The Limits Of Atheism Part 1

The Limits Of Atheism.

by George Jacob Holyoake.

PREFACE.

The object of these pages* is not to defend the intellectual accuracy of Atheism (which could not be attempted in this brief s.p.a.ce), the object is to explain its case, to vindicate its moral rect.i.tude, and the right of those who hold these views, to legal equality. There are two Atheisms in literature--the ancient one of mere negation; and the affirmative form, whose relevant name is Cosmism, and of which Humboldt, in his 'Cosmos,' is a great ill.u.s.trator, and Comte, in his 'Positive Philosophy,' an expounder. The term Cosmism ought to supersede the misleading term Atheism; just as Secularism has superseded the libellous term Infidelity. Cosmism, as well as Secularism, expresses a new form of Freethought, and I use the term Atheism, as the subject of a Lecture, for the first time here. It is a worn-out word, used by Theists in hateful senses. I employ it, as a t.i.tle, to-day for political reasons, in order to show those who make it a ground of civil exclusion, that it is a thing of law and limits: that the reputed Atheism of English working men, so far as it prevails, is no longer the old Atheism of mere negation, but the Cosmism of modern science; neither dissolute, anarchical, nor impious--recognises that the universe is, without theorising _why_ it is. Negative Atheism says there is nothing beyond the universe. Cosmism says it cannot explain anything beyond, and pauses where its knowledge ends.

*A report of a Lecture delivered in Bendall's a.s.sembly Rooms, City Road, London, March 8rd, 1861.

Atheism questions--Cosmism affirms. The language of Cosmism is that of the poet in the 'Purgatory of Suicides':--

'I do not say--there is no G.o.d, But this I say--I know not.'

I prefer Secularism, which concerns itself with the moral life of man, and maintains a well-advised neutrality upon these speculative questions. My sympathies are with 'Adam Bede,' that striking and greatest creation of modern genius, in which the _National Review_ recognised 'The strong-headed, manly, sharp-tempered, secular carpenter, with his energetic satisfaction in his work, and impatience of dreamers.' But as I stated in the York Debate, in 1858, at which the Reverend Canons Hey and Robinson presided, it is an act of self-defence in England to question the a.s.sumed infallibility of Theism--to prove that Atheists are ent.i.tled to civil recognition, as persons having legitimate, actual, and conscientious views, and who, therefore, ought not to be outlawed as they are now. So long as sceptics of Theism are refused the right of affirmation in courts of law, and their lives and property consequently placed at the mercy of every ruffian and knave, so long will a Sceptical propaganda be a parliamentary necessity, to justify these opinions, and to spread them, that those who hold them may, like the Quakers, win by pertinacity what is denied to reason. And while this state of things lasts, I confess that I listen to arguments of opponents with distrust, for I see in them, not so much the confutation of my opinions, as the limitation of my freedom, and the justification of my political exclusion. In the present state of theological liberty in England, for the alleged Atheist to be silent, is to be a slave consenting to his own degradation.

G. J. H.

147, Fleet Street, London, E.C., April 13th, 1861.

THE LIMITS OF ATHEISM

Twenty years ago I stepped forward to defend the right of expressing Atheism on the part of those who conscientiously held it. On Mr.

Southwell's imprisonment in Bristol, I took his place as Editor of the _Oracle of Reason_, and shared his fate at Gloucester. Under the same circ.u.mstances I would do it again to-morrow. In the expression of speculative opinions there may be error and there may be outrage; but the error is best corrected by discussion, and the outrage by cultivation; but to prohibit the free publication of opinion is to strike at the root of all intrepidity of thought and individuality of character; and against a uniformity of profession, whether brought about by the tyranny of the majority, by the policeman, or by the magistrate, I ever have, and ever will, protest as unwise, dishonest, and degrading.

