Attributed to Matthew Turner (d. 1788?) and William Hammon.
Transcribed by the Freethought Archives
NOTE: Irregularities in orthography and punctuation have been
reproduced without emendation from the first edition of 1782.
ANSWER TO DR. PRIESTLEY'S LETTERS TO A PHILOSOPHICAL UNBELIEVER.
PART I.
LONDON.
MDCCLXXXII
ADVERTISEMENT.
The Editor of this publication has more in object to answer Dr. Priestley
than to deliver his own sentiments upon Natural Religion, which however
he has no inclination to disguise: but he does not mean to be answerable
for them farther, than as by reason and nature he is at present
instructed. The question here handled is not so much, whether a
Deity and his attributed excellences exist, as whether there is any
Natural or Moral proof of his existence and of those attributes.
Revealed knowledge is not descanted upon; therefore Christians at least
need take no offence. Doubts upon Natural Religion have not hitherto
been looked upon as attacks upon Revelation, but rather as corroborations
of it. What the Editor believes as a Christian (if he is one is
therefore another affair, nor does he reckon himself so infallible or
incapable of alteration in his sentiments, as not at another time to
adopt different ones upon more reflexion and better information;
therefore, though he has at present little or no doubt of what he
asserts (taken upon the principles laid down) he shall hold himself
totally freed from any necessity of defending the contents of this
publication if brought into controversy; and as he has no desire of
making converts, hopes he shall not himself be marked out as an object
of persecution.
Speculative points have always been esteemed fair matters for a free
discussion. The religion established in this country is not the
religion of Nature, but the religion of Moses and Jesus, with whom the
writer has nothing to do. He trusts therefore he shall not be received
as a malevolent disturber of such common opinions as are esteemed to
keep in order a set of low wretches so inclinable to be lawless. At
least, if he attempts to substitute better foundations for morality,
malevolence can be no just charge. Truth is his aim; and no professors
of religion will allow their system to be false. Or if he should be
thought too bold a speculator, such of the ecclesiastics as will be his
opponents may rather laugh at him than fear him. They have a thousand
ways of making their sentiments go down with the bulk of mankind, to
one this poor writer has. They are an army ready marshalled for the
support of their own thesis; they are in the habit of controversy;
pulpits are open to them as well as the press; and while the present
author will be looked upon as a miracle of hardiness for daring to put
his name to what he publishes, they can without fear or imputation lift
up their heads; and should they even be known to transgress the bounds
of good sense or politeness, they will only be esteemed as more zealous
labourers in their own vocation.
PREFATORY ADDRESS.
Dr. Priestley,
Your Letters addressed to a Philosophical Unbeliever I perused, not
because I was a Philosopher or an Unbeliever; it were presumption to
give myself the former title, and at that time I certainly did not
deserve the latter; but as I was acquainted with another, who in
reality, as far as I and others who know him can judge, deserves the
title of a Philosopher and is neither ashamed nor afraid of that of an
Unbeliever, I conceived them apt to be sent to my friend, and when I
presented them to him, he said he was the person whom he should suppose
you meant to address, if you had a particular person in view; but he
had too much understanding of the world, though much abstracted from
the dregs of it, not to conceive it more probable that you meant your
Letters to be perused by thinking men in general, Believers and
Unbelievers, to confirm the former in their creed, and to convert the
latter from their error. You shall speedily know the effect they have
had in both ways. For myself I must inform you that I was brought up a
Believer from my infancy; a Theist, if a Christian is such; for I
suppose the word will be allowed, though the equivalent term of Deist
is so generally reprobated by Christians; I had before my eyes the
example of a most amiable parent; a moral man, a Christian undoubtedly;
who, when I have been attending upon him, as much from affection as
from duty upon a sick and nearly dying bed, has prayed I might be
stedfast in the faith he held, in accents still sounding in my
intellectual ear; a parent, whom for his virtues and love of his
offspring, like a Chinese, I am tempted to worship, and I could exclaim
with the first of poets,
_"Erit ille mihi semper Deus."_
With such habits of education then, such fervent advice and such
reverence for my instructor, what can have turned me from my belief;
for I confess I am turned? Immorallity it is not; that I assert has not
preceded my unbelief, and I trust never will follow it; there has not
indeed yet been time for it to follow; whether it is a probable
consequence will presently be discussed; but it is _thought_, free
thought upon the subject; when I began freely to think I proceeded
boldly to doubt; your Letters gave me the cause for thinking, and my
scepticism was exchanged for conviction; not entirely by the perusal of
your Letters; for I do not think they would quite have made me an
Atheist! but by attention to that answer from my friend, which I have
his permission to subjoin.
