of it, nor will his advocates by any means allow him to be material himself. They see some incongruity in admitting one piece of matter to be so complete a master of another. However Dr. Priestley and other arguers for a Deity would do well to consider, that whatever is not matter, is a space that matter may occupy. Therefore if God is not matter, and also is not space, he is nothing. Dr. Priestley allows matter eternal, and its properties of gravity, elasticity, electricity and others equally eternal. He says directly, that matter cannot exist without it's perpetually corresponding powers. The adjustment of those powers he places in the Deity. But as we never see matter without the adjustment of those properties as well as the existence of them, this drives him at last to say, the Deity must also have created matter, according to his system eternally created it, cotemporarily with himself. Ideas absurd and irreconcileable!

Discoursing upon the hypothesis of "a fortuitous concourse of atoms" Dr. Priestley asks, "what reason we have to think that small masses of matter can have power without communication ab extra?" Let this question be returned, "have we not reason to think so from attraction the most common property in matter." To get rid of this difficulty he will not allow an atom of matter to be possessed originally of the most simple powers, though he is ready to allow matter to have been eternal. A magnet according to this system must sometime have existed without its magnetic power. He concludes there must be some original existent Being. He shall be allowed many original existent Beings if it pleases him. A man may be an originally existent being, as well as any other. He is superior to other animals in this world. In like manner there may be allowed superior Beings to man (as most probably there are) and yet those superior Beings not have made man.

Dr. Priestley will have it, that all bodies are moved by external force. That does not seem quite necessary. Motion may as well be asserted to be originally a property of matter, or its true natural state and rest a deprivation of that property, as that rest should be its natural state. Hume thought so and Hume was no great fool, notwithstanding Dr. Priestley makes so light of him. In fact matter never is, and therefore most probably never was found to be in a state of rest. Nor has Dr. Priestley any reason to suppose gravity, elasticity and electricity to have been imprest on bodies by a superior Being, and not originally inherent in matter, unless to favour his own hypothesis of a Deity. He absolutely says matter could not have had those powers without a communication from a superior and intelligent Being. If matter is perceived in regulated motion, it is added bluntly, that it must be by a mover possessed of a competent intelligence, and that a Being therefore of such power and intelligence must exist. Whoever finds no difficulty in believing the contrary will find as little difficulty in Mr. Hume's hypothesis, that motion might as well as other powers and properties have been originally inherent in matter, or at least have been a necessary result of some matter acting upon another.

It has always been a doubt with Theists, whether they can better prove their God's existence by moral or physical considerations. Dr. Priestley seems to think the forte of the argument lies in the latter proof, and lays particular stress upon his observation respecting cause and effect, which therefore cannot here be so readily dismissed. He makes great reference to the works of art. Theists are always for turning their God into an overgrown man. Anthropomorphites has long been a term applied to them. They give him hands and eyes nor can they conceive him otherwise than as a corporeal Being. In which, as before has been said, they are very right, for there can only be in the world body and the space which bodies occupy. But granting this great workman to have done so much, is it not quite an incontrovertible proposition, that whoever first made a thing, as, for example, a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use. Dr. Priestley speaks more correctly in another part, by saying, he must have been capable of comprehending it. The nature and use of things are often found out after they are made and by different persons than the makers of them. Neither is there any analogy between the works of art, as a table or house, and of nature, as a man or tree. Therefore there can be no arguing from one to another by analogy. Hume observes that the former works are done by reason and design, and the latter by generation and vegetation, and therefore arguing from effect to causes, it is probable, that the universe is generated or vegetated. At least after all the observations about a table, it may be modestly asked, whether there is not some difference between a table and the world? The Doctor will also find some difficulty in explaining the propriety of any argument of analogy between men and metals, which he does not at other times scruple to make?