The Essays which form the present book have been written at intervals
during the last five years, and are now issued in a single volume
without alterations of any kind. I have thought it more useful--as
marking the gradual growth of thought--to reprint them as they were
originally published, so as not to allow the later development to mould
the earlier forms. The essay on "Inspiration" is, in part, the oldest
of all; it was partially composed some seven years ago, and re-written
later as it now stands.
The first essay on the "Deity of Jesus of Nazareth" was written just
before I left the Church of England, and marks the point where I broke
finally with Christianity. I thought then, and think still, that to
cling to the name of Christian after one has ceased to be the thing
is neither bold nor straightforward, and surely the name ought, in all
fairness, to belong to those historical bodies who have made it their
own during many hundred years. A Christianity without a Divine Christ
appears to me to resemble a republican army marching under a royal
banner--it misleads both friends and foes. Believing that in giving up
the deity of Christ I renounced Christianity, I place this essay as the
starting-point of my travels outside the Christian pale. The essays
that follow it deal with some of the leading Christian dogmas, and are
printed in the order in which they were written. But in the gradual
thought-development they really precede the essay on the "Deity of
Christ". Most inquirers who begin to study by themselves, before they
have read any heretical works, or heard any heretical controversies,
will have been awakened to thought by the discrepancies and
inconsistencies of the Bible itself. A thorough knowledge of the Bible
is the groundwork of heresy. Many who think they read their Bibles never
read them at all. They go through a chapter every day as a matter of
duty, and forget what is said in Matthew before they read what is said
in John; hence they never mark the contradictions and never see the
discrepancies. But those who _study_ the Bible are in a fair way to
become heretics. It was the careful compilation of a harmony of the
last chapters of the four Gospels--a harmony intended for devotional
use--that gave the first blow to my own faith; although I put the doubt
away and refused even to look at the question again, yet the effect
remained--the tiny seed, which was slowly to germinate and to grow up,
later, into the full-blown flower of Atheism.
The trial of Mr. Charles Voysey for heresy made me remember my own
puzzle, and I gradually grew very uneasy, though trying not to think,
until the almost fatal illness of my little daughter brought a sharper
questioning as to the reason of suffering and the reality of the love of
God. From that time I began to study the doctrines of Christianity from
a critical point of view; hitherto I had confined my theological reading
to devotional and historical treatises, and the only controversies
with which I was familiar were the controversies which had divided
Christians; the writings of the Fathers of the Church and of the modern
school which is founded on them had been carefully studied, and I had
weighed the points of difference between the Greek, Roman, Anglican, and
Lutheran communions, as well as the views of orthodox dissenting schools
of thought; only from Pusey's "Daniel", and Liddon's "Bampton Lectures",
had I gathered anything of wider controversies and issues of more vital
interest. But now all was changed, and it was to the leaders of the
Broad Church school that I first turned in the new path. The shock of
pain had been so! rude when real doubts assailed and shook me, that I
had steadily made up my mind to investigate, one by one, every Christian
dogma, and never again to say "I believe" until I had tested the object
of faith; the dogmas which revolted me most were those of the Atonement
and of Eternal Punishment, while the doctrine of Inspiration of
Scripture underlay everything, and was the very foundation of
Christianity; these, then, were the first that I dropped into the
crucible of investigation. Maurice, Robertson, Stopford Brooke, McLeod,
Campbell, and others, were studied; and while I recognised the charm
of their writings, I failed to find any firm ground whereon they could
rest: it was a many-colored beautiful mist--a cloud landscape, very
fair, but very unsubstantial. Still they served as stepping stones away
from the old hard dogmas, and month by month I grew more sceptical as
to the possibility of finding certainty in religion. Mansel's Bampton
lectures on "The Limits of Religious Thought" did much to increase the
feeling; the works of F. Newman, Arnold, and Greg carried on the
same work; some efforts to understand the creeds of other nations, to
investigate Mahommedanism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, all led in the same
direction, until I concluded that inspiration belonged to all people
alike, and there could be no necessity of atonement, and no eternal
hell prepared for the unbeliever in Christianity. Thus, step by step,
I renounced the dogmas of Christianity until there remained only, as
distinctively Christian, the Deity of Jesus which had not yet been
analysed. The whole tendency of the Broad Church stream of thought was
to increase the manhood at the expense of the deity of Christ; and with
hell and atonement gone, and inspiration everywhere, there appeared
no _raison d'etre_ for the Incarnation. Besides, there were so many
incarnations, and the Buddhist absorption seemed a grander idea. I now
first met with Charles Voysey's works, and those of Theodore Parker and
Channing, and the belief in the Deity of Jesus followed the other dead
creeds. Renan I had read much earlier, but did not care for him; Strauss
I did not meet with until afterwards; Scott's "English Life of Jesus",
which I read at this period, is as useful a book on this subject as
could be put into the hands of an inquirer. From Christianity into
simple Theism I had found my way; step by step the Theism melted into
Atheism; prayer was gradually discontinued, as utterly at variance with
any dignified idea of God, and as in contradiction to all the results
of scientific investigation. I had taken a keen interest in the later
scientific discoveries, and Darwin had done much towards freeing me from
my old bonds. Of John Stuart Mill I had read much, and I now took him up
again; I studied Spinoza, and re-read Mansel, together with many other
writers on the Deity, until the result came which is found in the essay
entitled "The Nature and Existence of God ". It was just before this was
written that I read Charles Bradlaugh's "Plea for Atheism" and his "Is
there a God?". The essay on "Constructive Rationalism" shows how we
replace the old faith and build our house anew with stronger materials.
The path from Christianity to Atheism is a long one, and its first steps
are very rough and very painful; the feet tread on the ruins of the
broken faith, and the sharp edges cut into the bleeding flesh; but
further on the path grows smoother, and presently at its side begins to
peep forth the humble daisy of hope that heralds the spring tide, and
further on the roadside is fragrant with all the flowers of summer,
sweet and brilliant and gorgeous, and in the distance we see the promise
of the autumn, the harvest that shall be reaped for the feeding of man.
Annie Besant. 1878.