In mentioning that doubts arose by reading your very Letters, which
were written to eradicate all doubts, let me not accuse you of being
unequal to the task assumed. I mean no such charge. You have in my
opinion been fully equal to the discussion, and have bandied the
argument ably, pleasingly and politely. I am certain from the extracts
you have made from Dr. Clarke, the first of other Divines, I should
have been converted from my superstition by his reasoning, even without
perusal of an answer: I pay you however the compliment of having only
brought me to doubt, and I find I am not the only person who have been
led to disbelieve by reading books expressly written to confirm the
Believer. Stackhouse's Comment upon the Bible, and Leland's View of
Deistical Writers have perhaps made as many renegado's in this country
as all the allurements of Mahometanism has in others. What can be said
to this? They were both undoubtedly men of abilities, and meant well to
the cause they had to support. All that I shall observe upon the matter
is, that what cannot bear discussion cannot be true. Reasoning in other
sciences is the way to arrive at truth: the learned for a while may
differ, but argument at last finds its force, and the controversy
usually ends in general conviction. Reasoning upon the science of
divinity will equally have its weight, and all men of letters would
long ago have got rid of all superstitious notions of a Deity, but that
men of letters are frequently men of weak nerves; such as Dr. Johnson
is well known to be, that great triumph to religionists; it requires
courage as well as sense to break the shackles of a pious education;
but if merely a resolve to reason upon their force can break them, what
can we observe in conclusion but
_"Magnus est veritas et prevalebit."_
That religion or belief of a Deity cannot bear the force of argument is
well known by Divines in general, is manifest by their annexing an idea
of reproach to the very term of arguing upon the subject. These arguers
they call Free-thinkers, and this appellation has obtained, in the
understanding of pious believers, the most odious disgrace. Yet we
cannot argue without thinking; nor can we either think or argue to any
purpose without freedom. Therefore free-thinking, so far from being a
disgrace, is a virtue, a most commendable quality. How absurd, and how
cruel it is in the professors of divinity, to address the understanding
of men on the subject of their belief, and to upbraid those very men
who shall exercise their understanding in attending to their arguments!
No tyranny is greater than that of ecclesiastics. These chain down our
very ideas, other tyrants only confine our limbs. They invite us to the
argument, yet damn us to eternal punishment for the use of reason on
the subject. They give to man an essence distinct from his corporeal
appearance and this they call his soul, a very ray and particle of the
Divine Being; the principal faculty of this soul they allow to be that
of reasoning, and yet they call reason a dark lanthorn, an erroneous
vapour, a false medium, and at last the very instrument of another
fancied Being of their own to lead men into their own destruction.
_"In the image of himself made he man."_ A favourite text with
theologians; but surely they do not mean that this God Almighty of
theirs has got a face and person like a man. No; that they exclaim
against, and, when we push them for the resemblance, they confess
it is in the use of reason; it is in the soul.
I am aware that I am not here to mix questions of Christianity with the
general question of a Divinity; subjects of a very distinct enquiry,
and which in the Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever are very
carefully separated. The subject of revelation is indeed promised
afterwards to be taken up, provided the argument in favour of Natural
Religion meets with a good reception. How, Dr. Priestley, you can judge
of that reception I am at a loss to know, otherwise than by the number
of editions you publish. It is then in the sum total just as much as if
you had said, "provided this book sells well I will write another." Yet
it may be sold to many such readers as I have been, though you will
hardly call such reception good. You that have wrote so much, to whom
it is so easy to write more, who profess a belief of revelation, such a
laborious enquirer, and so great a master of the art of reasoning,
should rather have engaged at once to prove in a subsequent publication
the truth of revealed religion in arguments, as candid and as fairly
drawn as those you have used in proof of a Deity independent of
revelation. Different as I am in qualifications from you, not very
learned, far from industrious, unused to publish, I do now promise
that when you shall have brought into light your intended letters in
behalf of revelation I will answer them. I hope you will take it as an
encouragement to write that you are sure you shall have an answer. I
mean you should, and I am sure I shall think myself greatly honoured if
you will descend so far as to reply to my present answer. I know you
have been used in controversies to have the last word, and in this I
shall not baulk your ambition; for notwithstanding any defect of my
plea in favour of atheism I mean to join issue upon your replication,
and by no means, according to the practice and language of the lawyers,
to put in a rejoinder. Should your arguments be defectively answered by
me, should your learning and your reasoning be more conspicuous than
mine, I shall bear your triumph without repining.
