A Budget of Paradoxes Volume II Part 3

How the wits of different races jump!

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I am reminded of a case of _fides vindicata_, which, being in a public letter, responding to a public invitation, was not meant to be confidential. Some of the pupils of University College, in which all subdivisions of religion are (1866; _were_, 1867) on a level, have of course changed their views in after life, and become adherents of various high churches. On the occasion of a dinner of old students of the College, convened by circular, one of these students, whether then Roman or Tractarian Christian I do not remember, not content with simply giving negative answer, or none at all, concocted a jorum of theological rebuke, and sent it to the Dinner Committee. Heyday! said one of them, this man got out of bed backwards! How is that? said the rest. Why, read his name backwards, and you will see. As thus read it was--_No grub_![65]

THE WORD CHURCH.

To return to _Notes and Queries_. The subst.i.tution in the (editorial) index of "Unitarian teacher," for the contributor's "Unitarian minister," struck me very much. I have seldom found such things unmeaning. But as the journal had always been free from editorial sectarianisms,--and very apt to check the contributorial,--I could not be sure in this case. True it was, that the editor and publisher had been changed more than a year before; but this was not of much force. Though one swallow does not make a summer, I have generally found it show that summer is coming. However, thought I to myself, if this be Little Shibboleth, we shall have Big Shibboleth by-and-bye. At last it came. About a twelvemonth afterwards, (3d S. vii. p.

36) the following was the _editorial_ answer to the question when the establishment was first called the "Church of England and Ireland":

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"That unmeaning clause, 'The United Church of England and Ireland,' which occurs on the t.i.tle-page of _The Book of Common Prayer_, was first used at the commencement of the present century. The authority for this phrase is the fifth article of the Union of 1800: 'That the Churches of England and Ireland be united into one _Protestant_ (!) episcopal Church, to be called "The United Church of England and Ireland."' Of course, churchmen are not responsible for the theology of Acts of Parliament, especially those pa.s.sed during the dark ages of the Georgian era."

That is to say, the journal gives its adhesion to the party which--under the a.s.sumed t.i.tle of _the_ Church of England--claims for the endowed corporation for the support of religion rights which Parliament cannot control, and makes it, in fact, a power above the State. The State has given an inch: it calls this corporation by the name of the "United _Church_ of England and Ireland," as if neither England nor Ireland had any other Church. The corporation, accordingly aspires to an ell. But this the nation will only give with the aspiration prefixed. To ill.u.s.trate my allusion in a delicate way to polite ears, I will relate what happened in a Johnian lecture-room at Cambridge, some fifty years ago, my informant being present. A youth of undue aspirations was giving a proposition, and at last said, "Let E F be produced to 'L':" "Not quite so far, Mr. ----," said the lecturer, quietly, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the cla.s.s, and the utter astonishment of the aspirant, who knew no more than a Tractarian the tendency of his construction.

This word _Church_ is made to have a very mystical meaning. The following dialogue between Ecclesiastes and Haereticus, which I cannot vouch for, has often taken place in spirit, if not in letter: E. The word _Church_ ([Greek: ekklesia])[66] is never used in the New Testament except generally or locally for that holy and mystical body to which the sacraments and the ordinances of Christianity are entrusted. {32} H. Indeed! E. It is beyond a doubt (here he quoted half a dozen texts in support). H. Do you mean that any doctrine or ordinance which was solemnly practised by the [Greek: ekklesia] is binding upon you and me? E. Certainly, unless we should be cut off from the congregation of the faithful. H. Have you a couple of hours to spare? E. What for? H. If you have, I propose we spend them in crying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians! E. What do you mean? H. You ought to know the solemn service of the [Greek: ekklesia] (Acts xix. 32, 41), at Ephesus; which any one might take to be true Church, by the more part not knowing wherefore they were come together, and which was dismissed, after one of the most sensible sermons ever preached, by the Recorder. E. I see your meaning: it is true, there is that one exception! H. Why, the Recorder's sermon itself contains another, the [Greek: ennomos ekklesia],[67]

legislative a.s.sembly. E. Ah! the New Testament can only be interpreted by the Church! H. I see! the Church interprets itself into existence out of the New Testament, and then interprets the New Testament out of existence into itself!

