The Eclipse of Faith Part 27

I nodded.

"Well, then, first, there was one worthy philosopher, who, having seen the advantages which infidelity has gained from the discrepancies and other difficulties occasioned by the varied testimonies which the evangelical historians have left behind them, resolved, after having wrought a number of splendid miracles (uniformly affirmed and never denied by the parties in whose presence they were performed), that they should all be consigned to one single history., so admirably constructed that there was not a single discrepancy from beginning to end."

"And what was the effect?"

"Why, in the first place, you must recollect that, according to that or any other mode of authenticating a divine communication by miracles, there were a great many more of those who never saw the miracles than of those who did; for if miracles had been common, they would have ceased to be miracles. There were vast numbers, therefore, who, even in the age in which they were performed, never believed them; but, what is more, in four generations there was not a soul that did not treat them as old wives' fables."

"Surely they were very unreasonable," I said.

"Not at all; it was inevitable; for it was asked (and every one a.s.sented to it), whether it was reasonable that a story so marvellous, and so contrary to experience, should be believed on any single testimony, however unexceptionable? There were also keen critics who said, that, as there was proof that in the very age in which the miracles were wrought there were many who did not believe the message which they professedly confirmed, it was a strong indication that the whole was a fiction; while some others of still greater ac.u.men discovered that the very freedom from all discrepancies and contradictions in the account itself smelt very strongly of art and design; that this perfection of consistency was not the characteristic of any history ever written by an honest man, and that no doubt it had been elaborately contrived by a single highly inventive mind."

"The idiots!" I exclaimed. "Why, this very circ.u.mstance ought surely to have led them to argue the other way."

"They thought otherwise; and I must say I think they argued very plausibly, and that very much is to be said for them. They thought that perfect self-consistency might possibly be obtained by a single mind of highly inventive power, and they preferred believing that, to receiving such wonderful things supported by any single testimony."

"But did none attempt to remedy this defect of the unhappy speculator?"

"O, yes; another attempted to establish in a second community of our reasonable shadows a revelation on the same basis of miracles; but instead of trusting to one witness, he recorded the results by ten; and with such perfection of art, that all the ingenuity of all the critics of succeeding ages could not detect a single variation other than in language; the records themselves and their contents were precisely the same.

"And what was the result."

"Much the same as before; for this ident.i.ty of substance and almost of manner showed most evidently, said the critics, that there had been collusion between the several parties who had framed the revelation:--and in the course of three or four generations it was universally rejected, as totally unworthy of belief."

"I see not, then, how a revelation by any such means could be authenticated at all?"

"Why, our reasonable creatures require a great deal of management, --that is the truth. There is no way in which you cannot prove to your own satisfaction, that no one of any divine communications (given under the conditions aforesaid) is to be believed; but perhaps after all, the method would have been more sure, had these sages confined these communications to different testimonies, in which the general harmony and undesigned coincidences should be manifest, but which should contain slight discrepancies, and even some apparent contradictions, which the parties, if there had been collusion, would certainly have obviated. This would, perhaps, have been the best guaranty that there could not be any fraud in the case."

"But this," I remarked, "was just the mode in which the Gospels of Christ were consigned to mankind."

"And you see with what mixed result. It was sufficient, indeed, to justify the method, if it was attended with less disastrous effects than any other mode. For it is a problem of limits even at the very best."