I declare I am rather pleased there are so few atheists than at all
anxious to make more. I triumph in my superior light. I am like the Jew
or the Bramin who equally think themselves privileged in their superior
knowledge of the Deity. With me and with my friend the comparison holds
by way of contrast, for we are so proud in our singularity of being
atheists that we will hardly open our lips in company, when the
question is started for fear of making converts, and so lessening our
own enjoyment by a numerous division of our privilege with others. It
has indeed often been disputed, whether there is or ever was such a
character in the world as an atheist. That it should be disputed is to
me no wonder. Every thing may be, and almost every thing has been
disputed. There are few or none who will venture openly to acknowledge
themselves to be atheists. I know none among my acquaintance, except
that one friend, to whom as a Philosophical Unbeliever I presented your
Letters, and to whose answer I only mean this address as an
introduction. I shall therefore not enter here into the main argument
of Deity or no Deity. My address is only preliminary to the subject;
but I do not therefore think myself precluded from entering into some
considerations that may be thought incidental to it. I mean such
considerations as whether immorality, unhappiness or timidity
necessarily do or naturally ought to ensue from a system of atheism.
But as to the question whether there is such an existent Being as an
atheist, to put that out of all manner of doubt, I do declare upon my
honour that I am one. Be it therefore for the future remembered, that
in London in the kingdom of England, in the year of our Lord one
thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, a man has publickly declared
himself an atheist. When my friend returned me your Letters, addressing
me with a grave face he said, "I hope, if you have any doubts, these
Letters will have as good effect upon you as they have had upon me."
My countenance brightened up and I replied, "You are then, my friend,
convinced ?" "Yes, he said, I am convinced; that is, I am most
thoroughly convinced there is no such thing as a God." Behold then,
if we are to be believed, two atheists instead of one.
Another question has been raised "whether a society of atheists can
exist?" In other words "whether honesty sufficient for the purposes
of civil society can be insured by other motives than the belief of
a Deity?" Bayle has handled that question well. [Footnote: _Pensees
sur la Comete_.] Few who know how to reason (and it is in vain to speak
or think of those who lay reason out of the case) can fail to be convinced
by the arguments of Bayle. I shall discuss the question no farther
than as it is necessarily included in the discussion of some of those
supposed results of atheism, such as I have before mentioned in the
instances of immorality, unhappiness and timidity. In my argument
upon this subject I shall carefully avoid all abuse and ridicule.
Controversies are apt to be acrimonious. You, Sir, have certainly shewn
instances to the contrary. You have charity beyond your fellows in the
ecclesiastical line, and your answerers seem not to me to have a right
in fair argument to step out of the limits you have prescribed
yourself. To dispute with you is a pleasure equal almost to that of
agreeing with another person. You have candour enough to allow it
possible that an atheist may be a moral man. Where is that other
ecclesiastic who will allow the same? Your answerers ought also to
hold themselves precluded from using ridicule in handling this subject.
I am no great supporter of Lord Shaftesbury's doctrine that ridicule
is the test of truth. I own truth can never be ridiculous, that is,
it can never be worthy of laughter, but still it may be laughed at.
To use the other term, I may say, truth can never be worthy of ridicule,
but still it may be ridiculed. Just ridicule is a sufficient test
of truth; but after all we should be driven to an inquiry, upon
the principles of reasoning, whether the ridicule were just or not.
Boldness, which is not incompatible with decency and candour, I do
hold to be an absolute requisite in all speech and argument, where
truth is the object of inquiry. Therefore when I am asked, whether
there is a God or no God, I do not mince the matter, but I boldly
answer there is none, and give my reason for my disbelief; for I
adopt my friend's answer by the publication of it.
That mischief may ensue to society by such freedom of discussion is
also another argument for me to consider; I do not say to combat, for
though I were convinced or could not resist the argument that mischief
would ensue to society by such a discussion, yet I should think myself
intitled to enter into it. I have a right to truth, and to publish
truth, let society suffer or not suffer by it. That society which
suffers by truth should be otherwise constituted; and as I cannot well
think that truth will hurt any society rightly constituted, so I should
rather be inclined to doubt the force of the argument in case atheism
being found to be truth should apparently be proved prejudicial to such
a society.
I come unprejudiced to the question, and when I have promised you an
answer to your future Letters in support of revelation, I have neither
anticipated your argument nor prejudged the cause. I hold myself open
to be convinced, and if I am convinced I shall say so, which is equally
answering as if I denied the force of your observations. In that sense
only I promise an answer. If I believe I shall say, I do; but I shall
not believe and tremble, confident as I am, that if I act an honest
part in life, whether there be a Deity and a future existence or not,
whatever reason I may have to rejoice in case such ideas be realised, I
can upon such an issue have none to tremble. I look upon myself to have
more reason to be temporally afraid than eternally so. Dr. Priestley or
any other Doctor can put his name boldly to a book in favour of Theism,
loudly call the supporters of a contrary doctrine to the argument, and
if no answer is produced, assert their own reasoning to be unanswerable.
In that sense their sort of reasoning has been frequently unanswerable.