I look upon all the Churches as fair game which declare of me that _absque dubio in aeternum peribo_;[68] not for their presumption towards G.o.d, but for their personal insolence towards myself. I find that their sectaries stare when I say this. Why! they do not speak of you in _particular_! These poor reasoners seem to think that there could be no meaning, as against me, unless it should be propounded that "without doubt he shall perish everlastingly, especially A. De Morgan." But I hold, with the schoolmen, that "_Omnis_ h.o.m.o est animal" in conjunction with "Sortes est h.o.m.o"

amounts to "_Sortes_ est animal."[69] But they do not mean it _personally_!

Every universal proposition is {33} personal to every instance of the subject. If this be not conceded, then I retort, in their own sense and manner, "Whosoever would serve G.o.d, before all things he must not p.r.o.nounce G.o.d's decision upon his neighbor. Which decision, except every one leave to G.o.d himself, without doubt he is a bigoted noodle."

The reasoning habit of the educated community, in four cases out of five, permits universal propositions to be stated at one time, and denied, _pro re nata_,[70] at another. "Before we proceed to consider any question involving physical principles, we should set out with _clear ideas_ of the naturally possible and impossible." The eminent man who said this, when wanting it for his views of mental education (!) never meant it for more than what was in hand, never a.s.sumed it in the researches which will give him to posterity! I have heard half-a-dozen defences of his having said this, not one of which affirmed the truth of what was said. A worthy clergyman wrote that if A. B. had said a certain thing the point in question would have been established. It was shown to him that A. B. _had_ said it, to which the reply was a refusal to admit the point because A. B.

said it in a second pamphlet and in answer to objections. And I might give fifty such instances with very little search. Always a.s.sume more than you want; because you cannot tell how much you may want: put what is over into the didn't-mean-that basket, or the extreme case what-not.

PROTESTANT AND PAPAL CHRISTENDOM.

Something near forty years of examination of the theologies on and off--more years very much on than quite off--have given me a good t.i.tle--to myself, I ask no one else for leave--to make the following remarks: A conclusion has _premises_, facts or doctrines from proof or authority, and _mode of inference_. There may be invention or {34} falsehood of premise, with good logic; and there may be tenable premise, followed by bad logic; and there may be both false premise _and_ bad logic. The Roman system has such a powerful manufactory of premises, that bad logic is little wanted; there is comparatively little of it. The doctrine-forge of the Roman Church is one glorious compound of everything that could make Herac.l.i.tus[71] sob and Democritus[72] sn.i.g.g.e.r. But not the only one. The Protestants, in tearing away from the Church of Rome, took with them a fair quant.i.ty of the results of the Roman forge, which they could not bring themselves to give up. They had more in them of Martin than of Jack. But they would have no premises, except from the New Testament; though some eked out with a few general Councils. The consequence is that they have been obliged to find such a logic as would bring the conclusions they require out of the canonical books. And a queer logic it is; nothing but the Roman forge can be compared with the Protestant loom. The picking, the patching, the piecing, which goes to the Protestant _termini ad quem_,[73] would be as remarkable to the general eye, as the Roman manufacture of _termini a quo_,[74] if it were not that the world at large seizes the character of an a.s.serted fact better than that of a mode of inference. A grand step towards the deification of a lady, made by alleged revelation 1800 years after her death, is of glaring evidence: two or three additional shiffle-shuffles towards defence of saying the Athanasian curse in church and unsaying it out of church, are hardly noticed. Swift has bungled his satire where he makes Peter a party to finding out what he wants, _totidem syllabis_ and _totidem literis_, {35} when he cannot find it _totidem verbis_[75] This is Protestant method: the Roman plan is _viam faciam_; the Protestant plan is _viam inveniam_.[76] The public at large begins to be conversant with the ways of _wriggling out_, as shown in the interpretations of the d.a.m.natory parts of the Athanasian Creed, the phrases of the Burial Service, etc. The time will come when the same public will begin to see the ways of _wriggling in_. But one thing at a time: neither Papal Rome nor Protestant Rome was built--nor will be pulled down--in a day.

