of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of
the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and
is the true theology.
As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of
human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the
study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works
or writings that man has made; and it is not among the least of the
mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it
has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a
beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag
of superstition.
The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the church admits to be
more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the
book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the
original system of theology. The internal evidence of those orations
proves to a demonstration that the study and contemplation of the works
of creation, and of the power and wisdom of God revealed and manifested
in those works, made a great part of the religious devotion of the
times in which they were written; and it was this devotional study and
contemplation that led to the discovery of the principles upon which
what are now called Sciences are established; and it is to the discovery
of these principles that almost all the Arts that contribute to the
convenience of human life owe their existence. Every principal art has
some science for its parent, though the person who mechanically performs
the work does not always, and but very seldom, perceive the connection.
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences 'human
inventions;' it is only the application of them that is human.
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and
unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed.
Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
For example: Every person who looks at an almanack sees an account when
an eclipse will take place, and he sees also that it never fails to
take place according to the account there given. This shows that man is
acquainted with the laws by which the heavenly bodies move. But it would
be something worse than ignorance, were any church on earth to say that
those laws are an human invention.
It would also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that the
scientific principles, by the aid of which man is enabled to calculate
and foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are an human invention.
Man cannot invent any thing that is eternal and immutable; and the
scientific principles he employs for this purpose must, and are, of
necessity, as eternal and immutable as the laws by which the heavenly
bodies move, or they could not be used as they are to ascertain the time
when, and the manner how, an eclipse will take place.
The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the foreknowledge
of an eclipse, or of any thing else relating to the motion of the
heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part of science that
is called trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle, which, when
applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called astronomy;
when applied to direct the course of a ship on the ocean, it is called
navigation; when applied to the construction of figures drawn by a rule
and compass, it is called geometry; when applied to the construction
of plans of edifices, it is called architecture; when applied to the
measurement of any portion of the surface of the earth, it is called
land-surveying. In fine, it is the soul of science. It is an eternal
truth: it contains the mathematical demonstration of which man speaks,
and the extent of its uses are unknown.
It may be said, that man can make or draw a triangle, and therefore a
triangle is an human invention.
But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of the
principle: it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to the mind,
of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. The triangle does
not make the principle, any more than a candle taken into a room that
was dark, makes the chairs and tables that before were invisible. All
the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure, and
existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of by man. Man had no
more to do in the formation of those properties or principles, than
he had to do in making the laws by which the heavenly bodies move; and
therefore the one must have the same divine origin as the other.
In the same manner as, it may be said, that man can make a triangle,
so also, may it be said, he can make the mechanical instrument called
a lever. But the principle by which the lever acts, is a thing distinct
from the instrument, and would exist if the instrument did not; it
attaches itself to the instrument after it is made; the instrument,
therefore, can act no otherwise than it does act; neither can all the
efforts of human invention make it act otherwise. That which, in all
such cases, man calls the effect, is no other than the principle itself
rendered perceptible to the senses.
Since, then, man cannot make principles, from whence did he gain a
knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not only to things on
earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so immensely distant from
him as all the heavenly bodies are? From whence, I ask, could he gain
that knowledge, but from the study of the true theology?
It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledge to
man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of every principle
upon which every part of mathematical science is founded. The offspring
of this science is mechanics; for mechanics is no other than the
principles of science applied practically. The man who proportions the
several parts of a mill uses the same scientific principles as if he had
the power of constructing an universe, but as he cannot give to matter
that invisible agency by which all the component parts of the immense
machine of the universe have influence upon each other, and act in
motional unison together, without any apparent contact, and to which
man has given the name of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he
supplies the place of that agency by the humble imitation of teeth and
cogs. All the parts of man's microcosm must visibly touch. But could
he gain a knowledge of that agency, so as to be able to apply it in
practice, we might then say that another canonical book of the word of
God had been discovered.
If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could he alter
the properties of the triangle: for a lever (taking that sort of lever
which is called a steel-yard, for the sake of explanation) forms, when
in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from, (one point of that
line being in the fulcrum,) the line it descends to, and the chord of
the arc, which the end of the lever describes in the air, are the
three sides of a triangle. The other arm of the lever describes also a
triangle; and the corresponding sides of those two triangles, calculated
scientifically, or measured geometrically,--and also the sines,
tangents, and secants generated from the angles, and geometrically
measured,--have the same proportions to each other as the different
weights have that will balance each other on the lever, leaving the
weight of the lever out of the case.
It may also be said, that man can make a wheel and axis; that he can put
wheels of different magnitudes together, and produce a mill. Still the
case comes back to the same point, which is, that he did not make the
principle that gives the wheels those powers. This principle is as
unalterable as in the former cases, or rather it is the same principle
under a different appearance to the eye.
The power that two wheels of different magnitudes have upon each other
is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter of the two wheels
were joined together and made into that kind of lever I have described,
suspended at the part where the semi-diameters join; for the two wheels,
scientifically considered, are no other than the two circles generated
by the motion of the compound lever.
It is from the study of the true theology that all our knowledge of
science is derived; and it is from that knowledge that all the arts have
originated.
The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the
structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It
is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours,
"I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the
starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now
provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE
KIND TO EACH OTHER."
Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that his eye is
endowed with the power of beholding, to an incomprehensible distance, an
immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? Or of what use is
it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man? What has man to do
with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, with the star he calls the
north star, with the moving orbs he has named Saturn, Jupiter, Mars,
Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are to follow from their being visible?
A less power of vision would have been sufficient for man, if the
immensity he now possesses were given only to waste itself, as it were,
on an immense desert of space glittering with shows.
It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, as the
book and school of science, that he discovers any use in their being
visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immensity of
vision. But when he contemplates the subject in this light, he sees an
additional motive for saying, that nothing was made in vain; for in vain
would be this power of vision if it taught man nothing.
CHAPTER XII - THE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANISM ON EDUCATION; PROPOSED
REFORMS.
As the Christian system of faith has made a revolution in theology, so
also has it made a revolution in the state of learning. That which is
now called learning, was not learning originally. Learning does not
consist, as the schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of
languages, but in the knowledge of things to which language gives names.
The Greeks were a learned people, but learning with them did not consist
in speaking Greek, any more than in a Roman's speaking Latin, or a
Frenchman's speaking French, or an Englishman's speaking English. From
what we know of the Greeks, it does not appear that they knew or studied
any language but their own, and this was one cause of their becoming
so learned; it afforded them more time to apply themselves to better
studies. The schools of the Greeks were schools of science and
philosophy, and not of languages; and it is in the knowledge of the
things that science and philosophy teach that learning consists.
Almost all the scientific learning that now exists, came to us from the
Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek language. It therefore
became necessary to the people of other nations, who spoke a different
language, that some among them should learn the Greek language, in order
that the learning the Greeks had might be made known in those nations,
by translating the Greek books of science and philosophy into the mother
tongue of each nation.
The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the same manner for
the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of a linguist; and
the language thus obtained, was no other than the means, or as it were
the tools, employed to obtain the learning the Greeks had. It made no
part of the learning itself; and was so distinct from it as to make it
exceedingly probable that the persons who had studied Greek sufficiently
to translate those works, such for instance as Euclid's Elements, did
not understand any of the learning the works contained.
As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead languages, all
the useful books being already translated, the languages are become
useless, and the time expended in teaching and in learning them is
wasted. So far as the study of languages may contribute to the progress
and communication of knowledge (for it has nothing to do with the
creation of knowledge) it is only in the living languages that new
knowledge is to be found; and certain it is, that, in general, a
youth will learn more of a living language in one year, than of a dead
language in seven; and it is but seldom that the teacher knows much of
it himself. The difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise
from any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their
being dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same
thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek
linguist that now exists does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian
plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and the same for the Latin,
compared with a plowman or a milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect
to pronunciation and idiom, not so well as the cows that she milked. It
would therefore be advantageous to the state of learning to abolish
the study of the dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it
originally did, in scientific knowledge.
