a finite part of an infinite existence, and we can only predicate
respecting what comes under the _category of positive knowledge _; we
are therefore disabled from speculating in any theories which have for
a basis opposition to the collected experience of mankind. This was a
position laid down by Bolingbroke to escape all the historical arguments
which some men deduce from alleged miraculous agency in the past, or
problematical prophecy in the future. It _likewise_ shows the untenable
nature of all analogy, which presumes to trace an hypothetical first
cause or personal intelligence, to account for a supposed origin of
primeval existence, by which nature was caused, or forms of being first
evolved. Although it may be deemed inconsistent with the philosophy of
Bolingbroke to admit a God in the same argument as the above, we must
not forget that in all speculative reasoning there must be an assumption
of some kind, which ought to be demonstrated by proof, or a suitable
equivalent in the form of universal consent. Yet in the case of the God
of the Essay, we look in vain for the attributes with which Theists love
to clothe their God, and we can but perceive inexorable necessity in the
shape of rigid and unswerving laws, collected in one focus by Pope, and
dignified with the name of God; so that the difference betwixt a
Deist of the old, and an Atheist of the modern school, is one of mere
words--they both commence with an assumption, the Atheist only defining
his terms more strictly, the subject-matter in both instances being
the same. The only difference being, the one deceives himself with a
meaningless word, the other is speechless on what he cannot comprehend.
The Essay shows a scheme of universal gradation, composed of a series of
links, which are one entwined within the other--every rock being placed
in its necessitated position--every plant amidst its growth bearing an
exoteric similitude to itself--every animal, from the lowest quadruped
to the highest race of man, occupying a range of climate adapted to its
requirements. The Essay here is scientifically correct, and agrees with
the ablest writers on necessity. A German philosopher renowned alike
for rigid analysis and transcendent abilities as a successful theorist,
observes, "When I contemplate all things as a whole, I perceive one
_nature_ one _force _: when I regard them as individuals, many forces
which develop themselves according to their inward laws, and pass
through all the forms of which they are capable, and all the objects
in nature are but those forces under certain limitations. Every
manifestation of every individual power of nature is determined partly
by itself, partly by its own preceding manifestations, and partly by the
manifestations of all other powers of nature with which it is connected;
but it is connected with all, for nature is one connected whole. Its
manifestations are, therefore, strictly necessary, and it is absolutely
impossible to be other than as it is. In every moment of her duration
nature is one connected whole, in every moment must every individual be
what it is because all others are what they are, and a single grain of
sand could not be moved from its place, without, however imperceptibly
to us, changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable
whole. Every moment of duration is determined by all past moments, and
will determine all future movements, and even the position of a grain
of sand cannot be conceived other than it is, without supposing other
changes to an indefinite extent. Let us imagine that grain of sand to be
lying some few feet further inland than it actually does; then must the
storm-wind that drove it in from the sea-shore have been stronger than
it actually was; then must the preceding state of the atmosphere,
by which this wind was occasioned, and its degree of strength being
determined, have been different from what it actually was, and the
preceding changes which gave rise to this particular weather, and so
on. We must suppose a different temperature from that which really
existed--a different constitution of bodies which influenced that
temperature. How can we know that in such a state of weather we have
been supposing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few yards
further, some ancestors of yours might not have perished from hunger,
cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son from whom you are
descended, and thus you might never have been at all, and all that you
have done, and all that you ever hope to do, must have been hindered, in
order that a grain of sand might lie in a different place." * The whole
of the first book is devoted to the necessitated condition of man
in relation to the universe. In one portion there is a succession of
beautiful similes, portraying the blissful state we are in, instead of
being gifted with finer sensibilities, or a prescience, which would be a
curse.
* Fichte's "Destination of Man," pp. 8, 9
Pope, although an ardent disciple of Bolingbroke, did not entirely
forsake the prejudices of childhood; he still indulged in a bare hope of
a future life, which his master, with more consistency, suppressed. So
that when the poet rhymed the propositions of St. John, he pointed them
with "hope" in an eternal future; for that speculation which was still
_probability_ in his day, is now nearly silenced by modern science. But
we must not confound the ideas of futurity, which some of the Deists
expressed, with those of Christianity. They were as different as the
dreams of Christ and Plato were dissimilar. Pope "hoped" for a future
life of intellectual enjoyment devoid of evil, but the heaven of the
gospel is equally as necessary to be counterbalanced by a hell, as
the existence of a God requires the balancing support of a devil. We
therefore can sympathise with the description of a heaven, the poor
Indian looked for:--
"Some safer world in depths of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste;
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
Nor fiends torment, nor _Christians thirst for gold.