Because Atheistical opinions were attacked by the law I defended them: I defended the right to hold them without sharing them. And in all the publications I have edited, I have accepted the responsibility of the views of coadjutors and correspondents without conditions, and my name is a.s.sociated in consequence much more with other persons' opinions than with my own. When the rights of conscience in Free-thought are attacked, to discriminate is to condemn; and while persecution is attempted, I make it a point of honour never to pa.s.s in appearance on to the side of the persecutors. As soon as legal opposition to the publication of heretical opinion ceased, I was the first to insist that the day of good taste must commence. The moment fair play is permitted, all excuse for invective or outrage ends. Violence, exaggeration, denunciation, are crimes against Freethought the moment Freethought is permitted. Now that Sir George Cornewall Lewis, on the part of the Government, has refused Sir John Trelawny's request to alter the law which treats an Atheist as an outlaw, which denies him the common right of legal protection, which exposes him to plunder or a.s.sault without redress, which cedes to the Theist a monopoly of veracity in courts of law, and places the word of every man and woman, however honest, cultivated, and reputable, unable to make a Profession of Faith, as below that of a convicted felon, I am most reluctant to enter upon any explanation of my own views on the great speculative propositions of theology, lest it should appear to others as timidity, retreat, or disposition to compromise.. If a man had (which I have not) a change of opinion to own, this is not the hour to make it. But with respect to Affirmative Atheism, the necessity for newness of view is chiefly felt by those who do not understand it. It is refused civil recognition because it is conceived to be some lawless thing. The consternation excited just now by the 'Essays and Reviews' is owing to an apprehension that public opinion is tending to the negation of theology, and that is concluded to be a state of intellectual lawlessness. To trace any outline of the Limits of Atheism, may serve to give more intelligent definiteness to the misgivings entertained concerning it, and lead earlier to its legal recognition; and therefore alone I attempt it.

Let us avoid verbiage if we can. Too many words are the locusts of the mind, which darken the air of the understanding and eat up our meaning.

I believe that language is given us not to be used--except upon clear compulsion.

There are two terms which especially excite religious reprobation, and one of them excites mine. I refer to Infidelity and Atheism.

Infidelity is a term I detest. It implies that you believe enough to subject you to reproach, and disbelieve enough to ent.i.tle you to be d.a.m.ned. It signifies disbelief too inveterate to allow you to go back to superst.i.tion, and too much timidity to carry your doubt to a definite or legitimate result. I am for thoroughness and decision. If it be criminality to disbelieve, I will put scepticism far from me. I will not even tamper with doubt. But if it be lawful to reject from the understanding whatever seems false, then I will disbelieve error as a duty, and unhesitatingly doubt whatever is doubtful.

Atheism--objectionable as it is from wanton negative a.s.sociations--is a far more wholesome term. It is a defiant, militant word. There is a ring of decision about it. There is no cringing in it. It keeps no terms with superst.i.tion. It makes war, and means it. It carries you away from the noisome word-jugglery of the conventional pulpits, and brings you face to face with nature. It is a relief to get out of the crowd who believe because their neighbours do, who pray by rote, and worship through fear; and win your liberty to wander in the refreshing solitude where the heart may be honest, and the intellect free. Affirmative Atheism of the intellect is a proud, honest, intrepid, self-respecting att.i.tude of the mind. The Negative Atheism of mere ignorance, of insensibility, of l.u.s.t, and gluttony, and drunkenness, of egotism or vanity, whose talk is outrage, and whose spirit is blasphemy; this is the gross negation of G.o.d, which superst.i.tion begets in its slavery, and nurtures by its terrors. These species of Atheism I recognise only to disown and denounce them. Of these the priest is the author who preaches the natural corruption of the human heart, who inculcates the guilt of Freethought, the distrust of reason, and despair of self-reliant progress. Utterly different from this is the Atheism of reflection, which seeks for conclusive evidence, which listens reverentially for the voice of G.o.d, which weighs carefully the teachings of a thoughtful Theism; but refuses to recognise the officious, incoherent babblement of intolerant or presumptuous men. Reflective Atheism is simply a reluctant uncertainty as to the consciousness of Nature, or as to the existence of a Power over Nature. As one who will allow me the pleasure of calling him my friend, Mr. G. H. Lewes, said, all reflective Atheism is suspensive.

He invented the phrase Suspensive Atheism to describe the only form of opinion which he knew I maintained. The thoughtful Atheist wishes to perceive the whole truth of Nature, he hesitates unwillingly, and waits longingly for more light.

Let us dismiss at once that crude and evasive state which affects Atheism, and, at the same time, denies it; which says no Theist has defined Deity, and therefore the disbelief in it is an impossibility.

Affirmative Atheism may be wrong, but it is at least intelligible. It has a definite foundation, or it could claim no position, and would deserve none. It must go upon facts if it would maintain a place in the kingdom of thought, and it finds these facts in Positivism. The mind that has wandered in the torrid zones of error, thirsts ardently for the cooling draughts of positive truth. It is this sentiment which causes Freethought to take the form of Secularism, and exchanges the verbal distractions of conflicting creeds for the clear criterions of moral truth. It is the same wise impatience of metaphysical unrealities which leads to Affirmative Atheism, and explains it. A series of material and mental facts arrest the attention of one taking an unbiased and independent view of the universe, of time, and s.p.a.ce, and matter.

