Superstition Unveiled by Charles Southwell

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That this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to No.
25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor,
[30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'As to
the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? We answer,
magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so, body is
the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked, 'Where is
mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the
mind and the mind is the body. Both these answers are true, or both are
false; and it must be allowed--

Each lends to each a borrowed charm,
Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

Ask the 'Shepherd' where is mind without the body? and, if not at issue
with himself, he _must_ reply, mind is the man and man is the mind.

If this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which
none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet
magnetism--how, in Reason's name, can they be different, or how can the
'Shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them; yet he does
so. He writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really
believed there is such a part. Not satisfied, it would seem, with body,
like Nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with Soul or Spirit,
or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own showing,
is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter
performing vital functions. Idle declamation against 'facts mongers'
well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of
'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who
maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement,
that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism.

But we deny that magnetism is the magnet. These words magnetism and
magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one
and only thing called matter. The magnet is an existence, _i.e._, that
which moves. Magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you
please, phenomena. It is the effect of which magnetic body is the
immediate and obvious cause.

To evade the charge of Materialism, said Dr. Engledue, we
(Phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes
use of the material to show forth its powers. What is the result of
this? We have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism
quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of Materialism. We have
two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded
to, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary
connection with it--producing material changes, yet
immaterial--destitute of any of the known properties of matter--in fact
an _immaterial something_ which in one word means _nothing_, producing
all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised-not susceptible of
proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism
fetters and ties down physiological investigation--that man's intellect
is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation--that we
have no evidence of the existence of an _essence_, and that organised
mutter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous
manifestations of human and brute cerebration.

We rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease
speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations
a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which
tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine
ourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its
changes--and its aberrations from normal structure. [31:1]

The eccentric Count de Caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by
some near relation and a pious Bishop, who hoped that under such trying
circumstance he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual'
blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with
contempt. After a long pause he broke silence by saying, _'Ah, my
friends, I see you are anxious about my soul;'_ whereupon they pricked
up their ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made the
Count added, _'but the fact is I have not got one, and really my good
friends you must allow me to know best.'_

If people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_
Count, the fooleries of Spiritualism would at once give place to the
philosophy of Materialism, and none would waste time in talking or
writing about non-entities. All would know that what theologians call
sometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary
existence. All would know that the terms _immaterial something_ do in
very truth mean _nothing_. Count de Caylus died as became a man
convinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of
our 'earthly tabernacle', the particles composing it cease to perform
vital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of Eternal Being.
Pietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim
monster;' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable
consequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of
superstition. Count de Caylus was a Materialist, and no Materialist can
consistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what
superstitionists have every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.'
Believers in the reality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper'
Materialists. Obviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of God
can be _bona fide_ Materialists; for 'God' is a name signifying
something or nothing; in other terms matter or that which is not matter.
If the latter, to Materialists the name is meaningless--sound without
sense. If the former, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because
it expresses nothing that their word MATTER does not express better.

Dr. Young held in horror the Materialist's 'universe of dust.' But there
is nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be
dust. A _dusty_ universe, however, _shocked_ the poetic Doctor, whose
writings analogise with--

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

A universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and
he accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining
one, and called its builder 'God.'

The somewhat ungentle 'Shepherd' cordially sympathises with Dr. Young in
his detestation of the Materialist's universe of dust, and is sorely
puzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance
of 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed
anything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move
something. Verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening
counsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates
so soundly.

The names of Newton and Clarke are held in great esteem by all who are
familiar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. As
a man of science, there is no individual, ancient, or modern, who would
not suffer by comparison with Sir Isaac Newton; while common consent has
assigned to Dr. Samuel Clarke the first place among religious
metaphysicians. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to cite any
other Theists of better approved reputation than these two, and
therefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as
they ranked among the most philosophic of Theists, it might be expected
that their conceptions of Deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and
definite.--Let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those
conceptions were.

Newton conceived God to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere,
not only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his
substance.--Again, 'All things are contained in him and move in him, but
without reciprocal action' (_sed sine muta passione_) God feels nothing
from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any resistance from
his universal presence. [33:1]

Pause, reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of Deity
is either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--God is _one_. Very
good--but one _what?_ From the information, 'He is the same for ever and
everywhere,' we conclude that Newton thought him a Being. Here, however,
matter stops the way; for the idea of Being is in all of us inseparably
associated with the idea of substance. When told that God is an 'Immense
Being,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think
of such a Being; but in vain. Reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the
moment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet
marvellous to relate, Newton did distinctly declare his Deity 'totally
destitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why He cannot be
either seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why he ought
not to be adored under any corporeal figure!