Here however is an instance of a poor unknown individual, making
experience of the candour of the ecclesiastics and the equity of
the laws of England, for he ventures to subscribe his publication with
his name as well as Dr. Priestley does his Letters, to which this
publication is an answer. Perhaps he may have cause to repent of his
hardiness, but if he has, he is equally resolved to glory in his
martyrdom, as to suffer it. Whatever advantage religion has had in the
enumeration of it's martyrs, the cause of atheism may boast the same.
As to the instances of the professors of any particular form of
religion, or modification of that form, such as Christians or sects of
Christians, suffering martyrdom for their belief, I shall no more allow
them to be martyrs for theism than Pagans similarly suffering for their
belief, shall I call martyrs for atheism. Theism very likely has had
it's martyrs. I can instance one I think in Socrates, and I shall
mention Vanini as a martyr for atheism. The conduct of those two great
men in their last moments may be worth attending to. The variety of
other poor heretical wretches, who have been immolated at the shrine of
absurdity for all the possible errors of human credence, let them have
their legendary fame. I put them out of the scale in this important
inquiry.
Not that I really think the argument to be much advanced by naming the
great supporters of one opinion or of another. In mathematics,
mechanics, natural philosophy, in literature, taste, and politics the
sentiments of great men of great genius are certainly of weight. There
are some subjects capable of demonstration, many indeed which the
ingenuity of one man can go farther to illustrate than that of another.
The force of high authority is greater in the three former sciences
than in the latter. Theism and Atheism I hold to be neither of them
strictly demonstrable. You, Dr. Priestley, agree with me in that. Still
I hold the question capable of being illustrated by argument, and I
should hold the authority of great men's names to be of more weight in
this subject, were I not necessarily forced to consider that all
education is strongly calculated to support the idea of a Deity; by
this education prejudice is introduced, and prejudice is nothing else
than a corruption of the understanding. Certain principles, call them,
if you please, data, must be agreed upon before any reasoning can take
place. Disputants must at least agree in the ideas which they annex to
the language they use. But when prejudice has made a stand,
argumentation is set at so wide a distance, through a want of fixt data
to proceed upon, that attention is in vain applied to the dispute.
Besides, the nature of the subject upon which this prejudice takes
place, is such, that the finest genius is nearly equally liable to an
undue bias with the most vulgar. To question with boldness and
indifference, whether an individual, all-forming, all-seeing and
all-governing Being exists, to whom, if he exists, we may possibly be
responsible for our actions, whose intelligence and power must be
infinitely superior to our own, requires a great conquest of former
habitude, a firmness of nerves, as well as of understanding; it will
therefore be no great wonder, if such men as Locke and Newton can be
named among the believers in a Deity. They were christians as well as
theists, so that their authority goes as far in one respect as in the
other. But if the opinions of men of great genius are to have weight,
what is to be said of modern men of genius? You, Sir, are of opinion
that the world is getting wiser as well as better. There is all the
reason in the world it should get wiser at least, since wisdom is only
a collection of experience, and there must be more experience as the
world is older. Modern Philosophers are nearly all atheists. I take the
term atheist here in the popular sense. Hume, Helvetius, Diderot,
D'Alembert. Can they not weigh against Locke and Newton, and even more
than Locke and Newton, since their store of knowledge and learning was
at hand to be added to their own, and among them are those who singly
possessed equal science in mathematics as in metaphysics? It is not
impossible, perhaps not improbable, from his course of learning and
inquiries, that if Dr. Priestley had not from his first initiation into
science been dedicated for what is called the immediate service of God,
he himself might have been one of the greatest disprovers of his
pretended divinity.
In England you think, Sir, that atheism is not prevalent among men of
free reasoning, though you acknowledge it to be much so in other
countries. It is not the first time it has been observed that the
greater the superstition of the common people the less is that of men
of letters. In the heart of the Papal territories perhaps is the
greatest number of atheists, and in the reformed countries the greatest
number of deists. Yet it is a common observation, especially by
divines, that deism leads to atheism, and I believe the observation is
well founded. I hardly need explain here, that by deism in this sense
is meant a belief in the existence of a Deity from natural and
philosophical principles, and a disbelief in all immediate revelation
by the Deity of his own existence. Such is the force of habit, that it
is by degrees only, that even men of sense and firmness shake off one
prejudice after another. They begin by getting rid of the absurdities
of all popular religions. This leaves them simple deists, but the force
of reasoning next carries them a step farther, and whoever trusts to
this reasoning, devoid of all fear and prejudice, is very likely to end
at last in being an atheist. Nor do I admit it to be an argument either
for Revelation or Natural Religion, that the same turn for speculation
that would convert a christian into a theist, will carry him on to be
an atheist, though I know the argument has been often used. If upon
sick beds or in dying moments men revert to their old weakness and
superstitions, their falling off may afford triumph to religionists;
for my part I care not so much for the opinions of sick and dying men,
as of those who at the time are strong and healthy. But in the opinion
of the one or the other I put no great stress. My faith is in
reasoning, for though ridicule is not a complete test of truth,
reasoning I hold certainly to be so. I own belief may be imprest on the
mind otherwise than by the force of reason. The mind may be diseased.