Prompted, I suppose, by some recollection of Woolston's opinion, that the miracles of Jesus Christ would have been better worthy of attention, and more likely to be credited by posterity, if they had been performed on royal or notable public characters, or in their presence, I felt curious to know if any one had been determined to guard against a similar error. I was told that there had been; and for a time every thing went on well. This sage's doctrine and pretensions were rapidly propagated within certain limits of s.p.a.ce and time. But alas! while even in his lifetime the zeal of some of the royal or n.o.ble converts caused the doctrine to be regarded with considerable suspicion among the rival great, to whom the fame of the miracles was known only by hearsay, its early success proved an insurmountable objection in a few generations; for several learned infidels showed to the satisfaction of the entire community, that the pretended revelation could have been nothing else than a conspiracy of crafty statesmen for political purposes. It was sagely remarked, that it was not wonderful that a doctrine had been believed, and had rapidly diffused itself, which had all the prestige of rank, and power, and statesmanship in its favor; that if, indeed, it had appeared amongst the poor and ignorant portion of mankind, and the had been witnessed by such as from their situation were rather likely to be persecuted by the great and powerful than to be favored by them; and lastly, if the pretended revelation had vanquished such resistance instead of being suspiciously allied with it, something more might be said in its behalf; but as it was, the whole thing was evidently--a lie.

"Really," said I, "it seems a more difficult thing for G.o.d to make known his will to mankind than I had supposed."

"It is," said he, "on those conditions to which his wisdom for man's own sake has restricted him, and apart from which condition I have already stated that a revelation would be worthless. It is a far more difficult matter than those who have not reflected upon the subject would suppose, and you would have more reason to say so still, if you knew, as I do, how ludicrously, as well as how utterly, many other attempts have failed."

He then amused me with an account of a sage, who, seeing the ill consequences which had followed from the very local or limited character of miracles (when a few generations had pa.s.sed by), resolved to remedy this by a series of wonders so stupendous and magnificent, that the very echo of them, as it were, should reverberate through the hollow of future ages, and so impress all tradition as to render them independent of the voice of individual historians. He accordingly pa.s.sed to the very extreme limit (if he did not go beyond it) by which a miracle is necessarily restricted,-- that of not disturbing general laws. He succeeded perfectly in the place in which these phenomena were witnessed; though, as there were mult.i.tudes who knew nothing of the operator, but were only conscious that nature was playing some strange pranks, no connection was established in their minds between the doctrine and the miracles.

But the consequences in the future were the direct contrary of what the sanguine philosopher had contemplated. If the impression of those who saw these splendid wonders could have been prolonged, all had been well; but so far from the report of them conciliating the regard of posterity, their very grandeur and vastness were the princ.i.p.al arguments against them, and condemned them to universal rejection. Who could believe, men said, that phenomena so strange and so portentous--not only so different from, and so contrary to, the uniform course of nature, but so much beyond the limited purpose which must have been contemplated by a truly miraculous interposition--had ever happened? If they had been single events, very transient and local disturbances of the laws of nature for a high object, the case, they candidly avowed, would have been wholly different; but such wholesale infractions of the fixed laws of the universe were at once to be summarily rejected. They were unquestionably the offspring of an age of fable and superst.i.tion.

It did not fare much better with another miracle-monger of the same species. In one community, which he had engaged to instruct in the mysteries of his revelation, the wonders he wrought extended to such large cla.s.ses of phenomena, and for a time were so constant, that they ceased to be miracles at all. As he could not add ubiquity to his other attributes, few attached any importance to his declaration that he was the author of such vast and distant operations, and fewer absolutely believed him. Moreover, men became accustomed to phenomena which they daily witnessed; for such, it seems, is the const.i.tution of human nature in any world, that things cease to be wonderful when they cease to be novel. Were it otherwise, men would be always wondering; for no miracles are more wonderful than the phenomena of every day in every part of the universe. Not a few wise men, therefore, in this community, succeeded in giving a perfectly plausible account of these wholesale infractions of the uniformity of nature. Nature, it was said, was unquestionably uniform, but only in the several larger portions of her operations; that within certain cycles she varied her operations, as was clearly seen in the introduction of new races, and so forth; that the generation which had just witnessed such departures from what seemed the established order of things were doubtless living at an epoch in which the huge evolution of the universe was about to exhibit one of these new phases, and that the series of sequences to which they were just becoming accustomed would afterwards continue uniform for a number of ages; that such things were no miracles, but merely indicated that nature was, within certain limits, only variably uniform, though she was also, within certain limits, uniformly invariable.