To be_--contents his natural desires,
He asks no angels' wings, no seraphs' fires,
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog should bear him company."
Pope durst not emphatically deny the future-life theory, so he attacked
it by elaborating a physical instead of a spiritual heaven. So heterodox
a notion of the Indian's future sports, is not to be found in theology,
especially as he pictures the Indian's sports with his dog. Here was
a double blow aimed at Christianity by evolving a "positive" idea
of future pleasures, and the promulgation of sentiments
anti-Christian.--Again he attacks them for unwarrantable speculation in
theology, when he says--
"In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies."
This is a corollary to the first proposition, "What can we reason but
from what we know?" The only predicate we can draw from this is, the
undoubted fact we have no right to profess to hold opinions of that,
upon which we cannot have any positive proof. The last line of the
first book has been generally thought open to attack. It relates to
necessity--"Whatever is, is right"--and is not to be viewed in relation
to society as at present constituted, but to the physical universe.
The second book deals with man in relation to himself as an individual;
the third as a member of society, and the last in respect to happiness.
Throughout the whole Essay the distinctions arising from nature and
instinct are defined and defended with vigor and acuteness. Both are
proved to be equally great in degree, in spite of the hints constantly
thrown out in reference to "God-like Reason _versus_ Blind Instinct." We
confess our inability to discern the vaunted superiority of the powers
of reason over those of its blinder sister. We see in the one matchless
wisdom--profound decision--unfailing resource--a happy contentment as
unfeigned as it is natural. On the other hand, we see temerity allied
with cowardice--a man seeking wisdom on a watery plank, when every
footmark may serve him for a funeral effigy; political duplicity arising
from his confined generalization of facts; a desire to do right, but
checked by accident and cunning--everywhere uneasy--always fatal. If
the Christians' fables were true, we might say that Adam and Eve were
originally in possession of Instinct and Reason, and fell by listening
to the promptings of volition, instead of the unswerving powers of the
brutes, and for a hereditary punishment was cursed with a superabundance
of reason. For with all our intellectual prerogatives, we have yet
failed to arrive at a definite course of action which should influence
our conduct. The Essay, speaking of Government by Christianity, says:--
"Force first made conquest, and that conquest law,
Till superstition taught the tyrant awe.
.....
She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To power unseen, and mightier far than they:
She, from the rending earth and bursting skies,
Saw Gods descend and fiends infernal rise.
Here _fixed_ the dreadful, there the blessed abodes,
Here _made her_ devils, and weak hope her Gods.
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, _unjust_,
Whose _attributes were rage, revenge, or lust_.
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And formed like tyrants; tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide,
And Hell was _built in spite_, and Heaven in pride."
And again--
"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
The Essay concludes with an invocation to Bolingbroke--whom Pope styles,
"my guide, philosopher, and friend." Such is the conclusion of the most
remarkable ethical poem in any language. It is the Iliad of English
Deism. Not a single allusion to Christ--a future state of existence
given only as a faint probability--the whole artificial state of society
satirized--prayer ridiculed, and government of every kind denounced
which does not bring happiness to the people. The first principle laid
down is the corner-stone of materialism--"What can we reason but
from what we know?"--which is stated, explained, and defended with an
axiomatic brevity rarely equalled, never surpassed--with a number
of illustrations comprising the _chef d'oeuvre_ of poetic grace, and
synthical melody combined with arguments as cogent as the examples are
perfect.
It stands alone in its impregnability--a pile of literary architecture
like the "Novum Organan" of Bacon, the "Principia" of Newton, or the
Essay of Locke. The facades of its noble colonnades are seen extending
their wings through the whole sweep of history, constituting a pantheon
of morals, where every nation sends its devotees to admire and worship.
Let us now turn to the philosophical works of Bolingbroke. By the will
of Bolingbroke he devised this portion of his manuscripts to David
Mallet, the poet, for publication. The noble Lord's choice is open to
censure here. He knew the character of Mallet, and could expect little
justice from him who should have been his biographer. The MSS. were all
prepared for the press long before Bolingbroke died. In this original
state, they were addressed to Pope. When published they appeared as
"Letters or Essays addressed to Alexander Pope, Esq." The political
friends of St. John wished their suppression, fearing that they would
injure his reputation by being anti-Christian. A large bribe was
offered by Lord Cornbur if Mallet would destroy the works. He, no doubt,
thinking more money could be made by their publication, issued them to
the world in 1754, but without giving a biography or notes to the books,
his work being simply correcting the errors of the press. True, there
existed no stipulation that he should write the Life of Bolingbroke, but
no one can doubt that such was the intention of the statesman, when he
bequeathed to him property which realized £10,000 in value. Every one
knows the huge witticism of Dr. Johnson, who accused Bolingbroke of
cowardice, under the simile of loading a blunderbuss, and then leaving a
Scotchman half-a-crown to fire it when he was out of the way. When those
posthumous works appeared, the grand jury of Westminster presented them
to the judicial authorities as subversive of religion, morality, and
government. They were burnt by the common hangman.