There are two cla.s.ses of thinkers--one who commence with ignoring Nature, seeking in something outside it for the origin of it, and who look upon the infinite processes of the worlds which people s.p.a.ce, with the dull astonishment accorded to mere agencies, rather than with the native wonder and awe which the consciousness of original powers awakens--these are Theists.

The other cla.s.s are those who regard matter as the very garment of the unknown G.o.d, to whom every spray, and pebble, and flower, and star is a marvel, a glory, and an inspiration; who, comprehending not an external cause of nature, recognise its existence, its surpa.s.sing affluence, its mult.i.tudinous marvels, and give them the first place in their wonder, study, reverence, and love--these are Affirmative Atheists.

To believe in Nature, in its self-existence, its self-subsistence, its self-action, its eternity, infinity, and materiality, and in that only, is Affirmative Atheism.* Reflective Atheism is pure inability to, realise the fact of the consciousness of the universe, or to conceive the existence of a Being over it.

To believe in something besides nature--is Theism.

To believe in the consciousness of nature--is Pantheism.

The explanation of Affirmative Atheism* here given, involves many considerations which I am not going to discuss. It is not my province here to defend, but to state the case. A definition is a map, but it is not the journey. A definition is a high road through a subject, and a high road should be a straight road: it may run out of the way of some populous towns and beautiful scenes, but it gives the means of quickest transit through a territory, from which the country can be viewed, and the traveller determine its general features.

* This might stand for a definition of Cosmism, which term I employ at substantially reciprocal with Affirmative Atheism, and as its subst.i.tute, if I may employ it in its modern and wider sense than defined by Pythagoras.

If we have said enough for this purpose, we may attempt to trace the limits of our subject. The road through every high question lies over precipices. Every great question has its Mont Blancs. The higher you climb the deeper the chasms on the right hand and on the left. The Roman Catholic makes worship an art, and abject submission a duty. To relieve you of anxiety he deprives the mind of initiation and freedom. The Protestant concedes you private judgment, and surrounds you by a social despotism lest you should use it. He subst.i.tutes a creed for the Church.

The Church is a cell, and the creed is a cage. The cage is lighter, more airy, and less repulsive than the cell, but the imprisonment is complete in both.

Mere Atheism inculcates freedom and intrepidity of the understanding, but may land you in negation, in dogmatism, in denunciation, in irreverence. These are the chasms that lie in the path of mere Atheism.

The traveller who pa.s.ses into these is lost. To avoid this danger we must keep within the limits naturally prescribed to Affirmative Atheism, which are:--

1. Positivism in Principle.

2. Exactness in Profession of Opinion.

3. Dispa.s.sionateness in Judgment.

4. Humanism in Conception.

1. The Positivist conception of Atheism exhibits the limits which modern thought has impressed upon it. Affirmative Atheism a.s.serts the realism of Nature; Theism denies it. Theism refuses to recognise the self-existence, the self-action, the self-subsistence, eternity, and infinity of the universe. Theism is the negation of Nature. It is a species of impiety towards nature, and supplants, by an artificial superst.i.tion, the instinctive reverence of the human heart.

Modern Atheism is falsely regarded as a mere negation, as a species of criminal vacuity of the understanding. To correct this idea is to win for these opinions attention if not a.s.sent. The negation of any error is useful, but it should be followed by its complement of positive truth.

All mere negative subjects are like the lime and pebbles swallowed by farm fowl to a.s.sist digestion, but it fares ill with the fowl if they get nothing but stones to digest; if no corn or barley follows to be operated upon. Now, questions of Atheism and Scepticism are the digestive stimuli of the mind; positive principles supply the corn and barley which sustain the mental system and preserve its life. If we give ourselves up to negative subjects merely, we come to resemble the theologians who, as Talleyrand said, 'pick a great many bones for very little meat.'

Old Atheism shows that the alleged proofs of the existence of a Deity are inconclusive, untenable, or self-refutatory. As a discipline of the intellect, as a questioning of that theistical speculation which has always been arrogant and tyrannical towards dissentients, there is good in negative Atheism. But it is more important if made to subserve practical objects. Mere negative Atheism has no ulterior objects it untenants the mind, and this may not be in all things beneficial. The slave may be more healthy who is forced to take exercise, and he may have more physical enjoyment of life than the indolent freeman, who is sedentary by choice, and diseased through inactivity and overfeeding.

You may pluck up weeds, and the rank herbage be more fruitful of miasma than the weeds; or if the plucked up weeds produce no harm, the ground may be left useless until crops are made to grow upon it. So of the weeds of worship which spring up in the priest-ridden mind. Reverence may be cultivated by superst.i.tion, good conduct maybe enforced by terror; if superst.i.tion and terror be exploded, the reverence and good conduct must be cared for and be better directed. Freethought is no half work, it has much to do.

