PART 6

It must be a slight fabric, indeed, said DEMEA, which can be erected on

so tottering a foundation. While we are uncertain whether there is one

deity or many; whether the deity or deities, to whom we owe our

existence, be perfect or imperfect, subordinate or supreme, dead or

alive, what trust or confidence can we repose in them? What devotion or

worship address to them? What veneration or obedience pay them? To all

the purposes of life the theory of religion becomes altogether useless:

and even with regard to speculative consequences, its uncertainty,

according to you, must render it totally precarious and unsatisfactory.

To render it still more unsatisfactory, said PHILO, there occurs to me

another hypothesis, which must acquire an air of probability from the

method of reasoning so much insisted on by CLEANTHES. That like effects

arise from like causes: this principle he supposes the foundation of all

religion. But there is another principle of the same kind, no less

certain, and derived from the same source of experience; that where

several known circumstances are observed to be similar, the unknown will

also be found similar. Thus, if we see the limbs of a human body, we

conclude that it is also attended with a human head, though hid from us.

Thus, if we see, through a chink in a wall, a small part of the sun, we

conclude, that, were the wall removed, we should see the whole body. In

short, this method of reasoning is so obvious and familiar, that no

scruple can ever be made with regard to its solidity.

Now, if we survey the universe, so far as it falls under our knowledge,

it bears a great resemblance to an animal or organised body, and seems

actuated with a like principle of life and motion. A continual

circulation of matter in it produces no disorder: a continual waste in

every part is incessantly repaired: the closest sympathy is perceived

throughout the entire system: and each part or member, in performing its

proper offices, operates both to its own preservation and to that of the

whole. The world, therefore, I infer, is an animal; and the Deity is the

SOUL of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it.

You have too much learning, CLEANTHES, to be at all surprised at this

opinion, which, you know, was maintained by almost all the Theists of

antiquity, and chiefly prevails in their discourses and reasonings. For

though, sometimes, the ancient philosophers reason from final causes, as

if they thought the world the workmanship of God; yet it appears rather

their favourite notion to consider it as his body, whose organisation

renders it subservient to him. And it must be confessed, that, as the

universe resembles more a human body than it does the works of human art

and contrivance, if our limited analogy could ever, with any propriety,

be extended to the whole of nature, the inference seems juster in favour

of the ancient than the modern theory.

There are many other advantages, too, in the former theory, which

recommended it to the ancient theologians. Nothing more repugnant to all

their notions, because nothing more repugnant to common experience, than

mind without body; a mere spiritual substance, which fell not under their

senses nor comprehension, and of which they had not observed one single

instance throughout all nature. Mind and body they knew, because they

felt both: an order, arrangement, organisation, or internal machinery, in

both, they likewise knew, after the same manner: and it could not but

seem reasonable to transfer this experience to the universe; and to

suppose the divine mind and body to be also coeval, and to have, both of

them, order and arrangement naturally inherent in them, and inseparable

from them.

Here, therefore, is a new species of Anthropomorphism, CLEANTHES, on

which you may deliberate; and a theory which seems not liable to any

considerable difficulties. You are too much superior, surely, to

systematical prejudices, to find any more difficulty in supposing an

animal body to be, originally, of itself, or from unknown causes,

possessed of order and organisation, than in supposing a similar order to

belong to mind. But the vulgar prejudice, that body and mind ought always

to accompany each other, ought not, one should think, to be entirely

neglected; since it is founded on vulgar experience, the only guide which

you profess to follow in all these theological inquiries. And if you

assert, that our limited experience is an unequal standard, by which to

judge of the unlimited extent of nature; you entirely abandon your own

hypothesis, and must thenceforward adopt our Mysticism, as you call it,

and admit of the absolute incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature.

This theory, I own, replied CLEANTHES, has never before occurred to me,

though a pretty natural one; and I cannot readily, upon so short an

examination and reflection, deliver any opinion with regard to it. You

are very scrupulous, indeed, said PHILO: were I to examine any system of

yours, I should not have acted with half that caution and reserve, in

starting objections and difficulties to it. However, if any thing occur

to you, you will oblige us by proposing it.

Why then, replied CLEANTHES, it seems to me, that, though the world does,

in many circumstances, resemble an animal body; yet is the analogy also

defective in many circumstances the most material: no organs of sense; no

seat of thought or reason; no one precise origin of motion and action. In

short, it seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an

animal, and your inference would be so far inconclusive in favour of the

soul of the world.