With difficulty we give a quotation from Boling-broke's ideas of a
Future Life. In vol. IV., p. 348, he says, "I do not say, that to
believe in a future state is to believe in a vulgar error; but this I
say, it cannot be demonstrated by reason: it is not in the nature of it
capable of demonstration, and no one ever returned that irremediable way
to give us an assurance of the fact."
Again, he speaks personally in reference to himself, Pope, and
Wollaston, whom he had been opposing:--
"He alone is happy, and he 'is truly so, who can say,
Welcome life whatever it brings!
Welcome death whatever it is!
If the former,--we change our state.
.....
That you, or I, or even Wollaston himself, should return to the earth
from whence we came, to the dirt under our feet, or be mingled with the
ashes of those herbs and plants from which we drew nutrition whilst we
lived, does not seem any indignity offered to our nature, since it is
common to all the animal kind: and he who complains of it as such, does
not seem to have been set, by his reasoning faculties, so far above them
in life; as to deserve not to be levelled with them at death. We were
like them before our birth, that is nothing. So we shall be on this
hypothesis, like them too after our death, that is nothing. What
hardship is done us? Unless it be a hardship, that we are not immortal
because we wish to be so, and flatter ourselves with that expectation.
"If this hypothesis were true, which I am far from assuming, I should
have no reason to complain, though having tasted existence, I might
abhor non-entity. Since, then, the first cannot be demonstrated by
reason, nor the second be reconciled to my inward sentiment, let me take
refuge in resignation at the last, as in every other act of my life: let
others be solicitous about their future state, and frighten or flatter
themselves as prejudice, imaginative bad health--nay, a lowering day,
or a clear sunshine shall inspire them to do: let the tranquillity of my
mind rest on this immovable rock, that my future, as well as my present
state, are ordered by an Almighty Creator, and that they are equally
foolish, and presumptuous, who make imaginary excursions into futurity,
and who complain of the present."
Lord Bolingbroke died in the year 1751, after a long and painful
illness, occasioned by the ignorance of a quack. While lying on his
death-bed he composed a discourse, entitled "Considerations on the State
of the Nation." He died in peace--in the knowledge of the truth of the
principles he had advocated, and with that calm serenity of mind, which
no one can more fully experience than the honest Freethinker. He was
buried in the church at Battersea. He was a man of the highest rank of
genius, far from being immaculate in his youth, brave, sincere, a true
friend, possessed of rich learning, a clear and sparkling style, a great
wit, and the most powerful Freethinker of his age.
A. C.
CONDORCET.
In the history of the French Revolution, we read of a multitude of
sections, each ruled by a man, and each man representing a philosophy.
Not that each man was the contriver of a system, but the effervescence
of one. As true as Robespierre was the advocate of Rousseau, as Marat
was the Wilkes of Paris, as Danton was the Paine, and Mirabeau the
expediency-politician of reflex England, so true is it that Condorcet
was the type of the philosophic Girondists, the offspring of Voltaire.
The two great schools of metaphysics fought out the battle on
the theatre of the Constituent Assembly, in a spirit as bitterly
uncompromising as when under different phraseological terms, they met in
the arguments of the School-men, or further in the womb of history, on
the forum of Athens. It is a fact no less true than singular, that after
each mental excitement amongst the _savons_, whether in ancient or in
modern times, after the literary shock has passed away, the people are
innoculated with the strife, and, destitute of the moderation of their
leaders, fight for that doctrine which they conceive oppresses their
rights. The French Revolution was one of those struggles. It gave rise
to epoch-men. Not men who originated a doctrine, but those who attempted
to carry it out. Condorcet was one of those men. He was the successor
of Voltaire in the Encyclopædic warfare. The philosopher amongst the
orators. Destitute of the amazing versatility of the sage of Ferney, he
imbibed the prophet's antipathy to superstition, and after a brilliant
career, fell in the wild onslaught of passion. The Revolution was the
arena on which was fought the battle involving the question whether
Europe was to be ruled for a century by Christianity or Infidelity. The
irresolution of Robespierre lost to us the victory of the first passage
of arms, equally as decisive as Lafayette in 1830, and Lamartine in
1848, being Liberals, lost in each case the social Republic by
their vacillating policy. The true Freethinkers of that age were the
Girondists. With their heroic death, the last barrier to despotism
disappeared; the Consulate became the only logical path for gilded
chains and empire. With the ostracism of the Republicans by Napoleon the
Little, a Parallel is completed between the two eras of French history.