The proper function of 'Supernaturality or Wonder,' according to
Phrenologists, is to create belief in the reality of supernatural
beings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. Most
likely then, such readers of this book as have that organ 'large' will
be delighted with Newton's rhodomontade about a God who resists nothing,
feels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only
contains all things, but permits them to move in His motionless and
'universal presence;' for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the
lips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book.

By the same great _savan_ we are taught that God governs all, not as the
soul of the world, but as the Lord and sovereign of all things: that it
is in consequence of His sovereignty He is called the Lord God, the
Universal Emperor--that the word God is relative, and relates itself
with slaves--and that the Deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of
God, not over his own body, as those think who look upon God as the soul
of the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a
plain man who had not been informed it was concocted by Europe's pet
philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had
given birth to it. That there is no creature now tenanting Bedlam who
would or could scribble purer nonsense about God than this of Newton's,
we are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine
anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a
self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Being, creator of all
the worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an
infinitely larger scale, the same sort of game as Nicholas of Russia, or
Mohammed of Egypt, plays upon a small scale. There cannot be slavery
where there is no tyranny, and to say, as Newton did, that we stand in
the name relation to a universal God, as a slave does to his earthly
master, is practically to accuse such God, at reason's bar of _tyranny_.
If the word God is relative, and relate itself with slaves, it
incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and Deity is by
such reasoners degraded into the character of universal slave-driver.
Really, theologians and others who declaim so bitterly against
'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish
'infidels', who speaks or write of their God, should seriously consider
whether the worst, that is, the least superstitious of infidel writers,
ever penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that God they
effect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of Newton's.

If even it could be demonstrated that there is a super-human Being, it
cannot be proper to clothe Him in the noblest human attributes--still
less can it be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest Him
with odious attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves.
Besides, how can we imagine a God, who is 'totally destitute of body and
of corporeal figure,' to have any kind of substance? Earthly emperors we
know to be substantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it
not sheer abuse of reason to argue as though the character of God were
at all analogous to theirs; or rather, is it not shocking abuse of our
reasoning facilities to employ them at all about a Being whose
existence, if we really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and
allowed to be so by those very men who pretend to explain its character
and attributes? We find no less a sage than Newton explicitly declaring
as incontestible truth, that God exists necessarily--that the same
necessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all
eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all
action--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, an yet this same
sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges God is _totally unknown
to us_.

Now, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right Newton
could pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here
selected from his writings, with respect to a Being of whom, by his own
confession, he had not a particle of knowledge. Surely it is not the
part of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to
him, and yet that is precisely what Newton did, when he wrote concerning
God.

So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we
now to the Theism of Dr. Samuel Clarke.

He wrote a book about the being and attributes of God, in which he
endeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all
eternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one
unchangeable and independent Being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and
independent Being, which has existed from all eternity, without any
external cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth,
that 'what is the substance or essence of that Being, which is
necessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it
possible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent Being
must of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;'
sixth, that 'He must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original
cause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'God is not a
necessary agent, but a Being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth,
that 'God is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as He is
supreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a Being infinitely
just, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral
perfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.'

These are the leading dogma contained in Clarke's book--and as they are
deemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of
Theists, we will briefly examine the more important important of them.

The dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already
shown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the
real difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_.
Matter exists, and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or
annihilation, the Materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal
something. Newton as well as Clark thought the everlasting Being
destitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion,
divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_,
they did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not
matter, again we ask, what can it be? Of bodilessness or incorporiety no
one, even among those who say their God is incorporeal, pretend to have
an idea. Abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is,
but whether it be?_ Well, we have no objection to parties taking that
position, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who
think fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or
incorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned
facts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is.
It has always struck the author as remarkable that men should so
obstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary
existence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but
certainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having
nothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. Matter is
everywhere around and about us. We ourselves are matter--all our ideas
are derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse
character of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the
possibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace
the incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a
necessarily existing Being, who is without body, parts, passions, or
positive nature!