The apology that is sometimes made for continuing to teach the dead
languages is, that they are taught at a time when a child is not capable
of exerting any other mental faculty than that of memory. But this
is altogether erroneous. The human mind has a natural disposition to
scientific knowledge, and to the things connected with it. The first and
favourite amusement of a child, even before it begins to play, is that
of imitating the works of man. It builds bouses with cards or sticks; it
navigates the little ocean of a bowl of water with a paper boat; or dams
the stream of a gutter, and contrives something which it calls a mill;
and it interests itself in the fate of its works with a care that
resembles affection. It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is
killed by the barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is
lost in the linguist.
But the apology that is now made for continuing to teach the dead
languages, could not be the cause at first of cutting down learning to
the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry; the cause therefore must be
sought for elsewhere. In all researches of this kind, the best evidence
that can be produced, is the internal evidence the thing carries with
itself, and the evidence of circumstances that unites with it; both of
which, in this case, are not difficult to be discovered.
Putting then aside, as matter of distinct consideration, the outrage
offered to the moral justice of God, by supposing him to make the
innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose morality and low
contrivance of supposing him to change himself into the shape of a man,
in order to make an excuse to himself for not executing his supposed
sentence upon Adam; putting, I say, those things aside as matter of
distinct consideration, it is certain that what is called the
christian system of faith, including in it the whimsical account of
the creation--the strange story of Eve, the snake, and the apple--the
amphibious idea of a man-god--the corporeal idea of the death of a
god--the mythological idea of a family of gods, and the christian
system of arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three, are all
irreconcilable, not only to the divine gift of reason, that God has
given to man, but to the knowledge that man gains of the power and
wisdom of God by the aid of the sciences, and by studying the structure
of the universe that God has made.
The setters up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian system of
faith, could not but foresee that the continually progressive knowledge
that man would gain by the aid of science, of the power and wisdom of
God, manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all the works
of creation, would militate against, and call into question, the truth
of their system of faith; and therefore it became necessary to their
purpose to cut learning down to a size less dangerous to their project,
and this they effected by restricting the idea of learning to the dead
study of dead languages.
They not only rejected the study of science out of the christian
schools, but they persecuted it; and it is only within about the last
two centuries that the study has been revived. So late as 1610, Galileo,
a Florentine, discovered and introduced the use of telescopes, and by
applying them to observe the motions and appearances of the heavenly
bodies, afforded additional means for ascertaining the true structure
of the universe. Instead of being esteemed for these discoveries, he was
sentenced to renounce them, or the opinions resulting from them, as a
damnable heresy. And prior to that time Virgilius was condemned to be
burned for asserting the antipodes, or in other words, that the earth
was a globe, and habitable in every part where there was land; yet the
truth of this is now too well known even to be told. [NOTE: I cannot
discover the source of this statement concerning the ancient author
whose Irish name Feirghill was Latinized into Virgilius. The British
Museum possesses a copy of the work (Decalogiunt) which was the pretext
of the charge of heresy made by Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence, against
Virgilius, Abbot--bishop of Salzburg, These were leaders of the
rival "British" and "Roman parties, and the British champion made a
countercharge against Boniface of irreligious practices." Boniface had
to express a "regret," but none the less pursued his rival. The Pope,
Zachary II., decided that if his alleged "doctrine, against God and his
soul, that beneath the earth there is another world, other men, or
sun and moon," should be acknowledged by Virgilius, he should be
excommunicated by a Council and condemned with canonical sanctions.
Whatever may have been the fate involved by condemnation with "canonicis
sanctionibus," in the middle of the eighth century, it did not fall on
Virgilius. His accuser, Boniface, was martyred, 755, and it is probable
that Virgilius harmonied his Antipodes with orthodoxy. The gravamen of
the heresy seems to have been the suggestion that there were men not of
the progeny of Adam. Virgilius was made Bishop of Salzburg in 768. He
bore until his death, 789, the curious title, "Geometer and Solitary,"
or "lone wayfarer" (Solivagus). A suspicion of heresy clung to his
memory until 1233, when he was raised by Gregory IX, to sainthood beside
his accuser, St. Boniface.--Editor. (Conway)]
If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it would make
no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove them. There was no
moral ill in believing the earth was flat like a trencher, any more than
there was moral virtue in believing it was round like a globe; neither
was there any moral ill in believing that the Creator made no other
world than this, any more than there was moral virtue in believing that
he made millions, and that the infinity of space is filled with worlds.
But when a system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed system
of creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in a manner
almost inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an entirely different
ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad, become fraught with
the same mischiefs as if they were. It is then that the truth, though
otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential, by becoming the
criterion that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies by
contradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself. In this
view of the case it is the moral duty of man to obtain every possible
evidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other part of
creation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But this, the
supporters or partizans of the christian system, as if dreading the
result, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, but
persecuted the professors. Had Newton or Descartes lived three or four
hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they did, it is most
probable they would not have lived to finish them; and had Franklin
drawn lightning from the clouds at the same time, it would have been at
the hazard of expiring for it in flames.
Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals, but,
however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may be to
believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age of
ignorance commenced with the Christian system. There was more knowledge
in the world before that period, than for many centuries afterwards; and
as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as already said,
was only another species of mythology; and the mythology to which it
succeeded, was a corruption of an ancient system of theism. [NOTE by
Paine: It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heathen
mythology began; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that it
carries, that it did not begin in the same state or condition in which
it ended. All the gods of that mythology, except Saturn, were of modern
invention. The supposed reign of Saturn was prior to that which is
called the heathen mythology, and was so far a species of theism that
it admitted the belief of only one God. Saturn is supposed to have
abdicated the govemment in favour of his three sons and one daughter,
Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno; after this, thousands of other
gods and demigods were imaginarily created, and the calendar of gods
increased as fast as the calendar of saints and the calendar of courts
have increased since.
All the corruptions that have taken place, in theology and in religion
have been produced by admitting of what man calls 'revealed religion.'
The mythologists pretended to more revealed religion than the christians
do. They had their oracles and their priests, who were supposed to
receive and deliver the word of God verbally on almost all occasions.
Since then all corruptions down from Moloch to modern predestinarianism,
and the human sacrifices of the heathens to the christian sacrifice of
the Creator, have been produced by admitting of what is called revealed
religion, the most effectual means to prevent all such evils and
impositions is, not to admit of any other revelation than that which is
manifested in the book of Creation., and to contemplate the Creation as
the only true and real word of God that ever did or ever will exist;
and every thing else called the word of God is fable and
imposition.--Author.]
It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other cause,
that we have now to look back through a vast chasm of many hundred years
to the respectable characters we call the Ancients. Had the progression
of knowledge gone on proportionably with the stock that before existed,
that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising superior in
knowledge to each other; and those Ancients we now so much admire
would have appeared respectably in the background of the scene. But
the christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about
the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long
chasm, to the times of the Ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in
which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile hills
beyond.
It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, that any
thing should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to be
irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe that
God had made. But the fact is too well established to be denied. The
event that served more than any other to break the first link in this
long chain of despotic ignorance, is that known by the name of the
Reformation by Luther. From that time, though it does not appear to have
made any part of the intention of Luther, or of those who are called
Reformers, the Sciences began to revive, and Liberality, their
natural associate, began to appear. This was the only public good the
Reformation did; for, with respect to religious good, it might as well
not have taken place. The mythology still continued the same; and a
multiplicity of National Popes grew out of the downfall of the Pope of
Christendom.
CHAPTER XIII - COMPARISON OF CHRISTIANISM WITH THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS
INSPIRED BY NATURE.
HAVING thus shewn, from the internal evidence of things, the cause
that produced a change in the state of learning, and the motive for
substituting the study of the dead languages, in the place of the
Sciences, I proceed, in addition to the several observations already
made in the former part of this work, to compare, or rather to confront,
the evidence that the structure of the universe affords, with the
christian system of religion. But as I cannot begin this part better
than by referring to the ideas that occurred to me at an early part of
life, and which I doubt not have occurred in some degree to almost every
other person at one time or other, I shall state what those ideas were,
and add thereto such other matter as shall arise out of the subject,
giving to the whole, by way of preface, a short introduction.
My father being of the quaker profession, it was my good fortune to have
an exceedingly good moral education, and a tolerable stock of useful
learning. Though I went to the grammar school, I did not learn Latin,
not only because I had no inclination to learn languages, but because of
the objection the quakers have against the books in which the language
is taught. But this did not prevent me from being acquainted with the
subjects of all the Latin books used in the school.