It is delusive to pull down the altar of superst.i.tion and not erect an altar of science in its place. To pack up the household G.o.ds of superst.i.tion and leave the fireside bare, will hardly do.. Affirmative Atheism must teach that nature is the Bible of truth, work is worship, that duty is dignity, and the unselfish service of others consolation.

There is nothing wholly bad. Superst.i.tion has in it some elements of good. I no more believe in perfect error than in perfect truth. Error, like truth, is hardly ever found pure; error is mixed with good, and truth alloyed by evil. The mind must have something to feed upon, and if it cannot have truth, it will have superst.i.tion; and though superst.i.tion, like some diet, is very hard of digestion, and very innutritious, it is better to feed upon that than die. True, it keeps the mind thin, but it keeps it alive, and it is better to be a skeleton than a corpse. Now it is true that some intellects, like some animals, eat by instinct the right kind of food, but being healthy are not fastidious, and if you give them bad food they don't object to it and don't care for it. If they take it, their digestion is so good that it does not hurt them. But there are other people who pine for the knowledge of nature, and cannot subsist unless a large proportion of their mental aliment consists of definite principle. When these are not supplied by religious teachers, and Christianity by any intolerance prevents it being supplied by others, such natures expire in an intellectual sense, and Christianity ought to be regarded as guilty of wilful murder. And in the case of Atheism, those persons who are accustomed to take superst.i.tion, and are deprived of that, and no attempt is made to supply its place by more wholesome sustenance, are no doubt injured. Negative Atheism guilty of this neglect may be said to be guilty of manslaughter, and it would be murder were the neglect accompanied, as in the case of Theism, by intolerance. Beware of reckless iconoclasticism.

Mere negations give all advantage to superst.i.tion; error seems wisdom and wealth when truth is silent.

2. The logic of Affirmative Atheism begins in self-confession. Not to see anything where there is nothing to be seen is the sign of the true faculty; and not to say that you do see when you do not is the first sign of veracity of intellect.

Man is forgiven who believes more than his neighbours, but he is never forgiven if he believes less. If he believes more than his neighbours, there is the presumption that he may have made some discovery which may become profitable one day to join in. It may be that he who believes most, may merely possess a more industrious credulity, or possess a greater capacity for hasty a.s.sumption. But this is seldom probed. He who believes less may have abandoned some important item of justifiable belief. But when he who believes less than the mult.i.tude, confesses to the fact in the face of public disapproval, the probability is that he has inquired into, and sifted evidence which others have taken for granted, and discovered some error which they have accepted. His greater accuracy of mind and exactness of speech are an offence, because a reproach to the careless or unscrupulous intellects of those who conduct life on secondhand opinions. Yet austerity of intellect and austerity of speech is as wholesome in character, as austerity of morals. I hope, says Mr. Grote, in his great history of Greece, in a memorable pa.s.sage that ought not to die out of recollection, 'I hope, when I come to the lives of Socrates and Plato, to ill.u.s.trate one of the most valuable of their principles, that conscious and confessed ignorance is a better state of mind than the fancy without the reality of knowledge.' And in a pa.s.sage which I cannot now recall, Lord Brougham has said that 'a mind uninformed is better than a mind misinformed.' In a state of ignorance we do nothing, in a state of error we do wrong. The popular condemnation of the Atheist--which we have lately heard as ignorantly echoed in the House of Commons as in some Conventicles--is not always uttered, because the Atheist does not know more than others, for none know anything certain concerning the existence of G.o.d,* but because the Atheist does not profess more.

* In his remarkable work ent.i.tled 'First Principles,' now in course of publication, Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that certain terms of Cosmism are as incapable of ultimate explanation as certain terms of Theism. This shows how unwise is dogmatism, how unjustifiable is intolerance, on either side.

Cosmism, a thoughtful name, which ought to supersede Atheism in the future, neither denies nor affirms the existence of Deity. It waits for explanation and proof. It admits there is evidence of something, but what that something is, does not appear. There is evidence of more than we know, but what that is we do not know, and it is dishonesty to use a term respecting it, which pretends that we do know. Why should it not be honourable to observe a scientific reservation in the exposition of opinion? In science it is a sign of cultivation to understate a case and keep within the limits of fact and proof. The reservation of Cosmism, which so many regard as an offence, arises from a love of exact truth, from an endeavour to attain to it in expression, and from an honourable unwillingness to employ words which do not represent to him who uses them, definite ideas.