After this very clear deliverance of philosophy, few people troubled themselves about the claims of this seer, and were so fast getting accustomed to the new uniformity, that it seemed highly probable that the very next generation, or at most the second, would begin to prate in the old style about the invariable uniformity of nature, and to treat all the ancient order of things which their progenitors had seen changed as a lying fable of those remote ages. Enraged at such an unexpected result of his operations, the projector changed his plan, and broke in upon nature with such a startling explosion of single miracles, that there could be no longer any doubt that nature was neither 'variably uniform' nor 'uniformly invariable': the only question was, whether nature was not 'uniformly variable.' He set the sun spinning through the heavens at such a rate, or rather at such a jaunty pace, that no one knew when to expect either light or darkness; men now froze with cold, and now melted with heat; the seasons seemed playing one grand masquerade; the longest day and the shortest day, and no day at all, succeeded one another in rapid succession, and the whole universe seemed threatened with ruin and desolation. Now, he thought, was the time to put an end to all this strange disorder, and avow himself the great agent in all these marvels!

But he found, to his chagrin, that, so far from having convinced men of the being and attributes of G.o.d, and of the truth of the revelation which he had brought them, they were never less disposed to listen to any such story; and, in fact, that the very few whose terror had left them at all in possession of their senses, had become perfectly convinced that the universe was under the dominion of Chance; and that the only orthodox belief in such a world was stark Atheism. As there will always be men who will speculate upon chance itself, there were not wanting philosophers who concocted admirable theories of all this disorder, but not one of them dreamed of the true. They all agreed, however, that the state of things admitted of no remedy from any G.o.ds, celestial or infernal; for if a divine artificer had existed, they said, it could not have occurred. And thus the miracles which were designed by this great man to convince the world of a G.o.d, served for a demonstration that there was and could be none! They equally served also to stifle the sage's claims to be considered G.o.d's messenger, for, unhappily exhorting a large crowd to believe that he was the cause of all the misery and terror which they had suffered, they were so exasperated that they took summary vengeance on him: upon which the sun resumed his wonted quiet pace again through the heavens, and every thing fell into the old harmonious jogtrot of uniformity.

Philosophers who lived at a distance from the scene of the prophet's exit quietly adjusted their old theory to the new phenomena, and showed most conclusively that the whole train of things had been just what must necessarily have been, and could not but have happened, without the most serious consequences; while those who lived near to the scene aforesaid, and were privy to the circ.u.mstances, speculated upon the curious coincidence between the impostor's death and the return of nature to her order. It was well, they said, that such things did not happen often, or they could not fail to give rise to some superst.i.tious notions as to some law of causation between ignorant fanaticism and the sublimest phenomena of the universe.

I asked my visitor how it fared with the many who have objected to the clearness and force of prophecy, and who have not scrupled to a.s.sert, that, if prophecies had been given, they would have been given in such a shape as would have made their claims more plain, and their fulfilment more incontrovertible. "Were there none who relied on this mode of demonstrating the reality of a divine revelation, and manifesting their claims to be regarded as an emba.s.sy from heaven?"

"Many," he replied, "so many that it were tedious to detail them. But you are quite mistaken if you suppose it possible that even G.o.d can employ any moral methods which man cannot evade; how much less the fools who think they can improve upon his! The wisdom of G.o.d," said he, with a melancholy smile, "is no match for the ingenuity of man. As to your present question, you know there have been persons who have continually complained in your world that prophecy is so obscure that the event cannot be certainly known to have been referred to by it, or else so plain that, ipso facto, it proves that the prediction must have been composed after the event. Now it was precisely in attempting the juste milieu between these extremes that our prophetical speculators wrecked themselves. Men always had it to say that their prophecies had been either too plain or too obscure; or, if very plain, and yet as plainly written before the event, that their very plainness had insured their own accomplishment by prompting to the very actions and conduct they so clearly indicated!"