The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had some turn, and
I believe some talent for poetry; but this I rather repressed than
encouraged, as leading too much into the field of imagination. As
soon as I was able, I purchased a pair of globes, and attended the
philosophical lectures of Martin and Ferguson, and became afterwards
acquainted with Dr. Bevis, of the society called the Royal Society, then
living in the Temple, and an excellent astronomer.
I had no disposition for what was called politics. It presented to
my mind no other idea than is contained in the word jockeyship. When,
therefore, I turned my thoughts towards matters of government, I had to
form a system for myself, that accorded with the moral and philosophic
principles in which I had been educated. I saw, or at least I thought I
saw, a vast scene opening itself to the world in the affairs of America;
and it appeared to me, that unless the Americans changed the plan they
were then pursuing, with respect to the government of England, and
declared themselves independent, they would not only involve themselves
in a multiplicity of new difficulties, but shut out the prospect that
was then offering itself to mankind through their means. It was from
these motives that I published the work known by the name of Common
Sense, which is the first work I ever did publish, and so far as I can
judge of myself, I believe I should never have been known in the world
as an author on any subject whatever, had it not been for the affairs
of America. I wrote Common Sense the latter end of the year 1775, and
published it the first of January, 1776. Independence was declared the
fourth of July following. [NOTE: The pamphlet Common Sense was first
advertised, as "just published," on January 10, 1776. His plea for the
Officers of Excise, written before leaving England, was printed, but not
published until 1793. Despite his reiterated assertion that Common Sense
was the first work he ever published the notion that he was "junius"
still finds some believers. An indirect comment on our Paine-Junians
may be found in Part 2 of this work where Paine says a man capable of
writing Homer "would not have thrown away his own fame by giving it to
another." It is probable that Paine ascribed the Letters of Junius to
Thomas Hollis. His friend F. Lanthenas, in his translation of the Age of
Reason (1794) advertises his translation of the Letters of Junius from
the English "(Thomas Hollis)." This he could hardly have done without
consultation with Paine. Unfortunately this translation of Junius cannot
be found either in the Bibliotheque Nationale or the British Museum, and
it cannot be said whether it contains any attempt at an identification
of Junius--Editor.]
Any person, who has made observations on the state and progress of the
human mind, by observing his own, can not but have observed, that there
are two distinct classes of what are called Thoughts; those that we
produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those
that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a
rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to
examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining; and it
is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have. As
to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves
only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning
for himself afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his own
teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct
quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their
place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so
lasting as when they begin by conception. Thus much for the introductory
part.
From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting upon it
by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the christian system, or
thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was: but I
well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon
read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church, upon
the subject of what is called Redemption by the death of the Son of God.
After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going
down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at
the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was
making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son,
when he could not revenge himself any other way; and as I was sure a man
would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose
they preached such sermons. This was not one of those kind of thoughts
that had any thing in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious
reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such
an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it.
I believe in the same manner to this moment; and I moreover believe,
that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind
of a child, cannot be a true system.
It seems as if parents of the christian profession were ashamed to tell
their children any thing about the principles of their religion. They
sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the goodness of
what they call Providence; for the Christian mythology has five deities:
there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the God
Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the christian story of God the
Father putting his son to death, or employing people to do it, (for that
is the plain language of the story,) cannot be told by a parent to a
child; and to tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and
better, is making the story still worse; as if mankind could be improved
by the example of murder; and to tell him that all this is a mystery, is
only making an excuse for the incredibility of it.
How different is this to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The
true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating
the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in
endeavouring to imitate him in every thing moral, scientifical, and
mechanical.
The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true Deism, in
the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the quakers: but
they have contracted themselves too much by leaving the works of God out
of their system. Though I reverence their philanthropy, I can not help
smiling at the conceit, that if the taste of a quaker could have been
consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-colored creation it
would have been! Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a
bird been permitted to sing.
Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. After I had
made myself master of the use of the globes, and of the orrery, [NOTE by
Paine: As this book may fall into the bands of persons who do not know
what an orrery is, it is for their information I add this note, as the
name gives no idea of the uses of the thing. The orrery has its name
from the person who invented it. It is a machinery of clock-work,
representing the universe in miniature: and in which the revolution of
the earth round itself and round the sun, the revolution of the moon
round the earth, the revolution of the planets round the sun, their
relative distances from the sun, as the center of the whole system,
their relative distances from each other, and their different
magnitudes, are represented as they really exist in what we call the
heavens.--Author.] and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and
of the eternal divisibility of matter, and obtained, at least, a general
knowledge of what was called natural philosophy, I began to compare, or,
as I have before said, to confront, the internal evidence those things
afford with the christian system of faith.
Though it is not a direct article of the christian system that this
world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet it is
so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of the
creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that
story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise, that is,
to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous
as what we call stars, renders the christian system of faith at once
little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the
air. The two beliefs can not be held together in the same mind; and he
who thinks that he believes both, has thought but little of either.
Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familiar to the
ancients, it is only within the last three centuries that the extent and
dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained. Several
vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailed entirely round
the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come round by the
contrary side of the circle to the spot he set out from. The circular
dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as a man would measure the
widest round of an apple, or a ball, is only twenty-five thousand and
twenty English miles, reckoning sixty-nine miles and an half to an
equatorial degree, and may be sailed round in the space of about three
years. [NOTE by Paine: Allowing a ship to sail, on an average, three
miles in an hour, she would sail entirely round the world in less than
one year, if she could sail in a direct circle, but she is obliged to
follow the course of the ocean.--Author.]
A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be
great; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which it is
suspended, like a bubble or a balloon in the air, it is infinitely less
in proportion than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of
the world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean, and is
therefore but small; and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one of a
system of worlds, of which the universal creation is composed.
It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of space
in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we follow a
progression of ideas. When we think of the size or dimensions of, a
room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and there they stop.
But when our eye, or our imagination darts into space, that is, when
it looks upward into what we call the open air, we cannot conceive any
walls or boundaries it can have; and if for the sake of resting our
ideas we suppose a boundary, the question immediately renews itself, and
asks, what is beyond that boundary? and in the same manner, what beyond
the next boundary? and so on till the fatigued imagination returns and
says, there is no end. Certainly, then, the Creator was not pent for
room when he made this world no larger than it is; and we have to seek
the reason in something else.
If we take a survey of our own world, or rather of this, of which the
Creator has given us the use as our portion in the immense system of
creation, we find every part of it, the earth, the waters, and the air
that surround it, filled, and as it were crowded with life, down from
the largest animals that we know of to the smallest insects the naked
eye can behold, and from thence to others still smaller, and totally
invisible without the assistance of the microscope. Every tree, every
plant, every leaf, serves not only as an habitation, but as a world
to some numerous race, till animal existence becomes so exceedingly
refined, that the effluvia of a blade of grass would be food for
thousands.
Since then no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it to be
supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void, lying in eternal
waste? There is room for millions of worlds as large or larger than
ours, and each of them millions of miles apart from each other.
Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas only one thought
further, we shall see, perhaps, the true reason, at least a very good
reason for our happiness, why the Creator, instead of making one immense
world, extending over an immense quantity of space, has preferred
dividing that quantity of matter into several distinct and separate
worlds, which we call planets, of which our earth is one. But before I
explain my ideas upon this subject, it is necessary (not for the sake
of those that already know, but for those who do not) to show what the
system of the universe is.
CHAPTER XIV - SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE.
THAT part of the universe that is called the solar system (meaning the
system of worlds to which our earth belongs, and of which Sol, or in
English language, the Sun, is the center) consists, besides the Sun, of
six distinct orbs, or planets, or worlds, besides the secondary bodies,
called the satellites, or moons, of which our earth has one that attends
her in her annual revolution round the Sun, in like manner as the
other satellites or moons, attend the planets or worlds to which they
severally belong, as may be seen by the assistance of the telescope.
The Sun is the center round which those six worlds or planets revolve at
different distances therefrom, and in circles concentric to each other.
Each world keeps constantly in nearly the same tract round the Sun, and
continues at the same time turning round itself, in nearly an upright
position, as a top turns round itself when it is spinning on the ground,
and leans a little sideways.