The distinction above drawn between the two great ant.i.theses of Christendom may be ill.u.s.trated as follows. Two sets of little general dealers lived opposite to one another: all sold milk. Each vaunted its own produce: one set said that the stuff on the other side the way was only chalk and water; the other said that the opposites sold all sorts of filth, of which calves'

brain was the least nasty. Now the fact was that both sets sold milk, and from the same dairy: but adulterated with different sorts of dirty water: and both honestly believed that the mixture was what they were meant to sell and ought to sell. The great difference between them, about which the apprentices fought each other like Trojans, was that the calves' brain men poured milk into the water, and the chalk men poured water into the milk.

The Greek and Roman sects on one side, the Protestant sects on the other, must all have _churches_: the Greek and Roman sects pour the New Testament into their churches; the Protestant sects pour their churches into the New Testament. The Greek and Roman insist upon the New Testament being no more than part and parcel of their churches: the Protestant insist upon their churches being as much part and parcel of the New Testament. All dwell vehemently upon the doctrine that there must be milk {36} somewhere; and each says--I have it. The doctrine is true: and can be verified by any one who can and will go to the dairy for himself. Him will the several traders declare to have no milk at all. They will bring their own wares, and challenge a trial: they want nothing but to name the judges. To vary the metaphor, those who have looked at Christianity in open day, know that all who see it through painted windows shut out much of the light of heaven and color the rest; it matters nothing that the stains are shaped into what are meant for saints and angels.

But there is another side to the question. To decompose any substance, it must be placed between the poles of the battery. Now theology is but one pole; philosophy is the other. No one can make out the combinations of our day unless he read the writings both of the priest and the philosopher: and if any one should hold the first word offensive, I tell him that I mean _both_ words to be _significant_. In reading these writings, he will need to bring both wires together to find out what it is all about. Time was when most priests were very explicit about the fate of philosophers, and most philosophers were very candid about their opinion of priests. But though some extremes of the old sorts still remain, there is now, in the middle, such a fusion of the two pursuits that a plain man is wofully puzzled. The theologian writes a philosophy which seems to tell us that the New Testament is a system of psychology; and the philosopher writes a Christianity which is utterly unintelligible as to the question whether the Resurrection be a fact or a transcendental allegory. What between the theologian who a.s.sents to the Athanasian denunciation in what seems the sense of no denunciation, and the philosopher who parades a Christianity which looks like no revelation, there is a maze which threatens to have the only possible clue in the theory that everything is something else, and nothing is anything at all. But this is a paradox far beyond my handling: it is a Budget of itself. {37}

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.

Religion and Philosophy, the two best gifts of Heaven, set up in opposition to each other at the revival of letters; and never did competing tradesmen more grossly misbehave. Bad wishes and bad names flew about like swarms of wasps. The Athanasian curses were intended against philosophers; who, had they been a corporation, with state powers to protect them, would have formulized a _per contra_. But the tradesmen are beginning to combine: they are civil to each other; too civil by half. I speak especially of Great Britain. Old theology has run off to ritualism, much lamenting, with no comfort except the discovery that the cloak Paul left at Troas was a chasuble. Philosophy, which always had a little sense sewed up in its garments--to pay for its funeral?--has expended a trifle in accommodating itself to the new system. But the two are poles of a battery; and a question arises.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper, Where is the peck of pepper Peter Piper picked?

If Religion and Philosophy be the two poles of a battery, whose is the battery Religion and Philosophy have been made the poles of? Is the change in the relation of the wires any presumption of a removal of the managers?

We know pretty well who handled the instrument: has he resigned or been[77]

turned out? Has he been put under {38} restriction? A fool may ask more questions than twenty sages can answer: but there is hope; for twenty sages cannot ask more questions than one reviewer can answer. I should like to see the opposite sides employed upon the question, What are the _commoda_, and what the _pericula_,[78] of the current approximation of Religion and Philosophy?