All I shall say is that though I have formerly believed many things
without reason, and even many against it, as is very common, I hope I
shall never more. My mind (I was going to say, thank God) is sane at
present, and I intend to keep it so. I am aware that at the expression
just used some will exclaim in triumph, that the poor wretch could not
help thinking of his God at the same time he was denying him. The
observation would hold good, if it were not that we often speak and
write unpremeditately and though what is in this manner unpremeditately
expressed upon a revision should be certainly expunged, yet I chuse to
leave the expression to shew the force of habit.
In fear lies the origin of all fancied deities, whether sole or
numberless.
_Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor._
But the great debasement of the human mind is evidenced in the instance
of attributing a merit to belief, which has come at last to be stiled a
virtue, and is dignified by the name of faith, that most pitiful of all
human qualities. When the apostle spoke of faith, hope and charity, he
might as well have exclaimed the least of the three is faith, as the
greatest is charity.
One enthusiast cries out _un Roi_ and another _un Dieu_. The reality of
the king I admit, because I feel his power. Against my feeling and my
experience I cannot argue, for upon these sensations is built all
argument. But not all the wondrous works of the creation, as I hear the
visible operations of nature called, convince me in the least of the
existence of a Deity. By nature I mean to express the whole of what I
see and feel, that whole, I call self-existent from all eternity; I
admit a principle of intelligence and design, but I deny that principle
to be extraneous from itself. My creed in fine is the same with that of
the Roman poet;
_"Deus est ubicunque movemur."_
If then I am admitted to explain my deity in this sense, I am not an
atheist, nor can any one else in the world be such. The _vis naturae_,
the perpetual industry, intelligence and provision of nature must be
apparent to all who see, feel or think. I mean to distinguish this
active, intelligent and designing principle, inherent as much in matter
as the properties of gravity or any elastic, attractive or repulsive
power, from any extraneous foreign force and design in an invisible
agent, supreme though hidden lord and maker over all effects and
appearances that present themselves to us in the course of nature. The
last supposition makes the universe and all other organised matter a
machine made or contrived by the arbitrary will of another Being, which
other Being is called God; and my theory makes a God of this universe,
or admits no other God or designing principle than matter itself and
its various organisations.
The inquiry is said to be important. But why is it so! All truth is
important. It is a question of little importance, merely whether a man
had a maker or no, although it is of great importance to disprove the
existence of such a Deity as theologians wish to establish, because
appearances in the world go against it. Supposing however that it was
granted, that the question, whether there is a Deity or not, was as
little important as other truths, yet the question becomes important
with this reflexion, that other events may follow as deductions; such
as a particular providence, or a future state of rewards and
punishments; but whether such deductions or either of them necessarily
follow may well be queried. As to a particular providence you give up
the reality of it, and I give it up too. But I cannot give up the
argument, that if there were a God with all his allowed attributes of
wisdom, power and justice, there ought to be a particular providence to
counteract the general laws of nature, in favour of those who defend
the interposition. Though the Deity should not interfere unless there
be a worthy cause, agreeable to the Horation rule,
_"Nec Deus interfuit nisi vindice nodus;"_
Yet surely from the same principles it should follow that the Deity
ought to interfere where there is a worthy cause. Here however arises
another dilemma, for if the Deity has really those attributes of power
and justice, there would never have been occasion for such temperaneous
interpositions. A particular providence must indeed prove one of these
two principles, either that God was imperfect in his design, or that
inert matter is inimical to the properties of God. If that wished for
interposition of the Deity is put off to a future existence, I cannot
help observing, that future day has been already a long while waited
for in vain, and any delay destroys some one attribute or other of the
Deity. He wants justice, or he wants the power, or the will to do good
and be just. That a future state of rewards and punishments may however
exist without a Deity, you, Dr. Priestley, allow to be no impossibility.
It may indeed be argued with apparent justness, that a principle of
reviviscence may as well be admitted as a principle of production in
the first instance: and as to rewards and punishments, judgement may be
rendered, as well as now, by Beings less than Deities. For my part I
firmly wish for such a future state, and though I cannot firmly believe
it, I am resolved to live as if such a state were to ensue. This seems,
I own, like doubting, and doubting may be said to be a miserable state
of anxiety. "Better be confident than unhinged; better confide in
ignorance than have no fixed system." So it may be argued; but I think
the result will be as people feel. Those who do not feel bold enough,
to be satisfied with their own thoughts, may abandon them and adopt the
thoughts of others. For my part I am content with my own; and not the
less so because they do not end in certainty upon matters, from the
nature of them, beyond the complete reach of human intelligence.