It is this leaning of the earth (23 1/2 degrees) that occasions summer
and winter, and the different length of days and nights. If the earth
turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the plane or level
of the circle it moves in round the Sun, as a top turns round when it
stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would be always of the
same length, twelve hours day and twelve hours night, and the season
would be uniformly the same throughout the year.
Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns round itself, it
makes what we call day and night; and every time it goes entirely round
the Sun, it makes what we call a year, consequently our world turns
three hundred and sixty-five times round itself, in going once round the
Sun.
The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and which are
still called by the same names, are Mercury, Venus, this world that we
call ours, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They appear larger to the eye than
the stars, being many million miles nearer to our earth than any of the
stars are. The planet Venus is that which is called the evening star,
and sometimes the morning star, as she happens to set after, or rise
before the Sun, which in either case is never more than three hours.
The Sun as before said being the center, the planet or world nearest the
Sun is Mercury; his distance from the Sun is thirty-four million miles,
and he moves round in a circle always at that distance from the Sun, as
a top may be supposed to spin round in the tract in which a horse goes
in a mill. The second world is Venus; she is fifty-seven million miles
distant from the Sun, and consequently moves round in a circle much
greater than that of Mercury. The third world is this that we inhabit,
and which is eighty-eight million miles distant from the Sun, and
consequently moves round in a circle greater than that of Venus. The
fourth world is Mars; he is distant from the sun one hundred and
thirty-four million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle
greater than that of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter; he is distant from
the Sun five hundred and fifty-seven million miles, and consequently
moves round in a circle greater than that of Mars. The sixth world is
Saturn; he is distant from the Sun seven hundred and sixty-three million
miles, and consequently moves round in a circle that surrounds the
circles or orbits of all the other worlds or planets.
The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space, that
our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform their
revolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a strait line of the
whole diameter of the orbit or circle in which Saturn moves round the
Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fifteen hundred
and twenty-six million miles; and its circular extent is nearly five
thousand million; and its globical content is almost three thousand five
hundred million times three thousand five hundred million square miles.
[NOTE by Paine: If it should be asked, how can man know these things? I
have one plain answer to give, which is, that man knows how to calculate
an eclipse, and also how to calculate to a minute of time when the
planet Venus, in making her revolutions round the Sun, will come in a
strait line between our earth and the Sun, and will appear to us about
the size of a large pea passing across the face of the Sun. This happens
but twice in about a hundred years, at the distance of about eight years
from each other, and has happened twice in our time, both of which were
foreknown by calculation. It can also be known when they will happen
again for a thousand years to come, or to any other portion of time.
As therefore, man could not be able to do these things if he did not
understand the solar system, and the manner in which the revolutions of
the several planets or worlds are performed, the fact of calculating an
eclipse, or a transit of Venus, is a proof in point that the knowledge
exists; and as to a few thousand, or even a few million miles, more
or less, it makes scarcely any sensible difference in such immense
distances.--Author.]
But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. Beyond this,
at a vast distance into space, far beyond all power of calculation, are
the stars called the fixed stars. They are called fixed, because they
have no revolutionary motion, as the six worlds or planets have that
I have been describing. Those fixed stars continue always at the same
distance from each other, and always in the same place, as the Sun does
in the center of our system. The probability, therefore, is that each of
those fixed stars is also a Sun, round which another system of worlds or
planets, though too remote for us to discover, performs its revolutions,
as our system of worlds does round our central Sun. By this easy
progression of ideas, the immensity of space will appear to us to be
filled with systems of worlds; and that no part of space lies at
waste, any more than any part of our globe of earth and water is left
unoccupied.
Having thus endeavoured to convey, in a familiar and easy manner, some
idea of the structure of the universe, I return to explain what I before
alluded to, namely, the great benefits arising to man in consequence of
the Creator having made a Plurality of worlds, such as our system is,
consisting of a central Sun and six worlds, besides satellites, in
preference to that of creating one world only of a vast extent.
CHAPTER XV - ADVANTAGES OF THE EXISTENCE OF MANY WORLDS IN EACH SOLAR
SYSTEM.
IT is an idea I have never lost sight of, that all our knowledge of
science is derived from the revolutions (exhibited to our eye and from
thence to our understanding) which those several planets or worlds of
which our system is composed make in their circuit round the Sun.
Had then the quantity of matter which these six worlds contain been
blended into one solitary globe, the consequence to us would have
been, that either no revolutionary motion would have existed, or not a
sufficiency of it to give us the ideas and the knowledge of science we
now have; and it is from the sciences that all the mechanical arts that
contribute so much to our earthly felicity and comfort are derived.
As therefore the Creator made nothing in vain, so also must it be
believed that he organized the structure of the universe in the most
advantageous manner for the benefit of man; and as we see, and from
experience feel, the benefits we derive from the structure of the
universe, formed as it is, which benefits we should not have had the
opportunity of enjoying if the structure, so far as relates to our
system, had been a solitary globe, we can discover at least one reason
why a plurality of worlds has been made, and that reason calls forth the
devotional gratitude of man, as well as his admiration.
But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, only, that the
benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. The inhabitants
of each of the worlds of which our system is composed, enjoy the same
opportunities of knowledge as we do. They behold the revolutionary
motions of our earth, as we behold theirs. All the planets revolve
in sight of each other; and, therefore, the same universal school of
science presents itself to all.
Neither does the knowledge stop here. The system of worlds next to us
exhibits, in its revolutions, the same principles and school of science,
to the inhabitants of their system, as our system does to us, and in
like manner throughout the immensity of space.
Our ideas, not only of the almightiness of the Creator, but of his
wisdom and his beneficence, become enlarged in proportion as we
contemplate the extent and the structure of the universe. The solitary
idea of a solitary world, rolling or at rest in the immense ocean of
space, gives place to the cheerful idea of a society of worlds, so
happily contrived as to administer, even by their motion, instruction
to man. We see our own earth filled with abundance; but we forget to
consider how much of that abundance is owing to the scientific knowledge
the vast machinery of the universe has unfolded.
CHAPTER XVI - APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING TO THE SYSTEM OF THE
CHRISTIANS.
BUT, in the midst of those reflections, what are we to think of the
christian system of faith that forms itself upon the idea of only
one world, and that of no greater extent, as is before shown, than
twenty-five thousand miles. An extent which a man, walking at the rate
of three miles an hour for twelve hours in the day, could he keep on in
a circular direction, would walk entirely round in less than two years.
Alas! what is this to the mighty ocean of space, and the almighty power
of the Creator!
From whence then could arise the solitary and strange conceit that
the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on his
protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our
world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple! And,
on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the boundless
creation had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a redeemer? In this case,
the person who is irreverently called the Son of God, and sometimes
God himself, would have nothing else to do than to travel from world
to world, in an endless succession of death, with scarcely a momentary
interval of life.
It has been by rejecting the evidence, that the word, or works of God in
the creation, affords to our senses, and the action of our reason upon
that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical systems of faith, and of
religion, have been fabricated and set up. There may be many systems of
religion that so far from being morally bad are in many respects morally
good: but there can be but ONE that is true; and that one necessarily
must, as it ever will, be in all things consistent with the ever
existing word of God that we behold in his works. But such is the
strange construction of the christian system of faith, that every
evidence the heavens affords to man, either directly contradicts it or
renders it absurd.
It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure in encouraging
myself to believe it, that there have been men in the world who
persuaded themselves that what is called a pious fraud, might, at least
under particular circumstances, be productive of some good. But the
fraud being once established, could not afterwards be explained; for
it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action, it begets a calamitous
necessity of going on.
The persons who first preached the christian system of faith, and in
some measure combined with it the morality preached by Jesus Christ,
might persuade themselves that it was better than the heathen mythology
that then prevailed. From the first preachers the fraud went on to
the second, and to the third, till the idea of its being a pious fraud
became lost in the belief of its being true; and that belief became
again encouraged by the interest of those who made a livelihood by
preaching it.
But though such a belief might, by such means, be rendered almost
general among the laity, it is next to impossible to account for the
continual persecution carried on by the church, for several hundred
years, against the sciences, and against the professors of science, if
the church had not some record or tradition that it was originally
no other than a pious fraud, or did not foresee that it could not be
maintained against the evidence that the structure of the universe
afforded.
CHAPTER XVII - OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN ALL TIME, AND ALMOST
UNIVERSALLY, TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLES.
