Most persons will likewise agree with the Premier's further observation (p. 38):—"I have made a statement that these ideas are not a mere German brood, though I fear that we owe much of their seed to Germany, as France owed to England the seed of her great Voltairian movement, so far as it was a movement grounded in the region of thought."
In illustration of the statement that "there are many writers of kindred sympathies in England, and some of as outspoken courage" (Address, p. 26), Mr. Gladstone quotes four passages from Mr. Winwood Reade's "Martyrdom of Man." The three first cited possess a painful interest for the Natural Theologian. They are as follows:—(1.) "When the faith in a personal God is extinguished; when prayer and praise are no longer to be heard; when the belief is universal that with the body dies the soul; then the false morals of theology will no longer lead the human mind astray." (2.) "We teach that the soul is immortal; we teach that there is a future life; we teach that there is a Heaven in the ages far away: but not for us single corpuscles, not for us dots of animated jelly, but for the One of whom we are the elements, and who, though we perish, never dies." (3.) "God is so great that He does not deign to have personal relations with us human atoms that are called men. Those who desire to worship their Creator must worship Him through mankind. Such, it is plain, is the scheme of Nature." (pp. 38-9.)
On account of his Address and pièces justificatives, Mr. Gladstone has been already (like a prophet of old) "wounded in the house of his friends." It may therefore be well to support his judgment by some additional testimony. Now the Pall Mall Gazette, whatever faults may be imputed to it by its adversaries, cannot be justly charged with harshness or discourtesy towards materializing writers. And it so happens that both Dr. Strauss and Mr. Reade have lately been criticised in its columns. From these notices, therefore, I shall venture on making some extracts.
Strauss's "Der Alte und der Neue Glaube" was reviewed at considerable length in the number for November 27, 1872. I quote two passages only.
After an interesting introduction the reviewer proceeds thus:—
"As the title of the book indicates, the work to be effected divides itself into two main parts. First, it is necessary to settle the relations to be adopted towards the old Church faith, or Christianity. That accomplished, the outlines at least of the new views that take its place must be sketched out. Of course, before that can be done it must be settled whether or not there is anything to put in place of Christianity. It is logically correct to ask, first, whether 'we'—meaning 'the thinking minority,' who have grown dissatisfied with 'the old faith'—'are still Christians' in any sense. Having answered that question in the negative, it is in order to ask next 'whether we have any religion,'—which cannot be answered by a simple negative or affirmative, or without further explanations as to the nature of religion. We must see 'how we regard the world,' or the system of existing things; what results we are led to by modern researches as to its origin, purpose, and destiny. Although in the light that flows from these, Strauss maintains that the old idea of a personal God must disappear, he finds a Divinity in the All or totality of nature, whose forces and course exhibit purpose or design—subjectively speaking—and order, and to which we are bound, recognizing the wisdom that regulates them, piously to resign ourselves, seeking to fulfil that order of which we ourselves are a part." The following extract concludes the notice:—"We have seen that Strauss refuses to acknowledge Christianity because on examination its assertions appear to him incredible, and its claims therefore inadmissible. That is the result of an examination of the nature of Christianity, in which we have nothing new, as it is substantially a synopsis of the fuller process of reasoning contained in 'The Life of Jesus.' But it is not Christianity alone that must be dispensed with. In accordance with the old declaration that miracles are impossible, the supernatural also disappears. It is not merely relegated, as by Herbert Spencer and Comte, to the sphere of the Unknowable; it is not recognized in any manner whatsoever. In place of creation, we have in these pages a process of continuous development through immense periods of time; instead of God, as the source of law and authority and order, nature proceeding harmoniously in an unending process; instead of individual immortality, the conclusion that every individual fulfils his destiny in this world. The divinities and the after life of man are, as with Feuerbach, declared to be simply his own desires. 'What man might be but is not, he makes his god; what he might possess but cannot win for himself, that shall his god bestow upon him.' In reference to the argument that man must somewhere realize all the possibilities that are in him, and as he does not do so in this life there must be a future one, Strauss asks whether all seeds in nature come to maturity. Having dispensed, then, with the supernatural, are we necessarily without any religion? We have seen that Strauss answers in the negative, though not very confidently. The fundamental views on human life, the existence of the world, and so forth, are without doubt a religion, or the theoretical side of one. If in order to a religion it be necessary to believe that the universe fulfils a rational purpose through a rational order, we have that presented to us. There is constant process and continuous development. There is an ascent, as it were, of the forces of nature which perform their mighty cycles through the ages, and a consequent descent and vanishing away. The All remains ever the same, is at no moment more complete than in the preceding, nor vice versâ, but there is a process of becoming and disappearing which goes on, or may go on ad infinitum. The design or purpose of every part is being fulfilled at every moment, for at every moment there is the richest possible unfolding of life in the total system of things. The highest idea to which we can attain is that of the universe.
"Many people were scandalized when a few years ago Mr. Mill maintained that the idea of a God was not indispensable to a religion. Comte's 'Religion of Humanity' was then in view. Strauss's religion, though equally without a God, is deformed by no such crudities of thought and feeling as Comte's. Rather is his book a representation in brief compass of the views to which, whether we regret it or not, the majority of educated and thinking men are in our day more and more attracted."
One remarkable circumstance dwelt upon in this notice, as well as in Mr. Gladstone's Address, is that Strauss, like Comte, finds a substitute for the worship of a Deity—a something which both are pleased to call a Religion. Strauss takes the theoretical, Comte the sentimental view. According to the Frenchman, men are to worship "Humanity" with a leaning to the female side. The un-deformed religion of the German centres upon an Optimistic theory of the All or Universum.[9] Both would seem practically to confess the real necessity of some Religion to mankind, and the question naturally occurs whether these succedanea are more wholesome and elevating than Theism, or whether (it may be added) they are as likely to be true after all.
Mr. Winwood Reade's "Martyrdom of Man" had been criticised four days earlier (Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 23). As he is an English writer, I take the liberty of making more copious extracts, but would recommend such of my readers as have not perused the article to bestow half an hour's steady thought upon it.
"Mr. Reade," writes the critic, "puts forth his book as a sort of review, or survey, or abridgement of the general history of the human race, and he has given to it the strange title it bears because he is of opinion that 'the supreme and mysterious Power by whom the universe has been created, and by whom it has been appointed to run its course under fixed and invariable law; that awful One to whom it is profanity to pray, of whom it is idle and irreverent to argue and debate, of whom we should never presume to think save with humility and awe; that Unknown God has ordained that mankind should be elevated by misfortune, and that happiness should grow out of misery and pain.' But, although the work is in the main historical, it is also partly cosmological, partly physiological, and partly polemical. It deals with the past, the present, and the future of the world as well as of humanity....