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A Grammar of
Freethought.
BY
CHAPMAN COHEN.
(_Issued by the Secular Society, Ltd._)
LONDON:
THE PIONEER PRESS,
61 FARRINGDON STREET, E.C. 4.
1921.
_The Publishers wish to express their obligation to Mr. H. Cutner for
the very tasteful design which adorns the cover of this book._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--OUTGROWING THE GODS 9
II.--LIFE AND MIND 18
III.--WHAT IS FREETHOUGHT? 37
IV.--REBELLION AND REFORM 51
V.--THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHILD 61
VI.--THE NATURE OF RELIGION 72
VII.--THE UTILITY OF RELIGION 88
VIII.--FREETHOUGHT AND GOD 101
IX.--FREETHOUGHT AND DEATH 111
X.--THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT 123
XI.--EVOLUTION 134
XII.--DARWINISM AND DESIGN 146
XIII.--ANCIENT AND MODERN 162
XIV.--MORALITY WITHOUT GOD.--I. 172
XV.--MORALITY WITHOUT GOD.--II. 182
XVI.--CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITY 193
XVII.--RELIGION AND PERSECUTION 204
XVIII.--WHAT IS TO FOLLOW RELIGION? 223
PREFACE.
It must be left for those who read the following pages to decide how far
this book lives up to its title. That it leaves many aspects of life
untouched is quite clear, but there must be a limit to everything, even
to the size and scope of a book; moreover, the work does not aim at
being an encyclopaedia, but only an outline of what may fairly be
regarded as the Freethought position. Freethought, again, is too fluid a
term to permit its teachings being summarized in a set creed, but it
does stand for a certain definite attitude of mind in relation to those
problems of life with which thoughtful men and women concern themselves.
It is that mental attitude which I aim at depicting.
To those who are not directly concerned with the attack on
supernaturalism it may also be a matter of regret that so much of this
work is concerned with a criticism of religious beliefs. But that is an
accident of the situation. We have not yet reached that stage in affairs
when we can afford to let religion alone, and one may readily be excused
the suspicion that those who, without believing in it, profess to do so,
are more concerned with avoiding a difficult, if not dangerous, subject,
than they are with the problem of developing sane and sound methods of
thinking. And while some who stand forward as leaders of popular thought
fail to do their part in the work of attacking supernaturalistic
beliefs, others are perforce compelled to devote more time than they
would otherwise to the task. That, in brief, is my apology for
concerning myself so largely with religious topics, and leaving almost
untouched other fields where the Freethought attitude would prove
equally fruitful of results.
After all, it is the mental attitude with which one approaches a problem
that really matters. The man or woman who has not learned to set mere
authority on one side in dealing with any question will never be more
than a mere echo, and what the world needs, now as ever, is not echoes
but voices. Information, knowledge, is essential to the helpful
consideration of any subject; but all the knowledge in the world will be
of very little real help if it is not under the control of a right
method. What is called scientific knowledge is, to-day, the commonest of
acquisitions, and what most people appear to understand by that is the
accumulation of a large number of positive facts which do, indeed, form
the raw material of science. But the getting of mere facts is like the
getting of money. The value of its accumulation depends upon the use
made thereof. It is the power of generalization, the perception and
application of principles that is all-important, and to this the grasp
of a right method of investigation, the existence of a right mental
attitude, is essential.
The world needs knowledge, but still more imperatively it needs the
right use of the knowledge that is at its disposal. For this reason I
have been mainly concerned in these pages with indicating what I
consider to be the right mental attitude with which to approach certain
fundamental questions. For, in a world so distracted by conflicting
teachings as is ours, the value of a right method is almost
incalculable. Scepticism, said Buckle, is not the result, but the
condition of progress, and the same may be said of Freethought. The
condition of social development is the realization that no institution
and no teaching is beyond criticism. Criticism, rejection and
modification are the means by which social progress is achieved. It is
by criticism of existing ideas and institutions, by the rejection of
what is incapable of improvement, and by the modification of what
permits of betterment, that we show ourselves worthy of the better
traditions of the past, and profitable servants of the present and the
future.
C. C.
A GRAMMAR OF FREETHOUGHT.
CHAPTER I.
OUTGROWING THE GODS.
One of the largest facts in the history of man is religion. If it were
otherwise the justification for writing the following pages, and for
attempting the proof that, so far as man's history is concerned with
religion, it is little better than a colossal blunder, would not be
nearly so complete. Moreover, it is a generalization upon which
religionists of all classes love to dwell, or even to parade as one of
the strongest evidences in their favour; and it is always pleasant to be
able to give your opponent all for which he asks--feeling, meanwhile,
that you lose nothing in the giving. Universality of belief in religion
really proves no more than the universality of telling lies. "All men
are liars" is as true, or as false, as "All men are religious." For some
men are not liars, and some men are not religious. All the
generalization means is that some of both are found in every age and in
every country, and that is true whether we are dealing with the liar or
with the religious person.