HAVING thus shown the irreconcileable inconsistencies between the real
word of God existing in the universe, and that which is called the word
of God, as shown to us in a printed book that any man might make, I
proceed to speak of the three principal means that have been employed in
all ages, and perhaps in all countries, to impose upon mankind.
Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, The first two
are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought always to be
suspected.
With respect to Mystery, everything we behold is, in one sense, a
mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery: the whole vegetable world
is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that an acorn, when put into
the ground, is made to develop itself and become an oak. We know not how
it is that the seed we sow unfolds and multiplies itself, and returns to
us such an abundant interest for so small a capital.
The fact however, as distinct from the operating cause, is not a
mystery, because we see it; and we know also the means we are to
use, which is no other than putting the seed in the ground. We know,
therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know; and that part of
the operation that we do not know, and which if we did, we could not
perform, the Creator takes upon himself and performs it for us. We are,
therefore, better off than if we had been let into the secret, and left
to do it for ourselves.
But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word
mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can
be applied to light. The God in whom we believe is a God of moral truth,
and not a God of mystery or obscurity. Mystery is the antagonist
of truth. It is a fog of human invention that obscures truth, and
represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself in mystery;
and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped, is the work of its
antagonist, and never of itself.
Religion, therefore, being the belief of a God, and the practice of
moral truth, cannot have connection with mystery. The belief of a God,
so far from having any thing of mystery in it, is of all beliefs the
most easy, because it arises to us, as is before observed, out of
necessity. And the practice of moral truth, or, in other words, a
practical imitation of the moral goodness of God, is no other than our
acting towards each other as he acts benignly towards all. We cannot
serve God in the manner we serve those who cannot do without such
service; and, therefore, the only idea we can have of serving God, is
that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation that God
has made. This cannot be done by retiring ourselves from the society of
the world, and spending a recluse life in selfish devotion.
The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express it, prove
even to demonstration that it must be free from every thing of mystery,
and unincumbered with every thing that is mysterious. Religion,
considered as a duty, is incumbent upon every living soul alike, and,
therefore, must be on a level to the understanding and comprehension of
all. Man does not learn religion as he learns the secrets and mysteries
of a trade. He learns the theory of religion by reflection. It arises
out of the action of his own mind upon the things which he sees, or upon
what he may happen to hear or to read, and the practice joins itself
thereto.
When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems of religion
incompatible with the word or works of God in the creation, and not
only above but repugnant to human comprehension, they were under the
necessity of inventing or adopting a word that should serve as a bar
to all questions, inquiries and speculations. The word mystery answered
this purpose, and thus it has happened that religion, which is in itself
without mystery, has been corrupted into a fog of mysteries.
As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as an
occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the latter
to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other the legerdemain.
But before going further into this subject, it will be proper to inquire
what is to be understood by a miracle.
In the same sense that every thing may be said to be a mystery, so also
may it be said that every thing is a miracle, and that no one thing is
a greater miracle than another. The elephant, though larger, is not a
greater miracle than a mite: nor a mountain a greater miracle than an
atom. To an almighty power it is no more difficult to make the one than
the other, and no more difficult to make a million of worlds than to
make one. Every thing, therefore, is a miracle, in one sense; whilst,
in the other sense, there is no such thing as a miracle. It is a miracle
when compared to our power, and to our comprehension. It is not a
miracle compared to the power that performs it. But as nothing in this
description conveys the idea that is affixed to the word miracle, it is
necessary to carry the inquiry further.
Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which what they
call nature is supposed to act; and that a miracle is something contrary
to the operation and effect of those laws. But unless we know the whole
extent of those laws, and of what are commonly called the powers of
nature, we are not able to judge whether any thing that may appear to us
wonderful or miraculous, be within, or be beyond, or be contrary to, her
natural power of acting.
The ascension of a man several miles high into the air, would have
everything in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it were not
known that a species of air can be generated several times lighter than
the common atmospheric air, and yet possess elasticity enough to prevent
the balloon, in which that light air is inclosed, from being compressed
into as many times less bulk, by the common air that surrounds it. In
like manner, extracting flashes or sparks of fire from the human body,
as visibly as from a steel struck with a flint, and causing iron or
steel to move without any visible agent, would also give the idea of a
miracle, if we were not acquainted with electricity and magnetism; so
also would many other experiments in natural philosophy, to those who
are not acquainted with the subject. The restoring persons to life who
are to appearance dead as is practised upon drowned persons, would also
be a miracle, if it were not known that animation is capable of being
suspended without being extinct.
Besides these, there are performances by slight of hand, and by persons
acting in concert, that have a miraculous appearance, which, when known,
are thought nothing of. And, besides these, there are mechanical and
optical deceptions. There is now an exhibition in Paris of ghosts or
spectres, which, though it is not imposed upon the spectators as a fact,
has an astonishing appearance. As, therefore, we know not the extent to
which either nature or art can go, there is no criterion to determine
what a miracle is; and mankind, in giving credit to appearances, under
the idea of their being miracles, are subject to be continually imposed
upon.
Since then appearances are so capable of deceiving, and things not
real have a strong resemblance to things that are, nothing can be more
inconsistent than to suppose that the Almighty would make use of means,
such as are called miracles, that would subject the person who performed
them to the suspicion of being an impostor, and the person who related
them to be suspected of lying, and the doctrine intended to be supported
thereby to be suspected as a fabulous invention.
Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to obtain belief to
any system or opinion to which the name of religion has been given, that
of miracle, however successful the imposition may have been, is the most
inconsistent. For, in the first place, whenever recourse is had to show,
for the purpose of procuring that belief (for a miracle, under any
idea of the word, is a show) it implies a lameness or weakness in the
doctrine that is preached. And, in the second place, it is degrading the
Almighty into the character of a show-man, playing tricks to amuse and
make the people stare and wonder. It is also the most equivocal sort of
evidence that can be set up; for the belief is not to depend upon the
thing called a miracle, but upon the credit of the reporter, who says
that he saw it; and, therefore, the thing, were it true, would have no
better chance of being believed than if it were a lie.
Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book, a hand
presented itself in the air, took up the pen and wrote every word that
is herein written; would any body believe me? Certainly they would not.
Would they believe me a whit the more if the thing had been a fact?
Certainly they would not. Since then a real miracle, were it to happen,
would be subject to the same fate as the falsehood, the inconsistency
becomes the greater of supposing the Almighty would make use of means
that would not answer the purpose for which they were intended, even if
they were real.
If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out of the
course of what is called nature, that she must go out of that course
to accomplish it, and we see an account given of such a miracle by the
person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the mind very easily
decided, which is,--Is it more probable that nature should go out of
her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our
time, nature go out of her course; but we have good reason to believe
that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is, therefore,
at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.
The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large
enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvellous; but it would have
approached nearer to the idea of a miracle, if Jonah had swallowed the
whale. In this, which may serve for all cases of miracles, the matter
would decide itself as before stated, namely, Is it more probable that a
man should have, swallowed a whale, or told a lie?
But suppose that Jonah had really swallowed the whale, and gone with
it in his belly to Nineveh, and to convince the people that it was true
have cast it up in their sight, of the full length and size of a whale,
would they not have believed him to have been the devil instead of a
prophet? or if the whale had carried Jonah to Nineveh, and cast him up
in the same public manner, would they not have believed the whale to
have been the devil, and Jonah one of his imps?
The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related in the
New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus Christ,
and carrying him to the top of a high mountain; and to the top of the
highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and promising to him
all the kingdoms of the world. How happened it that he did not discover
America? or is it only with kingdoms that his sooty highness has any
interest.
I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ to believe
that he told this whale of a miracle himself: neither is it easy to
account for what purpose it could have been fabricated, unless it were
to impose upon the connoisseurs of miracles, as is sometimes practised
upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's farthings, and collectors of
relics and antiquities; or to render the belief of miracles ridiculous,
by outdoing miracle, as Don Quixote outdid chivalry; or to embarrass the
belief of miracles, by making it doubtful by what power, whether of God
or of the devil, any thing called a miracle was performed. It requires,
however, a great deal of faith in the devil to believe this miracle.
