"There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight"
--Goethe.
IN 1847 I commenced in the _Reasoner_ what I entitled "The Moral Remains
of the Bible,"--a selection of some splendid moral stories, incidents,
and sentences having ethical characteristics such as I doubted not would
"remain" when the Bible came to be regarded as a human book. I wrote
a "Logic of Life."* My _Trial of Theism_ was only "as accused of
obstructing Secular life," as stated on the title-page. The object was
to show how much useful criticism could be entered upon without touching
the questions of authenticity, or miracles, or the existence of deity.
Thus it was left to opponents to declare that things morally incredible
were inspired by God. In this case it was not I, but _they_, who
blasphemed.
* Companion to the "Logic of Death," both contained in The
Trial of Theism.
Take the case of Samson's famous engagement with the Philistines at
Ramath,--Lehi surrounded by a band of warlike Philistines (though,
as the text implies, 3,000 of his own armed countrymen were at hand).
Samson, who had no weapon, was not given one by them, but had to look
about for a "new jawbone of an ass." With this singular instrument he
killed, one after the other, a thousand Philistine soldiers, who were
big, strong men, and, unless every blow was fatal, it must have taken
several blows to kill some of them.
Are there three places in the human body where a single blow will be
sure to kill a man? Did Samson know those places? And was he always
able to direct his blow with unerring precision to one or other of those
particular spots? If the thousand Philistines "surrounded" him, how did
he keep the others off while he struggled with the one he was killing?
It is not conceivable that the Philistines stood there to be killed, and
meekly submitted to ignoble blows, death, and degradation. The jawbone
must have been of strange texture to have crashed through armor,
and have turned aside spears and swords of stalwart warriors without
chipping, splitting, or breaking in two. What time it must have taken
Samson to pursue each man, beat off his comrades, drag him from their
midst, give him the asinine _coup de grace_, drag and cast his dead body
upon the "heaps" of slain he was piling up! What struggling, scuffling,
and turmoil of blood and blows Samson must have gone through! Spurted
all over with blood, Barnum would have bought him for a Dime Museum
as the deepest-colored Red Indian known. No Deerfoot could have been
nimbler than Samson must have been on this mighty day. When this
Herculean fight was over, which, with the utmost expedition, must have
occupied Samson six days,--which would give 166 killed single-handed per
day,--the only effect produced upon Samson appears to have been that he
was "sore athirst." Even after this extraordinary use of the jawbone it
was in such good condition that, a hollow place being "clave" in it, a
fount of water gushed forth for refreshing this remarkable warrior. Were
it not recorded in the Bible, it would be said that the writer intended
to imply that the jawbone of the ass is to be found only in the mouth of
the reader.
Can it need miracle or prophecy, authenticity, or inspiration, to attest
this story of the Jewish Jack-the-Giant-killer? What moral good can
arise from a narration which it is reverence to reject? By leaving it to
the Christian to say it is given by "inspiration" of God, it is he
who blasphemes. But if the question of authenticity were raised, the
character of the narrative would be lost sight of, and would not
come into question; while the test of moral probability decides the
invalidity of the story within the compass of the knowledge of an
ordinary audience.
In the same manner, keeping to the policy of affirmation, he who
maintains the self-existence, the self-action, and eternity of the
universe can be met only by those who defame nature as a second-hand
tool of God. Such are atheists towards nature, the author of their
existence, and God must so regard them.
A single precept of Christ's, "Take no thought for the morrow," has
bred swarms of mendicants in every age since this day; but a far more
dangerous precept is "Resist not evil," which has made Christianity
welcome to so many tyrants. Christ, whatever other sentiments he had,
had a slave heart. Every friend of freedom knows that "resistance is the
backbone of the world." The patriot poet* exclaims:
"Land of our Fathers--in their hour of need
God help them, guarded by the passive creed."
* Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
No miracle could make these precepts true, and he who proved their
authenticity would be the enemy of mankind.
Whether Christ existed or not affects in no way what excellence and
inimitableness there was in his delineated character. His offer of
palpable materialistic evidence to Thomas showed that he recognised the
right of scepticism to relevant satisfaction. His concession of proof in
this case needed no supernatural testimony to render it admirable.
The reader will now see what the policy of Secularist advocacy
is,--mainly to test theology by its ethical import. To many all policy
is restraint; they cry down policy, and erect blundering into a virtue.
Whereas policy is guidance to a chosen end. Mathematics is but the
policy of measurement; grammar but the policy of speech; logic but the
policy of reason; arithmetic but the policy of calculation; temperance
but the policy of health; trigonometry but the policy of navigation;
roads but the policy of transit; music but the policy of controlling
sound; art but the policy of beauty; law but the policy of protection;
discipline but the policy of strength; love but the policy of affection.
An enemy may object to an adversary having a policy, because he is
futile without one. The policy adopted may be bad, but no policy at all
is idiocy, and commits a cause to the providence of Bedlam.