All this is very profane and irreverent! It has always been so held by those whose position demands such holding. To describe the Church as it is pa.s.ses for a.s.sailing the Church as it ought to be with all who cannot do without it. In Bedlam[79] a poor creature who fancied he was St. Paul, was told by another patient that he was an impostor; the first maniac lodged a complaint against the second for calling St. Paul an impostor, which, he argued, with much appearance of sanity, ought not to be permitted in a well regulated madhouse. Nothing could persuade him that he had missed the question, which was whether _he_ was St. Paul. The same thing takes place in the world _at large_. And especially must be noted the refusal to permit to the _profane_ the millionth part of the licence a.s.sumed by the _sacred_.

I give a sound churchman the epitaph of St. John Long; the usual p.r.o.nunciation of whose name must be noted--

"Behold! ye quacks, the vengeance strong On deeds like yours impinging: For here below lies St. John Long[80]

Who now must be _long singeing_."

How shameful to p.r.o.nounce this of the poor man! What, Mr. Orthodox! may I not do in joke to one pretender what {39} you do in earnest--unless you quibble--to all the millions of the Greek Church, and a great many others.

Enough of you and your reasoning! Go and square the circle!

The few years which end with 1867 have shown, not merely the intermediate fusion of Theology and Philosophy of which I have spoken, but much concentration of the two extremes, which looks like a gathering of forces for some very hard fought Armageddon. Extreme theology has been aiming at a high Church in England, which is to show a new front to all heresy: and extreme philosophy is contriving a physical organization which is to _think_, and to show that mind is a consequence of matter, or thought a recreation of brain. The physical speculators begin with a possible hypothesis, in which they aim at explanation: and so the bold aspirations of the author of the _Vestiges_ find standing-ground in the variation of species by "natural selection." Some relics--so supposed--of extremely ancient men are brought to help the general cause. Only distant hints are given that by possibility it may end in the formation of all living organisms from a very few, if not from one. The better heads above mentioned know that their theory, if true, does not bear upon morals. The formation of solar systems from a nebular hypothesis, followed by organizations gradually emerging from some curious play of particles, nay, the very evolution of mind and thought from such an apparatus, are all as consistent with a Personal creative power to whom homage and obedience are due, and who has declared himself, as with a blind Nature of Things. A pure materialist, as to all things visible, may be even a bigotted Christian: this is not frequent, but it is possible. There is a proverb which says, A pig may fly, but it isn't a likely bird. But when the psychological speculator comes in, he often undertakes to draw inferences from the physical conclusions, by joining on his tremendous apparatus of _a priori_ knowledge. He deduces that he can _do without_ a G.o.d: he can deduce all things {40} without any such necessity. With Occam[81] and Newton he will have no more causes than are necessary to explain phenomena _to him_: and if by pure head-work combined with results of physical observation he can construct his universe, he must be a very _unphilosophical_ man who would enc.u.mber himself with a useless Creator! There is something tangible about my method, says he; yours is vague. He requires it to be granted that his system is _positive_ and that yours is _impositive_. So reasoned the stage coachman when the railroads began to depose him--"If you're upset in a stage-coach, why, there you are! but if you're upset on the railroad, where are you?" The answer lies in another question, Which is most positive knowledge, G.o.d deduced from man and his history, or the postulates of the few who think they can reason _a priori_ on the tacit a.s.sumption of unlimited command of data?