"I can easily conceive that," I answered. "But now for another problem.

Not a few of our older infidels complained of the revelation in the Bible on the score that the maxims of conduct which it delivers are too general to be of any use, because the application of them is still left to be adjusted by a reference to particular circ.u.mstances; and that, if a revelation were framed, it ought to take in all the limitations of action, and furnish, in fact, a complete system of casuistry; otherwise it would be of no avail. Were there none who attempted this task?"

"Five-and-twenty men," he answered, "who were destined to be a torment to one another, were instructed to compile such a system of rules, and publish them for the benefit of a certain community as an infallible rule of life."

"And have they completed it?"

"Completed it! They have been sitting now for two hundred years, and have not yet exhausted the infinitude of cases to be digested under their very first capitulary." He said that being all of them ingenious men, all anxious to show their ingenuity, and knowing that their credit was staked upon the completeness of their system, it was incredible what strange and ridiculous contingencies and combinations of circ.u.mstance they had suggested as modifying the application of their general rules. The books of law, voluminous as they are in most civilized countries, were conciseness itself compared with this new code of morals. It was thought by many, that the labors of the commissioners would not come to an end till long after the race for whose benefit it was designed had ceased to exist. Afraid, apparently, of such a direful contingency, they had published, about three years before, the first part, in seventy-five folio volumes, containing limitations, ill.u.s.trative cases, exceptions, and modifications, in relation to that very obscure general maxim, 'Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you.' All questions appertaining to this point were from that time to be decided by the precise statements contained in these statutes at large. But their mere publication sufficed to make an incredible number of infidels in the authority of the commission. Such a voluminous rule, they truly said, could be no rule at all, and could be fruitful of nothing but everlasting litigation. If (they admitted) general maxims had been as briefly as possible laid down, and men's common sense had been left to interpret and apply them with the requisite restrictions, there would be much more to be said for their divine origin. But on such a system, no man, if he lived for a thousand years, could tell what his duty was. Many complained that, before they found the rule for which they were in search, the time for its application had pa.s.sed away. Many excused themselves from complying with the dictates of justice and charity, because they could not discover the cases that related to their special circ.u.mstances; some even denied that the rules could have been devised by heavenly wisdom, because, having carefully studied the whole of the seventy-five volumes, they did not hesitate to say, that there were many cases which had not been provided for at all!

I was so amused with this last disastrous attempt to construct a revelation, that I laughed outright, and in so doing awoke. I found that my lamp was fast going out; so, dismissing the innocent volume of Leibnitz which had suggested all these incongruities, I went to bed; firmly convinced that the shadows of men in the "Paradise of Fools" are about as wise and ingenious as are men themselves.

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July 28. I had this morning some curious, and, if it had not been for the grave importance of the subject, amusing conversation with Mr. Fellowes on his views, or rather his no views, respecting a "future life." He said he wished he could make up his mind whether the doctrine was true; also whether, as some of his favorite writers supposed, it was of no "spiritual" importance to decide it. I said it certainly did seem of some importance. I reminded him of Pascal's saying, that he could excuse men's contented ignorance with any thing rather than that. "They are not obliged," says he, "to examine the Copernican system; but it is vital to the whole of existence to ascertain whether the soul is mortal or not."

"Mr. Newman," said Fellowes, "thinks very differently: but then his whole mind is differently const.i.tuted from Pascal's."

I admitted it, of course.

"Mr. Newman's views," he continued, "on the subject, certainly do not quite satisfy me; and yet they are very sublime. If he has any hope in this matter, (of which he appears not absolutely dest.i.tute,) it is from the sheer strength of a 'faith' which triumphs over all obstacles, or rather hangs upon nothing. He ridicules all intellectual proofs, and at the same time declares that his 'spiritual insight' deserts him.