The family name of Condorcet was Caritat. His father was a scion of an
aristocratic family, and an officer in the army. The son who gave honor
to the family, was born in the year 1743, at Ribemont, in Picardy. His
father dying early, left his son to be educated with his wife, under the
guardianship of his brother, the Bishop of Lisieux, a celebrated Jesuit.
The mother of Condorcet was extremely superstitious, and in one of her
fanatic ecstasies, offered up her son at the shrine of the Virgin Mary.
How this act was performed we cannot relate; but it is a notorious
fact that until his twelfth year, the embryo philosopher was clothed
in female attire, and had young ladies for companions, which, M.
Arago says, "accounts for many peculiarities in the _physique_ and the
_morale_ of his manhood." The abstinence from all rude, boyish sports,
checked the proper muscular development of his limbs; the head and trunk
were on a large scale, but the legs were so meagre that they seemed
unfit to carry what was above them; and, in fact, he never could partake
in any strong exercises, or undergo the bodily fatigues to which healthy
men willingly expose themselves. On the other hand, he had imbibed the
tenderness of a delicate damsel, retaining to the last a deep horror for
affliction pain on the inferior animals.
In 1775, he entered the Jesuit Academy at Rheiras. Three years
afterwards, he was transferred to the College of Navarre, in Paris,
and soon made himself the most distinguished scholar there. His friends
wished him to enter the priesthood, not knowing that even in his
seventeenth year he had embraced the Deism of the age.
At the age of nineteen he left college, and immediate-ly published a
series of mathematical works, which established his fame. Shortly
after this, the Academy of Sciences chose Condorcet for their assistant
secretary. In the year 1770 he accompanied D'Alembert in a tour through
Italy, making a call for some weeks at Ferney, where he was delighted
with the company of Voltaire, and was duly recognised as one of the
Encylopædists; and, on his return to Paris, became the literary agent of
his great leader.
A Quarterly Reviewer, writing on Voltaire and Condercet, says of the
former, "When he himself, in these latter days, was resolved to issue
anything that he knew and felt to be pregnant with combustion, he
never dreamt of Paris--he had agents enough in other quarters: and the
anonymous or pseudonymous mischief was printed at London, Amsterdam, or
Hamburgh, from a fifth or sixth copy in the handwriting of some Dutch
or English clerk--thence, by cautious steps, smuggled into France--and
then, disavowed and denounced by himself, and, for him, by his
numberless agents, with an intrepid assurance which, down to the last,
confounded and baffled all official inquisitors, until, in each separate
case, the scent had got cold. Therefore, he sympathized not at all with
any of these, his subalterns, when they, in their own proper matters,
allowed themselves a less guarded style of movement."
On one occasion, Condorcet's imprudence extorts a whole series of
passionate remonstrants from him and his probable complaints--but the
burden is always the same--"Tolerate the whispers of age! How often
shall I have to tell you all that no one but a fool will publish such
things unless he has 200,000 bayonets at his back? Each Encyclopædist
was apt to forget that, though he corresponded familiarly with
Frederick, he was not a King of Prussia; and, by-and-by, not one of them
more frequently made this mistake than Condorcet--for that gentleman's
saintlike tranquillity of demeanor, though it might indicate a naturally
languid pulse, covered copious elements of vital passion. The slow wheel
could not resist the long attrition of controversy; and when it once
blazed, the flame was all the fiercer for its unseen nursing. 'You
mistake Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'he is a volcano covered with
snow.'"
When Turgot became Minister of Marine, he gave Condorcet a post as
Inspector of Canals; from this he was subsequently promoted to the
Inspector of the Mint. When Turgot was replaced by Necker, Condorcet
resigned his office.