We are not yet come to the existence of a school of philosophers who explicitly deny a Creator: but we are on the way, though common sense may interpose. There are always straws which show the direction of the wind. I have before me the printed letter of a medical man--to whose professional ability I have good testimony--who finds the vital principle in highly rarefied oxygen. With the usual logic of such thinkers, he dismisses the "eternal personal ident.i.ty" because "If soul, spirit, mind, which are merely modes of sensation, be the attribute or function of nerve-tissue, it cannot possibly have any existence apart from its material organism!" How does he know this _impossibility_? If all the mind _we_ know be from nerve-tissue, how does it appear that mind in other planets may not be another thing? Nay, when we come to _possibilities_, does not his own system give a queer one? If highly rarefied oxygen be vital power, more highly rarefied oxygen {41} may be more vital and more powerful. Where is this to stop? Is it _impossible_ that a finite quant.i.ty, rarefied _ad infinitum_, may be an Omnipotent? Perhaps the true Genesis, when written, will open with "In the beginning was an imperial quart of oxygen at 60 of Fahrenheit, and the pressure of the atmosphere; and this oxygen was infinitely rarefied; and this oxygen became G.o.d." For myself, my aspirations as to this system are Manichaean. The quart of oxygen is the Ormuzd, or good principle: another quart, of hydrogen, is the Ahriman, or evil principle! My author says that his system explains Freewill and Immortality so obviously that it is difficult to read previous speculations with becoming gravity. My deduction explains the conflict of good and evil with such clearness that no one can henceforward read the New Testament with becoming reverence. The surgeon whom I have described is an early bud which will probably be nipped by the frost and wither on the ground: but there is a good crop coming. Material pneuma is destined to high functions; and man is to read by gas-light.

THE SUN AN ELECTRIC s.p.a.cE.

The solar system truly solved; demonstrating by the perfect harmony of the planets, founded on the four universal laws, the Sun to be an electric s.p.a.ce; and a source of every natural production displayed throughout the solar system. By James Hopkins.[82] London, 1849, 8vo.

The author says:

"I am satisfied that I have given the true _laws_ const.i.tuting the _Sun_ to be _s.p.a.ce_; and I call upon those disposed to maintain the contrary, to give true _laws_ showing him to be a body: until such can be satisfactorily established, I have an undoubted claim to the credit of my theory,--That the Sun is an _Electric s.p.a.ce_, fed and governed by the {42} planets, which have the property of attracting heat from it; and the means of supplying the necessary _pabulum_ by their degenerated air driven off towards the central s.p.a.ce--the wonderful alembic in which it becomes trans.m.u.ted to the revivifying necessities of continuous action; and the central s.p.a.ce or Sun being perfectly electric, has the counter property of repulsing the bodies that attract it. How wonderful a conception! How beautiful, how magnificent an arrangement!

"O Centre! O s.p.a.ce! O Electric s.p.a.ce!"

JOSEPH ADY.

1849. _Joseph Ady_[83] is ent.i.tled to a place in this list of discoverers: his great fault, like that of some others, lay in pushing his method too far. He began by detecting unclaimed dividends, and disclosing them to their right owners, exacting his fee before he made his communication. He then generalized into trying to get fees from all of the _name_ belonging to a dividend; and he gave mysterious hints of danger impending. For instance, he would write to a clergyman that a legal penalty was hanging over him; and when the alarmed divine forwarded the sum required for disclosure, he was favored with an extract from some old statute or canon, never repealed, forbidding a clergyman to be a member of a corporation, and was reminded that he had insured his life in the ---- Office, which had a royal charter. He was facetious, was Joseph: he described himself in his circulars as "personally known to Sir Peter Laurie[84] and all other aldermen"; which was nearly true, {43} as he had been before most of them on charges of false pretence; but I believe he was nearly always within the law. Sir James Duke, when Lord Mayor, having particularly displeased him by a decision, his circulars of 1849 contain the following:

"Should you have cause to complain of any party, Sir J. Duke has contrived a new law of evidence, viz., write to him, he will consider your letter sufficient proof, and make the parties complained of pay without judge or jury, and will frank you from every expense."

I strongly suspect that Joseph Ady believed in himself.

He sometimes issued a second warning, of a Sibylline character:

"Should you find cause to complain of anybody, my voluntary referee, the Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Laurie, Kt., perpetual Deputy Lord Mayor, will see justice done you without any charge whatever: he and his toady, -- ---- ----. The accursed of Moses can hang any man: thus, by catching him alone and swearing Naboth spake evil against G.o.d and the King. Therefore (!) I admit no strangers to a personal conference without a prepayment of 20s.

each. Had you attended to my former notice you would have received twice as much: neglect this and you will lose all."

ON MODERN ASTROLOGY.

Zadkiel's Almanac for 1849. Nineteenth number.

Raphael's Prophetic Almanac for 1849. Twenty-ninth number.