There is nothing in fact important to human nature but happiness, which
is or ought to be the end or aim of our being. I mean self-happiness;
but fortunately for mankind, such is by nature our construction, that
we cannot individually be happy unless we join also in promoting the
happiness of others. Should immorality, timidity or other base
principles arise from atheism it tends immediately, I will own, to the
unhappiness of mankind. If it is asked me, "why am I honest and
honourable?" I answer, because of the satisfaction I have in being so.
"Do all people receive that satisfaction?" No, many who are ill
educated, ill-exampled and perverted, do not. I do, that is enough for
me. In short, I am well constructed, and I feel I can therefore act an
honest and honourable part without any religious motive. Did I
perceive, that belief in a Deity produced morality or inspired courage,
I might be prompted to confess, that the contrary would ensue from
atheism. But the bulk of the world has long believed, or long pretended
to believe in a Deity, yet morality and every commendable quality seem
at a stand. The believer and the unbeliever we often see equally base,
equally immoral. Superstition is certainly only the excess of religion.
That evidently is attended often with immorality and cowardice. I am
tempted to say, from observation, that the belief of a Deity is apt to
drive mankind into vice and baseness; but I check myself in the
assertion, upon considering that very few indeed are those who really
believe in a Deity out of such as pretend to do so. It is impossible
for an intellectual being to believe firmly in that of which he can
give no account, or of which he can form no conception. I hold the
Deity, the fancied Deity, at least, of whom with all his attributes
such pompous descriptions are set forth to the great terror of old
women and the amusement of young children, to be an object of which we
form (as appears when we scrutinise into our ideas) no conception and
therefore can give no account. It is said, after all this, that men do
still believe in such a Deity, I then do say in return, they do not
make use of their intellects. The moment we go into a belief beyond
what we feel, see and understand, we might as well believe in
will-with-a-whisp as in God. But I would fix morality upon a better
basis than belief in a Deity. If it has indeed at present no other
basis, it is not morality, it is selfishness, it is timidity; it is the
hope of reward, it is the dread of punishment. For a great and good
man, shew me one who loves virtue because he finds a pleasure in it,
who has acquired a taste for that pleasure by considering what and
where happiness is, who is not such a fool as to seek misery in
preference to happiness, whose honour is his Deity, whose conscience
is his judge. Put such a man in combat against the superstitious son
of Spain or Portugal, it were easy to say who would shew the truest
courage. The question might be more voluminously discussed, but I feel
already proof of conviction; if you, Dr. Priestley, do not, perhaps
some other readers may. I have nothing to do with men of low minds.
They will always have their religion or pretence of it, but I am
mistaken if it is not the gallows or the pillory that more govern
their morals than the gospel or the pulpit.
After all, atheism may be a system only for the learned. The ignorant of
all ages have believed in God. The answer of a Philosophical Unbeliever
though written in the vulgar tongue may probably not reach the vulgar.
If argument had prevailed they were long converted from their
superstitious belief. The sentiments of atheistical philosophers have
long been published. If mischief therefore could ensue to society from
such free discussions, that mischief society must long have felt. I
think truth should never be hid, but few are those who mind it. I will
therefore take upon myself but little importance though I have presumed
to preface an answer from a Philosophical Unbeliever to Letters which
you, Dr. Priestley have written. If you deem that answer detrimental to
the interests of society, you will recollect that you invite the
proposal of objections and promise to answer all as well as you can. If
you should happen to be exasperated by the freedom of the language or
the contrariety of the sentiment, this answer will gain weight in
proportion as you lose in the credit of a tolerant Divine. Therefore if
you reply at all, reply with candour and with coolness; heed the matter
and not the man, though I subscribe my name, and am
Reverend Sir,
Your friend, admirer, and humble servant,
WILLIAM HAMMON.
_Oxford-Street, No._ 418.
_Jan._ 1, 1782.
ANSWER FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL UNBELIEVER.
It is the general fashion to believe in a God, the maker of all things,
or at least to pretend to such a belief, to define the nature of this
existing Deity by the attributes which are given to him, to place the
foundation of morality on this belief, and in idea at least, to connect
the welfare of civil society with the acknowledgement of such a Being.
Few however are those, who being questioned can give any tolerable
grounds for their assertions upon this subject, and hardly any two
among the learned agree in their manner of proving what each will
separately hold to be indisputably clear. The attributes of a Deity are
more generally agreed upon, though less the subject of proof, than his
existence. As to morality, those very people who are moral will not
deny, they would be so though there were not a God, and there never yet
has been a civil lawgiver, who left crimes to be punished by the author
of the universe; not even the profanation of oaths upon the sacredness
of which so much is built in society, and which yet is said to be a
more immediate offence against the Deity than any other that can be
named.