In every point of view in which those things called miracles can be
placed and considered, the reality of them is improbable, and their
existence unnecessary. They would not, as before observed, answer any
useful purpose, even if they were true; for it is more difficult to
obtain belief to a miracle, than to a principle evidently moral, without
any miracle. Moral principle speaks universally for itself. Miracle
could be but a thing of the moment, and seen but by a few; after this it
requires a transfer of faith from God to man to believe a miracle upon
man's report. Instead, therefore, of admitting the recitals of miracles
as evidence of any system of religion being true, they ought to be
considered as symptoms of its being fabulous. It is necessary to the
full and upright character of truth that it rejects the crutch; and it
is consistent with the character of fable to seek the aid that truth
rejects. Thus much for Mystery and Miracle.
As Mystery and Miracle took charge of the past and the present, Prophecy
took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of faith. It was
not sufficient to know what had been done, but what would be done. The
supposed prophet was the supposed historian of times to come; and if
he happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand years, to strike
within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of posterity could make
it point-blank; and if he happened to be directly wrong, it was only
to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and Nineveh, that God had repented
himself and changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems make of
man!
It has been shewn, in a former part of this work, that the original
meaning of the words prophet and prophesying has been changed, and that
a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used, is a creature of modern
invention; and it is owing to this change in the meaning of the words,
that the flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and phrases and
expressions now rendered obscure by our not being acquainted with the
local circumstances to which they applied at the time they were used,
have been erected into prophecies, and made to bend to explanations
at the will and whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders, and
commentators. Every thing unintelligible was prophetical, and every
thing insignificant was typical. A blunder would have served for a
prophecy; and a dish-clout for a type.
If by a prophet we are to suppose a man to whom the Almighty
communicated some event that would take place in future, either there
were such men, or there were not. If there were, it is consistent to
believe that the event so communicated would be told in terms that could
be understood, and not related in such a loose and obscure manner as to
be out of the comprehension of those that heard it, and so equivocal
as to fit almost any circumstance that might happen afterwards. It is
conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty, to suppose he would
deal in this jesting manner with mankind; yet all the things called
prophecies in the book called the Bible come under this description.
But it is with Prophecy as it is with Miracle. It could not answer the
purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy should be told
could not tell whether the man prophesied or lied, or whether it had
been revealed to him, or whether he conceited it; and if the thing that
he prophesied, or pretended to prophesy, should happen, or some thing
like it, among the multitude of things that are daily happening, nobody
could again know whether he foreknew it, or guessed at it, or whether
it was accidental. A prophet, therefore, is a character useless and
unnecessary; and the safe side of the case is to guard against being
imposed upon, by not giving credit to such relations.
Upon the whole, Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, are appendages that
belong to fabulous and not to true religion. They are the means by which
so many Lo heres! and Lo theres! have been spread about the world,
and religion been made into a trade. The success of one impostor gave
encouragement to another, and the quieting salvo of doing some good by
keeping up a pious fraud protected them from remorse.
RECAPITULATION.
HAVING now extended the subject to a greater length than I first
intended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a summary from the
whole.
First, That the idea or belief of a word of God existing in print, or in
writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself for the reasons already
assigned. These reasons, among many others, are the want of an universal
language; the mutability of language; the errors to which translations
are subject, the possibility of totally suppressing such a word; the
probability of altering it, or of fabricating the whole, and imposing it
upon the world.
Secondly, That the Creation we behold is the real and ever existing word
of God, in which we cannot be deceived. It proclaimeth his power, it
demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his goodness and beneficence.
Thirdly, That the moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral
goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards all
his creatures. That seeing as we daily do the goodness of God to all
men, it is an example calling upon all men to practise the same towards
each other; and, consequently, that every thing of persecution and
revenge between man and man, and every thing of cruelty to animals, is a
violation of moral duty.
I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content
myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that
gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner he
pleases, either with or without this body; and it appears more probable
to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I should have
had existence, as I now have, before that existence began.
It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all
religions agree. All believe in a God. The things in which they disgrace
are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and therefore, if ever an
universal religion should prevail, it will not be believing any thing
new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed
at first. ["In the childhood of the world," according to the first
(French) version; and the strict translation of the final sentence is:
"Deism was the religion of Adam, supposing him not an imaginary being;
but none the less must it be left to all men to follow, as is their
right, the religion and worship they prefer."--Editor.] Adam, if ever
there was such a man, was created a Deist; but in the mean time, let
every man follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and worship he
prefers.
END OF PART I
THE AGE OF REASON - PART II
Contents
* Preface
* Chapter I - The Old Testament
* Chapter II - The New Testament
* Chapter III - Conclusion
PREFACE
I HAVE mentioned in the former part of The Age of Reason that it had
long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon Religion; but that I
had originally reserved it to a later period in life, intending it to
be the last work I should undertake. The circumstances, however, which
existed in France in the latter end of the year 1793, determined me to
delay it no longer. The just and humane principles of the Revolution
which Philosophy had first diffused, had been departed from. The Idea,
always dangerous to Society as it is derogatory to the Almighty,--that
priests could forgive sins,--though it seemed to exist no longer, had
blunted the feelings of humanity, and callously prepared men for the
commission of all crimes. The intolerant spirit of church persecution
had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, stiled
Revolutionary, supplied the place of an Inquisition; and the Guillotine
of the Stake. I saw many of my most intimate friends destroyed; others
daily carried to prison; and I had reason to believe, and had also
intimations given me, that the same danger was approaching myself.
Under these disadvantages, I began the former part of the Age of Reason;
I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament [It must be borne in mind
that throughout this work Paine generally means by "Bible" only the Old
Testament, and speaks of the New as the "Testament."--Editor.] to
refer to, though I was writing against both; nor could I procure any;
notwithstanding which I have produced a work that no Bible Believer,
though writing at his ease and with a Library of Church Books about him,
can refute. Towards the latter end of December of that year, a motion
was made and carried, to exclude foreigners from the Convention. There
were but two, Anacharsis Cloots and myself; and I saw I was particularly
pointed at by Bourdon de l'Oise, in his speech on that motion.
Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, I sat down
and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible; and I had not
finished it more than six hours, in the state it has since appeared,
[This is an allusion to the essay which Paine wrote at an earlier part
of 1793. See Introduction.--Editor.] before a guard came there, about
three in the morning, with an order signed by the two Committees of
Public Safety and Surety General, for putting me in arrestation as
a foreigner, and conveying me to the prison of the Luxembourg. I
contrived, in my way there, to call on Joel Barlow, and I put the
Manuscript of the work into his hands, as more safe than in my
possession in prison; and not knowing what might be the fate in France
either of the writer or the work, I addressed it to the protection of
the citizens of the United States.
It is justice that I say, that the guard who executed this order, and
the interpreter to the Committee of General Surety, who accompanied
them to examine my papers, treated me not only with civility, but with
respect. The keeper of the 'Luxembourg, Benoit, a man of good heart,
shewed to me every friendship in his power, as did also all his family,
while he continued in that station. He was removed from it, put
into arrestation, and carried before the tribunal upon a malignant
accusation, but acquitted.
After I had been in Luxembourg about three weeks, the Americans then in
Paris went in a body to the Convention to reclaim me as their countryman
and friend; but were answered by the President, Vadier, who was also
President of the Committee of Surety General, and had signed the order
for my arrestation, that I was born in England. [These excited Americans
do not seem to have understood or reported the most important item in
Vadeer's reply, namely that their application was "unofficial," i.e. not
made through or sanctioned by Gouverneur Morris, American Minister.
For the detailed history of all this see vol. iii.--Editor.] I heard no
more, after this, from any person out of the walls of the prison, till
the fall of Robespierre, on the 9th of Thermidor--July 27, 1794.
About two months before this event, I was seized with a fever that in
its progress had every symptom of becoming mortal, and from the effects
of which I am not recovered. It was then that I remembered with renewed
satisfaction, and congratulated myself most sincerely, on having written
the former part of The Age of Reason. I had then but little expectation
of surviving, and those about me had less. I know therefore by
experience the conscientious trial of my own principles.