In 1782 he was elected one of the forty of the Academy of Sciences,
beating the Astronomer, Bailly, by _one_ vote. In the next year,
D'Alembert, his faithful friend, died, leaving him the whole of his
wealth; his uncle, the bishop, likewise died in the same year, from
whom he would receive a fresh accession of property. Shortly after this,
time, Condorcet married Madame de Grouchy--also celebrated as a lady of
great beauty, good fortune, and an educated Atheist. The marriage was
a happy one. The only offspring was a girl, who married General Arthur
O'Connor, uncle to the late Feargus O'Connor, an Irish refugee who was
connected with Emmett's rebellion.
During the excitement of the American War of Independence, Condorcet
took an active part in urging the French Government to bestow assistance
in arms and money, upon the United States; after the war was concluded,
he corresponded with Thomas Paine, who gradually converted him to the
extreme Republican views the "illustrious needleman" himself possessed,
which, in this case, rapidly led to the _denouement_ of 1791, when he
was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly by the department of
Paris. In the next year he was raised to the rank of President by a
majority of near one hundred votes. While in the Assembly, he brought
forward and supported the economical doctrines of Adam Smith, proposed
the abolition of indirect taxation, and levying a national revenue upon
derivable wealth in amount according to the individual, passing over all
who gained a livelihood by manual labor. He made a motion for the public
burning of all documents relating to nobility--himself being a Marquis.
He took a conspicuous place in the trial of the king; he voted him
guilty, but refused to vote for his death, as the punishment of death
was against his principles. The speech he made on this occasion is fully
equal to that of Paine's on the same occasion.
When the divergence took place between the Jacobins and Girondists,
Condorcet strove to unite them; but every day brought fresh troubles,
and the position of the Seneca of the Revolution was too prominent to
escape the opposition of the more violent taction.
Robespierre triumphed; and in his success could be traced the doom
of his enemies. An intercepted letter was the means of Condorcet's
impeachment. Deprived of the support of Isnard, Brissot, and Vergniaud,
the Jacobins proscribed without difficulty the hero whose writings had
mainly assisted in producing the Revolution. His friends provided means
for his escape. They applied to a lodging-house keeper, a Madame
Vernet, if she would conceal him for a time; she asked was he a virtuous
man--yes, replied his friend, he is the---- stay, you say he is a good
man, I do not wish to pry into his secrets or his name. Once safe in
this asylum, he was unvisited by either wife or friends; morover, such
was the hurry of his flight, that he was without money, and nearly
without books.
While in this forced confinement, he wrote the "_Esquisse d'un
Tableau Historique des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain_," and several other
fragmentary essays. In this work he lays down a scheme of society
similar to the "New Moral World," of Robert Owen. Opposing the idea of
a God, he shows the dominion of science in education, political economy,
chemistry, and applies mathematical principles to a series of moral
problems. Along with the progress of man he combined the progress of
arts--estimating the sanatory arrangements of our time, he prophecied on
the gradual extension of longevity, amongst the human race; and with it,
enjoyments increased by better discipline in gustatorial duties. He
has similar views on the softer sex to M. Proudhomme (his immediate
disciple,) and, in the close of the work, Condorcet announced the
possibility of an universal language, which is daily becoming more
assimilated to modern ideas.
The guillotine had not been idle during the few weeks of Condorcet's
retreat. Fancying that (if discovered) he might be the means of injuring
his benefactress, he resolved to escape from the house of Madame Vernet.
Previous to doing this, he made his will. M. Arago, describing this
epoch in his closing days, says:--
"When he at last paused, and the feverish excitement of authorship was
at an end, our colleague rested all his thoughts anew on the danger
incurred by his hostess. He resolved then (I employ his own words) to
quit the retreat which the boundless devotion of his tutelar angel had
transformed into a paradise. He so little deceived himself as to the
probable consequences of the step he meditated--the chances of safety
after his evasion appeared so feeble--that before he put his plan into
execution he made his last dispositions. In the pages then written, I
behold everywhere the lively reflection of an elevated mind, a feeling
heart, and a beautiful soul. I will venture to say, that there exists
in no language anything better thought, more tender, more touching,
more sweetly expressed, than the '_Avis d'un Proscrit a sa Fill_.' Those
lines, so limpid, so full of unaffected delicacy, were written on that
very day when he was about to encounter voluntarily an immense danger.
The presentiment of a violent end almost inevitably did not disturb
him--his hand traced those terrible words, _Ma mort, ma mort prochaîne!_
with a firmness which the Stoics of antiquity might have envied.
Sensibility, on the contrary, obtained the mastery when the illustrious
proscribed was drawn into the anticipation that Madame de Condorcet also
might be involved in the bloody catastrophe that threatened him. _Should
my daughter be destined to lose all_--this is the most explicit allusion
that the husband can insert in his last writing."