The method which Dr. Priestley has taken to prove the existence of
a God, is by arguing from _effect_ to _cause_. He explodes that other
pretended proof _a priori_ which has so much raised the fame of
Dr. Clarke among other theologians. As to the attributes of the Deity,
Dr. Priestley is not quite so confident in his proofs there; and the
most amiable one, the most by mortals to be wished for, the _benevolence_
of God he almost gives up, or owns at least there is not so much proof
of it as of his other attributes. His observations are divided into
several Letters, this is one answer given to the whole; for it would be
to no purpose to reply to topics upon which the writers are agreed.
What therefore is not contradicted here, Dr. Priestley may in general
take to be allowed; but to obviate doubts and to allow his argument
every force, it may be fairer perhaps to recite at full length what in
this answer is allowed to be true, what is denied as false, what meant
to be exposed as absurd, and what rejected as assertions without proof,
inadmissible or inconclusive. The conclusion will contain some
observations upon the whole.
TRUISMS.
1. "Effects have their adequate causes."
2. "Nothing begins to exist without a cause foreign to itself."
3. "No being could make himself, for that would imply that he
existed and did not exist at the same time."
4. If one horse, or one tree, had a cause, all had."
5. Something must have existed from all eternity.
6. "Atoms cannot be arranged, in a manner expressive of the most
exquisite design, without competent intelligence having existed
somewhere."
7. "The idea of a supreme author is more pleasing to a virtuous
mind, than that of a blind fate and fatherless deserted world."
8. "The condition of mankind is in a state of melioration, as far as
misery arises from ignorance, for as the world grows older it must
grow wiser, if wisdom arises from experience."
9. "All moral virtue is only a modification of benevolence."
10. "Virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice."
11. "No instance of any revival."
12. "Atheists are not to think themselves quite secure with respect
to a future life."
13. "Thought might as well depend upon the construction of the
brain, as upon any invisible substance extraneous to the brain."
14. "If the works of God had a beginning, there must have been a
time when he was inactive."
15. "Where happiness is wanting in the creation I would rather
conclude the author had mist of his design than that he wanted
benevolence."
FALSE ASSERTIONS.
1. "A cause needs not be prior to an effect."
2. "If the species of man had no beginning, it would not follow that
it had no cause."
3. "A cause may be cotemporary with the effect."
4. "An atheist must believe he was introduced into the world without
design."
ABSURDITIES.
1. "A general mass of sensation consisting of various elements
borrowed from the past and the future."
2. "Since sensation is made up of past, present, and future, the
infant feeling for the moment only, the man recollecting what is
past and anticipating the future, and as the present sensation must
therefore in time bear a less proportion to the general mass of
sensation than it did, so at last all temporary affections, whether
of pain or pleasure become wholly inconsiderable."
3. "The great book of nature and the book of revelation both lie
open before us."
4. "A conclusion above our comprehension."
5. "A whole eternity already past."
6. "Since a finite Being cannot be infinitely happy, because he must
then be infinite in knowledge and power; and as all limitation of
happiness must consist in degree of happiness or mixture of misery,
the Deity can alone determine which mode of limitation is best."
7. "We have reason to be thankful for our pains and distress."
8. "If the divine Being had made man at first as happy as he can be
after all the feelings and ideas of a painful and laborious life, it
must have been in violation of all general laws and by a constant
and momentary interference of the Deity."
9. "It is better the divine agency should not be very conspicuous."
10. "If good prevails on the whole, creation being infinite,
happiness must be infinite, and God comprehending the whole, will
only perceive the balance of good, and that will be happiness
unmixed with misery."
11. "If a man is happy in the whole he is infinitely happy in the
whole of his existence."
12. "Although all things fall alike to all men and no distinction is
made between the righteous and the wicked, and even though the
wicked derive an advantage from their vices, yet this is consistent
with a state of moral government by a Being of infinite wisdom and
power."
13. "As ploughing is the means of having a harvest, though God has
predetermined whether there should be a harvest or not, so prayer is
the means of obtaining good from God, although that good is
predetermined upon; it is therefore no more absurd to pray than to
plough."
14. "Notwithstanding happiness is the necessary consequence of
health, yet man's happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal
feelings."
15. "Evil is necessarily connected with and subservient to good,
although in the next world there will be all good and no evil."
16. "By reason we can discover the necessary existence of a Deity,
yet to be a sceptic on that subject is the first step to be a
Christian, because reason not sufficiently proving it we fly to
revealed truth."
17. "The power, which a man has by the comprehensiveness of his mind
to enjoy the future, has no apparent limits."
18. "It is of no avail in the argument concerning the existence of a
Deity, that we have no conception of him, since it does not imply
impossibility of his existence that we have no idea at all upon the
subject."