I was then with three chamber comrades: Joseph Vanheule of Bruges,
Charles Bastfni, and Michael Robyns of Louvain. The unceasing and
anxious attention of these three friends to me, by night and day, I
remember with gratitude and mention with pleasure. It happened that a
physician (Dr. Graham) and a surgeon, (Mr. Bond,) part of the suite of
General O'Hara, [The officer who at Yorktown, Virginia, carried out
the sword of Cornwallis for surrender, and satirically offered it to
Rochambeau instead of Washington. Paine loaned him 300 pounds when he
(O'Hara) left the prison, the money he had concealed in the lock of
his cell-door.--Editor.] were then in the Luxembourg: I ask not myself
whether it be convenient to them, as men under the English Government,
that I express to them my thanks; but I should reproach myself if I did
not; and also to the physician of the Luxembourg, Dr. Markoski.
I have some reason to believe, because I cannot discover any other, that
this illness preserved me in existence. Among the papers of Robespierre
that were examined and reported upon to the Convention by a Committee of
Deputies, is a note in the hand writing of Robespierre, in the following
words:
"Demander que Thomas Paine soit decrete d'accusation, pour l'interet de
l'Amerique autant que de la France."
[Demand that Thomas Paine be decreed of accusation, for the interest
of America, as well as of France.] From what cause it was that the
intention was not put in execution, I know not, and cannot inform
myself; and therefore I ascribe it to impossibility, on account of that
illness.
The Convention, to repair as much as lay in their power the injustice I
had sustained, invited me publickly and unanimously to return into the
Convention, and which I accepted, to shew I could bear an injury without
permitting it to injure my principles or my disposition. It is not
because right principles have been violated, that they are to be
abandoned.
I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publications written,
some in America, and some in England, as answers to the former part of
"The Age of Reason." If the authors of these can amuse themselves by so
doing, I shall not interrupt them, They may write against the work, and
against me, as much as they please; they do me more service than they
intend, and I can have no objection that they write on. They will find,
however, by this Second Part, without its being written as an answer to
them, that they must return to their work, and spin their cobweb over
again. The first is brushed away by accident.
They will now find that I have furnished myself with a Bible and
Testament; and I can say also that I have found them to be much worse
books than I had conceived. If I have erred in any thing, in the former
part of the Age of Reason, it has been by speaking better of some parts
than they deserved.
I observe, that all my opponents resort, more or less, to what they call
Scripture Evidence and Bible authority, to help them out. They are
so little masters of the subject, as to confound a dispute about
authenticity with a dispute about doctrines; I will, however, put them
right, that if they should be disposed to write any more, they may know
how to begin.
THOMAS PAINE. October, 1795.
CHAPTER I - THE OLD TESTAMENT
IT has often been said that any thing may be proved from the Bible; but
before any thing can be admitted as proved by Bible, the Bible itself
must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of
it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as
proof of any thing.
It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and
of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the
world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have disputed
and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the supposeable
meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has said and
insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that it meant
directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant neither one nor the
other, but something different from both; and this they have called
understanding the Bible.
It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former
part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these
pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and understand
the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it
best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that
Thomas Paine understands it not.
Now instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves in fractious
disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible, these men
ought to know, and if they do not it is civility to inform them,
that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is sufficient
authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God, or whether
there is not?
There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express command
of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every idea we have of
moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, by Carrier, by Joseph
le Bon, in France, by the English government in the East Indies, or by
any other assassin in modern times. When we read in the books ascribed
to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (the Israelites) came by stealth upon
whole nations of people, who, as the history itself shews, had given
them no offence; that they put all those nations to the sword; that they
spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly destroyed men, women
and children; that they left not a soul to breathe; expressions that are
repeated over and over again in those books, and that too with exulting
ferocity; are we sure these things are facts? are we sure that the
Creator of man commissioned those things to be done? Are we sure that
the books that tell us so were written by his authority?
It is not the antiquity of a tale that is an evidence of its truth;
on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous; for the more
ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resemblance of
a fable. The origin of every nation is buried in fabulous tradition, and
that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as any other.
To charger the commission of things upon the Almighty, which in their
own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes, as all
assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants, is
matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us, that those assassinations
were done by the express command of God. To believe therefore the Bible
to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in the moral justice of
God; for wherein could crying or smiling infants offend? And to read
the Bible without horror, we must undo every thing that is tender,
sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself,
if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the
sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be
sufficient to determine my choice.
But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I will, in
the progress of this work, produce such other evidence as even a
priest cannot deny; and show, from that evidence, that the Bible is not
entitled to credit, as being the word of God.
But, before I proceed to this examination, I will show wherein the Bible
differs from all other ancient writings with respect to the nature of
the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity; and this is is
the more proper to be done, because the advocates of the Bible, in their
answers to the former part of 'The Age of Reason,' undertake to say, and
they put some stress thereon, that the authenticity of the Bible is as
well established as that of any other ancient book: as if our belief of
the one could become any rule for our belief of the other.
I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively challenges
universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's Elements of Geometry;
[Euclid, according to chronological history, lived three hundred years
before Christ, and about one hundred before Archimedes; he was of the
city of Alexandria, in Egypt.--Author.] and the reason is, because it
is a book of self-evident demonstration, entirely independent of its
author, and of every thing relating to time, place, and circumstance.
The matters contained in that book would have the same authority they
now have, had they been written by any other person, or had the work
been anonymous, or had the author never been known; for the identical
certainty of who was the author makes no part of our belief of the
matters contained in the book. But it is quite otherwise with respect to
the books ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, etc.: those are
books of testimony, and they testify of things naturally incredible;
and therefore the whole of our belief, as to the authenticity of those
books, rests, in the first place, upon the certainty that they were
written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; secondly, upon the credit we give
to their testimony. We may believe the first, that is, may believe the
certainty of the authorship, and yet not the testimony; in the same
manner that we may believe that a certain person gave evidence upon a
case, and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. But if it should
be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not
written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the authority and
authenticity of those books is gone at once; for there can be no such
thing as forged or invented testimony; neither can there be anonymous
testimony, more especially as to things naturally incredible; such
as that of talking with God face to face, or that of the sun and moon
standing still at the command of a man.
The greatest part of the other ancient books are works of genius; of
which kind are those ascribed to Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to
Demosthenes, to Cicero, etc. Here again the author is not an essential
in the credit we give to any of those works; for as works of genius they
would have the same merit they have now, were they anonymous. Nobody
believes the Trojan story, as related by Homer, to be true; for it is
the poet only that is admired, and the merit of the poet will remain,
though the story be fabulous. But if we disbelieve the matters related
by the Bible authors (Moses for instance) as we disbelieve the things
related by Homer, there remains nothing of Moses in our estimation, but
an imposter. As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we
credit them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no
further: for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus
relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man, and a
blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus
Christ by his historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by
Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his
army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are
quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do not
believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to establish
our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or
elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief to natural
and probable things; and therefore the advocates for the Bible have no
claim to our belief of the Bible because that we believe things stated
in other ancient writings; since that we believe the things stated
in those writings no further than they are probable and credible, or
because they are self-evident, like Euclid; or admire them because they
are elegant, like Homer; or approve them because they are sedate, like
Plato; or judicious, like Aristotle.
Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the authenticity of
the Bible; and I begin with what are called the five books of Moses,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. My intention is to
shew that those books are spurious, and that Moses is not the author of
them; and still further, that they were not written in the time of Moses
nor till several hundred years afterwards; that they are no other than
an attempted history of the life of Moses, and of the times in which he
is said to have lived, and also of the times prior thereto, written by
some very ignorant and stupid pretenders to authorship, several hundred
years after the death of Moses; as men now write histories of things
that happened, or are supposed to have happened, several hundred or
several thousand years ago.
The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from the books
themselves; and I will confine myself to this evidence only. Were I to
refer for proofs to any of the ancient authors, whom the advocates of
the Bible call prophane authors, they would controvert that authority,
as I controvert theirs: I will therefore meet them on their own ground,
and oppose them with their own weapon, the Bible.
In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses is
the author of those books; and that he is the author, is altogether an
unfounded opinion, got abroad nobody knows how. The style and manner
in which those books are written give no room to believe, or even to
suppose, they were written by Moses; for it is altogether the style and
manner of another person speaking of Moses. In Exodus, Leviticus and
Numbers, (for every thing in Genesis is prior to the times of Moses and
not the least allusion is made to him therein,) the whole, I say, of
these books is in the third person; it is always, the Lord said unto
Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord; or Moses said unto the people,
or the people said unto Moses; and this is the style and manner that
historians use in speaking of the person whose lives and actions they
are writing. It may be said, that a man may speak of himself in the
third person, and, therefore, it may be supposed that Moses did; but
supposition proves nothing; and if the advocates for the belief that
Moses wrote those books himself have nothing better to advance than
supposition, they may as well be silent.