The second dogma informs us that this always-existing Being is
unchangeable and independent. One unavoidable inference from which is
that Deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the
universe--for a moveable Being must be a changeable Being, by the very
fact of its motion; while an independent Being must be motiveless, as it
is evident all motives result from our relationship to things eternal;
but an independent Being can have no relations, and consequently must
act without motives. Now, as no intelligent _human_ action can be
imagined without necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning
from analogy, it seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent
Being, Clarke was so sure must ever have existed, could have created the
universe, seeing he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create
it.

The third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a
thing or Being, which has existed from eternity without any eternal
cause of its existence, must be self-existent: but of course that dogma
leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something _not_
matter, is self-existent, just where it found it.

The fourth dogma is not questioned by Universalists, as they are quite
convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or
essence of an immaterial Being.

The other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than
repetition or expansion of the preceding one. Indeed, much of the
foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to
illustrate, so completely and clearly theistical absurdities. The only
dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for
if that fall, the rest must fall with it. If, for example, the reader is
convinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_
but eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence
by a Being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes a
Universalist--for if matter always was, no Being could have been before
it, nor can any exist after it. It is because men in general are shocked
at the idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they do
readily embrace the idea of a God, forgetting that if the idea of
eternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal
Being who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient
to shock all sense of the _possible_.

The man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at
least the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who
don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls
his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something
beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no
reasonable man need envy.

Of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been
operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but
when Dr. Clarke tell us of an intelligent Being, not _part_ but
_creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or,
in point of fact, _any_ conception of such Being. When he explains that
it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the
explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and
necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the
words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive
or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor
practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent Being.

We can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now
understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for
the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive
what those people can be dreaming of who talk as familiarly about the
extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame
of his spirit-lamp. The unsatisfactory character of all speculations
having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long
ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes
without necessity_--another rule of philosophising, for which we are
indebted to Newton, but to which no superstitious philosophiser pays due
attention. Newton himself in his theistical character, wrote and talked
as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule.

The passages given above from his 'Principia' palpably violate it. But
Theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of
philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet.

A distinguished modern Fabulist [38:1] has introduced to us a
philosophical mouse who praised beneficent Deity because of his great
regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of
wings, so that if they who have none, should by cats happen to be
exterminated, how easily could our 'Heavenly Father,' out of the bats
re-establish our exterminated species.

Voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and
here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little
regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he
sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.'
If she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of Deity would
have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. The wisdom
of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the Theologian who knew
not how sufficiently to admire God's goodness in causing large rivers
almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns.

To jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant
assumption, and to Deify errors on no other authority than their own
heated imagination, has in all ages been the practice of Theologians. Of
that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our Fabulist. Clothed
in no other panoply than their own conceits they deem themselves
invulnerable. While uttering the wildest incoherencies their
self-complacency remains undisturbed. They remind one of that ambitious
crow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper,
strutted so proudly about with the Peacock's feathers in which he had
bedecked himself.--Like him, they plume themselves upon their own
egregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains.

Let any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design,
and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. That argument
has for its ground-work beggarly assumption, and for its main pillar,
reasoning no less beggarly. Nature must have had a cause, because it
evidently is an effect. The cause of Nature must have been one God,
because two Gods, or two million Gods, could not have agreed to cause
it. That cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things
are double one against another, and He has left nothing imperfect. Men
make watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood,
hemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore God made nature out
of no material at all. Unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena we
behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something
unnatural. Not to believe in a God who designed Nature, is to close both
ears and eyes against evidence, therefore Universalists are wilfully
deaf and obstinately blind.

These are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody
knows, would palm upon us as demonstration of the Being and Attributes
of God.

By artfully taking for granted what no Universalist can admit, and
assuming cases altogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our
natural theologians find no difficulty in proving that God is, was, and
ever will be; that after contemplating His own perfections, a period
sufficiently long for 'eternity to begin and end in,' He said, let there
be matter, and there was matter; that with Him all things are possible,
and He, of course, might easily have kept, as well as made, man upright
and happy, but could not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due
regard to his own glorification. Wise in their generation, these 'blind
leaders of the blind' ascribe to this Deity of their own invention
powers impossible, acts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus
erecting doctrinal systems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance;
deifying their own monstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery,
madness, and crime.

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