INADMISSIBLE OR INCONCLUSIVE.
1. "The question of the existence of a Deity is important."
2. "A Theist has a higher sense of personal dignity than an
atheist."
3. "The conduct of an atheist must give concern to those who are not
so."
4. "An atheist believes himself to be, at his death, for ever
excluded from returning life."
5. "There are more atheists than unbelievers in revelation."
6. "Men of letters may have the same bias to incredulity as others
to credulity, because they are subject to a wrong association of
ideas, as well as other persons though in a less degree."
7. "Whoever first made a thing, for example a chair or a table, must
have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use."
8. "If a table had a designing cause, the tree from whence the wood
came, and the man who made the table must have had a designing
cause, which comprehended all the powers and properties of trees and
men."
9. "All the visible universe, as far as we can judge, bears the
marks of being one work, and therefore must have had a cause of
infinite power and intelligence."
10. "We might as well say a table had no cause, as that the world
had none."
11. "A Being originally and necessarily capable of comprehending
itself, it is not improper to call infinite, for we can have no idea
of any bounds to it's knowledge or power."
12. "A series of finite causes cannot possibly be carried back
_ad infinitum_."
13. "Our imagination revolts at the idea of an intellectual soul of
the universe, that is, of an intelligence resulting from
arrangement."
14. "The actual existence of the universe compels us to come at last
to an _originally existent and intellectual Being_, because if the
immediate maker of the universe has not existed from all eternity,
he must have derived his being and senses from one who has, and that
being we call God."
15. "God must be present to all his works, if we admit no power can
act but where it is, he must therefore exist every where, because
his works are every where."
16. "As no being can unmake or materially change himself (at least
none can annihilate himself) so God is unchangeable, for no Being
God made can change him and no other Being can exist but what God
made."
17. "Two infinite intelligent beings of the same kind would
coincide, therefore there can only be one God."
18. "Nothing can be more evident, than that plants and animals could
not have proceeded from each other from all eternity."
19. "That happiness is the design of the creation because health is
designed and sickness is only an exception, not a general rule is as
evident as that the design of the Mill-wright must have been, that
his machine should not be obstructed."
20. "As a state of sickness is comparatively rare with a state of
health, happiness the result of health, and the end of the creation
happiness, so the end of the creation is already in a great measure
answered."
21. "Pleasure tends to continue and propagate itself, pain to check
and exterminate itself."
22. "As our knowledge and power in respect to shunning pains and
procuring pleasures advance with our experience, nothing is wanting
to enable us to exterminate all pains, but a continuance of being.
23. "Our enjoyments continually increase in real value from infancy
to old age."
24. "A future moral distribution is probable, because God is
infinitely powerful and wise."
25. "Since reverence, gratitude, obedience, confidence are duties to
men, so they are to God; and as we pray to men, so we should pray to
God."
26. "Prescience, predetermination and infinite benevolence are no
argument against prayer to the Deity."
27. "A wish produced by nature is evidence of the thing wished for,
but a future state is wished for, therefore there is evidence of a
future state."
28. "As we have no idea how we came originally to be produced, for
what we know to the contrary our reproduction may be as much the
course of nature as our original production.."
29. "A gloom and melancholy belong more to atheists than to devout
people."
OBSERVATIONS.
Dr. Priestley will hardly doubt, after this collection from his work
that it has at least been read before it is attempted to be answered.
It is in the writer's power to quote the page and line for each
assertion, but it would be stuffing this publication with unnecessary
references. Dr. Priestley will be able to know what are his own
sentiments and what not without recurring to his printed Letters.
There has been also another difficulty in classing the several exceptions
under the different heads; what is false, what is absurd, and what is
inadmissible bordering so nearly on each other. Nice distinctions
cannot in such respect be made, but the whole together form the main
argument which is to be answered.
The first and principal assertion is, that effects have their adequate
cause; it is then added, that the universe is an effect, that it
therefore must have a cause, and to this cause in the English language
is given the name of God. This proposition is true, provided the
universe is an effect, but that is a _postulatum_ without concession
and without a proof. This _original Being_ he advances in another place
to be that only something which existed uncaused from all eternity, and
which could not have been a Being, like a man or a table, incapable of
comprehending, itself, for such existences would require another
superior Being. But if the universe is not adopted as an effect, if
it is taken as existing from all eternity, the universe becomes an
intelligent Being, and there or no where is the Deity sought after.
Such a Being we may properly speak of and reason upon. The whole is
subjected to our sensations and our experience. But of his own
_uncaused Being_ Dr. P. says we cannot properly speak. Is not that
alone an argument of there being no such thing? His friend Dr. Clarke
says, we cannot have an idea of an impossible thing. Now this
discovered Deity is allowed to be that of which we can have no idea.
So far at least it is allied to the impossible.