It is a faith pure from all reason, and from all 'insight' too. As to insight in this matter, I must agree with him, that, to ascertain the fact of a future life by 'direct vision,' is 'to me hitherto impossible.'"

Harrington, who was sitting by, smiled: "You speak of your 'insight' and 'direct vision' much as a Highlander might talk of his 'second sight.'

As to your present difficulty, do you remember the advice of Ra.n.a.ld of the Mist to Allan M'Aulay, when the 'vision' obstinately averted its face from him? 'Have you reversed your own plaid,' said Ra.n.a.ld, 'according to the rule of the experienced seers in such cases?' You do not wear a plaid, George, but suppose you try the experiment of turning your coat inside out."

"Really, Harrington," said Fellowes, with becoming solemnity, "'insight'

is far too serious a subject to joke upon."

"Why, my dear fellow," said the other, "you do not think I am going to treat your 'insight' with more respect than we treat the Bible."

"Odi profanum," said Fellowes, almost angrily.

"No man hateth his own flesh," said Harrington, with provoking quiet; "and that, I am sure, is from no profane writer. As to the 'odi profanum,'

why, I shall simply say, that

'You can quote it, With as much truth as he who wrote it.'"

So saying, he left the room. I was not sorry that he was gone, as I thought perhaps Fellowes might be more communicative. I asked him why he felt Mr. Newman's arguments on this subject unsatisfactory; why he could not acquiesce in them.

"In the first place, then," said he, "I was struck with the fact, that, while admitting that he had no 'spiritual insight' on the subject of a future life, he yet admits that others may have enjoyed what is impossible to him; that there may be souls favored with this 'vision,' though clouds obscure his own. It is true he has admitted (and indeed who can deny it?) that the spiritual faculty is not equally developed in all men;--though, as it is not, I feel some difficulty in rejecting the arguments hence arising for the possibility and utility of an external revelation;--yet at the best, if the faculty may be so uncertain in reference to so important a question, when consulted by so diligent and deep a student of its oracles as Mr. Newman, if even his soul may be dubious on such a point,--why, upon my soul, I sometimes hardly know what to think.

Again, Mr. Newman says, that some may have, as by special privilege from G.o.d, what is denied to him. Now really this looks a little too much like favoring the vulgar view of inspiration, nay, a sort of Calvinistic 'election' in this matter; it seems to me to cast doubts both on the competency and the uniformity of the sublime 'spiritual faculty,' even when most sedulously consulted."

"It does look a little like it," said I; "and what next?"

"In the next place, I am free to confess, that, if I may be allowed to argue against such an authority--"

"O, remember, I pray, that you are of the school of free thought: do not Bibliolatrize."

"To state my views freely then: I must say, that, if this suspected doctrine be not one of the unsophisticated utterances of the spiritual nature of man, I am almost led to doubt whether the clearness with which the spiritualist 'gazes' on the rest may not possibly be an illusion. For if any truth would seem to be a dictate of nature, it is a sort of dim conviction or impression of a future state. We see it, in some shape or other, extensively believed by all nations, and forming a feature of all systems of religion, however degraded they may be.

Mr. W. J. Fox mentions it as one of those things which are certainly characteristic of the absolute religion; so does Mr. Parker. Mr. Fox expressly affirms that the approximate universality of the belief justifies the application of his criterion for detecting the eternally 'true' under the Protean shapes of the 'false' in religion; it is one of the points, he says, in which they are all agreed."

"Which," said I, "if true, is perhaps the only point in which all religions are agreed, unless we affirm that they have all recognized a Deity, because most of them have recognized thousands. Yet as men's G.o.ds have varied between the Infinite Creator and a monkey, so in relation to this article of a 'future life,' it must be confessed that there is a little difference between the Heaven of a Christian, the Paradise of a Mahometan, and the Valhalla of an ancient Goth. Still, as you say, it is true that, in some shape or other, nations have more distinctly recognized the idea of an after existence, than any other a.s.signable religious tenet."