But, in the next place, your theory seems to imply the eternity of the

world; and that is a principle, which, I think, can be refuted by the

strongest reasons and probabilities. I shall suggest an argument to this

purpose, which, I believe, has not been insisted on by any writer. Those,

who reason from the late origin of arts and sciences, though their

inference wants not force, may perhaps be refuted by considerations

derived from the nature of human society, which is in continual

revolution, between ignorance and knowledge, liberty and slavery, riches

and poverty; so that it is impossible for us, from our limited

experience, to foretell with assurance what events may or may not be

expected. Ancient learning and history seem to have been in great danger

of entirely perishing after the inundation of the barbarous nations; and

had these convulsions continued a little longer, or been a little more

violent, we should not probably have now known what passed in the world a

few centuries before us. Nay, were it not for the superstition of the

Popes, who preserved a little jargon of Latin, in order to support the

appearance of an ancient and universal church, that tongue must have been

utterly lost; in which case, the Western world, being totally barbarous,

would not have been in a fit disposition for receiving the GREEK language

and learning, which was conveyed to them after the sacking of

CONSTANTINOPLE. When learning and books had been extinguished, even the

mechanical arts would have fallen considerably to decay; and it is easily

imagined, that fable or tradition might ascribe to them a much later

origin than the true one. This vulgar argument, therefore, against the

eternity of the world, seems a little precarious.

But here appears to be the foundation of a better argument. LUCULLUS was

the first that brought cherry-trees from ASIA to EUROPE; though that tree

thrives so well in many EUROPEAN climates, that it grows in the woods

without any culture. Is it possible, that throughout a whole eternity, no

EUROPEAN had ever passed into ASIA, and thought of transplanting so

delicious a fruit into his own country? Or if the tree was once

transplanted and propagated, how could it ever afterwards perish? Empires

may rise and fall, liberty and slavery succeed alternately, ignorance and

knowledge give place to each other; but the cherry-tree will still remain

in the woods of GREECE, SPAIN, and ITALY, and will never be affected by

the revolutions of human society.

It is not two thousand years since vines were transplanted into FRANCE,

though there is no climate in the world more favourable to them. It is

not three centuries since horses, cows, sheep, swine, dogs, corn, were

known in AMERICA. Is it possible, that during the revolutions of a whole

eternity, there never arose a COLUMBUS, who might open the communication

between EUROPE and that continent? We may as well imagine, that all men

would wear stockings for ten thousand years, and never have the sense to

think of garters to tie them. All these seem convincing proofs of the

youth, or rather infancy, of the world; as being founded on the operation

of principles more constant and steady than those by which human society

is governed and directed. Nothing less than a total convulsion of the

elements will ever destroy all the EUROPEAN animals and vegetables which

are now to be found in the Western world.

And what argument have you against such convulsions? replied PHILO.

Strong and almost incontestable proofs may be traced over the whole

earth, that every part of this globe has continued for many ages entirely

covered with water. And though order were supposed inseparable from

matter, and inherent in it; yet may matter be susceptible of many and

great revolutions, through the endless periods of eternal duration. The

incessant changes, to which every part of it is subject, seem to intimate

some such general transformations; though, at the same time, it is

observable, that all the changes and corruptions of which we have ever

had experience, are but passages from one state of order to another; nor

can matter ever rest in total deformity and confusion. What we see in the

parts, we may infer in the whole; at least, that is the method of

reasoning on which you rest your whole theory. And were I obliged to

defend any particular system of this nature, which I never willingly

should do, I esteem none more plausible than that which ascribes an

eternal inherent principle of order to the world, though attended with

great and continual revolutions and alterations. This at once solves all

difficulties; and if the solution, by being so general, is not entirely

complete and satisfactory, it is at least a theory that we must sooner or

later have recourse to, whatever system we embrace. How could things have

been as they are, were there not an original inherent principle of order

somewhere, in thought or in matter? And it is very indifferent to which

of these we give the preference. Chance has no place, on any hypothesis,

sceptical or religious. Every thing is surely governed by steady,

inviolable laws. And were the inmost essence of things laid open to us,

we should then discover a scene, of which, at present, we can have no

idea. Instead of admiring the order of natural beings, we should clearly

see that it was absolutely impossible for them, in the smallest article,

ever to admit of any other disposition.

Were any one inclined to revive the ancient Pagan Theology, which

maintained, as we learn from HESIOD, that this globe was governed by

30,000 deities, who arose from the unknown powers of nature: you would

naturally object, CLEANTHES, that nothing is gained by this hypothesis;

and that it is as easy to suppose all men animals, beings more numerous,

but less perfect, to have sprung immediately from a like origin. Push the

same inference a step further, and you will find a numerous society of

deities as explicable as one universal deity, who possesses within

himself the powers and perfections of the whole society. All these

systems, then, of Scepticism, Polytheism, and Theism, you must allow, on

your principles, to be on a like footing, and that no one of them has any

advantage over the others. You may thence learn the fallacy of your

principles.