But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of himself in
the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that manner,
it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, that it is Moses who
speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and absurd:--for
example, Numbers xii. 3: "Now the man Moses was very MEEK, above all the
men which were on the face of the earth." If Moses said this of himself,
instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and
arrogant coxcombs; and the advocates for those books may now take which
side they please, for both sides are against them: if Moses was not the
author, the books are without authority; and if he was the author, the
author is without credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of
meekness, and is a lie in sentiment.
In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks more evidently
than in the former books that Moses is not the writer. The manner here
used is dramatical; the writer opens the subject by a short introductory
discourse, and then introduces Moses as in the act of speaking, and when
he has made Moses finish his harrangue, he (the writer) resumes his own
part, and speaks till he brings Moses forward again, and at last closes
the scene with an account of the death, funeral, and character of Moses.
This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book: from the
first verse of the first chapter, to the end of the fifth verse, it is
the writer who speaks; he then introduces Moses as in the act of making
his harrangue, and this continues to the end of the 40th verse of the
fourth chapter; here the writer drops Moses, and speaks historically of
what was done in consequence of what Moses, when living, is supposed to
have said, and which the writer has dramatically rehearsed.
The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifth
chapter, though it is only by saying that Moses called the people of
Israel together; he then introduces Moses as before, and continues him
as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 26th chapter. He does the
same thing at the beginning of the 27th chapter; and continues Moses
as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 28th chapter. At the 29th
chapter the writer speaks again through the whole of the first verse,
and the first line of the second verse, where he introduces Moses for
the last time, and continues him as in the act of speaking, to the end
of the 33d chapter.
The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of Moses, comes
forward, and speaks through the whole of the last chapter: he begins by
telling the reader, that Moses went up to the top of Pisgah, that he
saw from thence the land which (the writer says) had been promised to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that he, Moses, died there in the land of
Moab, that he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, but that no
man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day, that is unto the time in
which the writer lived who wrote the book of Deuteronomy. The writer
then tells us, that Moses was one hundred and ten years of age when he
died--that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated; and he
concludes by saying, that there arose not a prophet since in Israel
like unto Moses, whom, says this anonymous writer, the Lord knew face to
face.
Having thus shewn, as far as grammatical evidence implies, that
Moses was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a few
observations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book of
Deuteronomy, proceed to shew, from the historical and chronological
evidence contained in those books, that Moses was not, because he could
not be, the writer of them; and consequently, that there is no authority
for believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of men, women, and
children, told of in those books, were done, as those books say they
were, at the command of God. It is a duty incumbent on every true deist,
that he vindicates the moral justice of God against the calumnies of the
Bible.
The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, for it is an
anonymous work, is obscure, and also contradictory with himself in the
account he has given of Moses.
After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does not
appear from any account that he ever came down again) he tells us, that
Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he buried him in a valley
in the land of Moab; but as there is no antecedent to the pronoun he,
there is no knowing who he was, that did bury him. If the writer meant
that he (God) buried him, how should he (the writer) know it? or why
should we (the readers) believe him? since we know not who the writer
was that tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell where
he was buried.
The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of
Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which this writer lived;
how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land
of Moab? for as the writer lived long after the time of Moses, as is
evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a great
length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not at his
funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses himself
could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto this day. To
make Moses the speaker, would be an improvement on the play of a child
that hides himself and cries nobody can find me; nobody can find Moses.
This writer has no where told us how he came by the speeches which he
has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore we have a right
to conclude that he either composed them himself, or wrote them from
oral tradition. One or other of these is the more probable, since he
has given, in the fifth chapter, a table of commandments, in which that
called the fourth commandment is different from the fourth commandment
in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. In that of Exodus, the reason given
for keeping the seventh day is, because (says the commandment) God made
the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh; but in
that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is, that it was the day on which
the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and therefore, says this
commandment, the Lord thy God commanded thee to kee the sabbath-day This
makes no mention of the creation, nor that of the coming out of Egypt.
There are also many things given as laws of Moses in this book, that are
not to be found in any of the other books; among which is that inhuman
and brutal law, xxi. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes parents, the
father and the mother, to bring their own children to have them stoned
to death for what it pleased them to call stubbornness.--But priests
have always been fond of preaching up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy
preaches up tythes; and it is from this book, xxv. 4, they have taken
the phrase, and applied it to tything, that "thou shalt not muzzle
the ox when he treadeth Out the corn:" and that this might not escape
observation, they have noted it in the table of contents at the head of
the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines. O
priests! priests! ye are willing to be compared to an ox, for the sake
of tythes. [An elegant pocket edition of Paine's Theological Works
(London. R. Carlile, 1822) has in its title a picture of Paine, as a
Moses in evening dress, unfolding the two tables of his "Age of Reason"
to a farmer from whom the Bishop of Llandaff (who replied to this work)
has taken a sheaf and a lamb which he is carrying to a church at the
summit of a well stocked hill.--Editor.]--Though it is impossible for
us to know identically who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not
difficult to discover him professionally, that he was some Jewish
priest, who lived, as I shall shew in the course of this work, at least
three hundred and fifty years after the time of Moses.
I come now to speak of the historical and chronological evidence. The
chronology that I shall use is the Bible chronology; for I mean not to
go out of the Bible for evidence of any thing, but to make the Bible
itself prove historically and chronologically that Moses is not the
author of the books ascribed to him. It is therefore proper that I
inform the readers (such an one at least as may not have the opportunity
of knowing it) that in the larger Bibles, and also in some smaller ones,
there is a series of chronology printed in the margin of every page for
the purpose of showing how long the historical matters stated in each
page happened, or are supposed to have happened, before Christ, and
consequently the distance of time between one historical circumstance
and another.
I begin with the book of Genesis.--In Genesis xiv., the writer gives an
account of Lot being taken prisoner in a battle between the four kings
against five, and carried off; and that when the account of Lot being
taken came to Abraham, that he armed all his household and marched to
rescue Lot from the captors; and that he pursued them unto Dan. (ver.
14.)
To shew in what manner this expression of Pursuing them unto Dan applies
to the case in question, I will refer to two circumstances, the one in
America, the other in France. The city now called New York, in America,
was originally New Amsterdam; and the town in France, lately called
Havre Marat, was before called Havre-de-Grace. New Amsterdam was changed
to New York in the year 1664; Havre-de-Grace to Havre Marat in the year
1793. Should, therefore, any writing be found, though without date,
in which the name of New-York should be mentioned, it would be certain
evidence that such a writing could not have been written before, and
must have been written after New Amsterdam was changed to New York, and
consequently not till after the year 1664, or at least during the course
of that year. And in like manner, any dateless writing, with the name
of Havre Marat, would be certain evidence that such a writing must have
been written after Havre-de-Grace became Havre Marat, and consequently
not till after the year 1793, or at least during the course of that
year.
I now come to the application of those cases, and to show that there
was no such place as Dan till many years after the death of Moses; and
consequently, that Moses could not be the writer of the book of Genesis,
where this account of pursuing them unto Dan is given.
The place that is called Dan in the Bible was originally a town of the
Gentiles, called Laish; and when the tribe of Dan seized upon this
town, they changed its name to Dan, in commemoration of Dan, who was the
father of that tribe, and the great grandson of Abraham.
To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis to
chapter xviii. of the book called the Book of judges. It is there said
(ver. 27) that "they (the Danites) came unto Laish to a people that were
quiet and secure, and they smote them with the edge of the sword [the
Bible is filled with murder] and burned the city with fire; and they
built a city, (ver. 28,) and dwelt therein, and [ver. 29,] they called
the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan, their father; howbeit
the name of the city was Laish at the first."
This account of the Danites taking possession of Laish and changing it
to Dan, is placed in the book of Judges immediately after the death of
Samson. The death of Samson is said to have happened B.C. 1120 and
that of Moses B.C. 1451; and, therefore, according to the historical
arrangement, the place was not called Dan till 331 years after the death
of Moses.