What is ignored is the consideration that while at one stage of culture
religious belief is the widest and most embracing of all beliefs it
subsequently weakens, not quite in direct proportion to the advance of
culture, but yet in such a way that one can say there is an actual
relation between a preponderance of the one and a weakening of the
other. In very primitive communities gods are born and flourish with all
the rank exuberance of a tropical vegetation. In less primitive times
their number diminishes, and their sphere of influence becomes more and
more sharply defined. The gods are still credited with the ability to do
certain things, but there are other things which do somehow get done
without them. How that discovery and that division are made need not
detain us for the moment, but the fact is patent. Advancing civilization
sees the process continued and quickened, nay, that is civilization; for
until nature is rid of her "haughty lords" and man realizes that there
are at least some natural forces that come within the control of his
intelligence, civilization cannot really be said to have commenced.
Continued advance sees the gods so diminished in power and so weakened
in numbers that their very impotency is apt to breed for them the kind
of pity that one feels for a millionaire who becomes a pauper, or for an
autocratic monarch reduced to the level of a voteless citizen.
The truth is that all the gods, like their human creators, have in their
birth the promise of death. The nature of their birth gives them life,
but cannot promise them immortality. However much man commences by
worshipping gods, he sooner or later turns his back upon them. Like the
biblical deity he may look at his creation and declare it good, but he
also resembles this deity in presently feeling the impulse to destroy
what he has made. To the products of his mind man can no more give
immortality than he can to the work of his hands. In many cases the work
of his hands actually outlives that of his mind, for we have to-day the
remains of structures that were built in the honour of gods whose very
names are forgotten. And to bury his gods is, after all, the only real
apology that man can offer for having created them.
This outgrowing of religion is no new thing in human history. Thoughtful
observers have always been struck by the mortality among the gods,
although their demise has usually been chronicled in terms of exultation
by rival worshippers. But here and there a keener observer has brought
to bear on the matter a breadth of thought which robbed the phenomenon
of its local character and gave it a universal application. Thus, in one
of his wonderfully modern dialogues Lucian depicts the Olympian deities
discussing, much in the spirit of a modern Church Congress, the
prevalence of unbelief among men. The gods are disturbed at finding that
men are reaching the stage of either not believing, or not troubling
about them. There is a great deal of talk, and finally one of the minor
deities treats them to a little plain truth--which appears to be as
rare, and as unwelcome in heaven as on earth. He says--I quote from
Froude's translation:--
What other conclusion could they arrive at when they saw the
confusion around them? Good men neglected, perishing in penury and
slavery, and profligate wretches wealthy, honoured and powerful.
Sacrilegious temple robbers undiscovered and unpunished; devotees
and saints beaten and crucified. With such phenomena before them,
of course men have doubted our existence.... We affect surprise
that men who are not fools decline to put their faith in us. We
ought rather to be pleased that there is a man left to say his
prayers. We are among ourselves with no strangers present. Tell us,
then, Zeus, have you ever really taken pains to distinguish between
good men and bad? Theseus, not you, destroyed the robbers in
Attica. As far as Providence was concerned, Sciron and
Pity-O-Campus might have murdered and plundered to the end of time.
If Eurystheus had not looked into matters, and sent Hercules upon
his labours little would you have troubled yourself with the Hydras
and Centaurs. Let us be candid. All that we have really cared for
has been a steady altar service. Everything else has been left to
chance. And now men are opening their eyes. They perceive that
whether they pray or don't pray, go to church or don't go to
church, makes no difference to them. And we are receiving our
deserts.
The case could hardly be put more effectively. It is the appeal to
experience with a vengeance, a form of argument of which religionists in
general are very fond. Of course, the argument does not touch the
question of the mere existence of a god, but it does set forth the
revolt of awakened common sense against the worship of a "moral governor
of the universe." We can say of our day, as Lucian said of his, that men
are opening their eyes, and as a consequence the gods are receiving
their deserts.
Generally speaking, it is not difficult to see the various steps by
which man outgrew the conception of the government of the world by
intelligent forces. From what we know of primitive thought we may say
that at first the gods dominated all. From the fall of a rain-drop to
the movement of a planet all was the work of gods. Merely to question
their power was the wildest of errors and the gravest of crimes. Bit by
bit this vast territory was reclaimed--a task at the side of which the
conquest of the fever-stricken tropics or the frozen north is mere
child's play. It is quite needless to enter into an elaborate
speculation as to the exact steps by which this process of
deanthropomorphization--to use a word of the late John Fiske's--was
accomplished, but one can picture the main line by what we see taking
place at later stages of development. And there is no exception to the
rule that so soon as any group of phenomena is brought within the
conception of law the notion of deity in connection with those phenomena
tends to die out. And the sum of the process is seen in the work of the
great law givers of science, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton,
Laplace, Lyell, Dalton, Darwin, etc., who between them have presented us
with a universe in which the conception of deity simply has no place.
Apologies apart, the idea of deity is foreign to the spirit and method
of modern science.
In the region of the purely physical sciences this process may be
regarded as complete. In morals and sociology, purely on account of the
greater complexity of the subjects, mystical and semi-supernatural
conceptions still linger, but it is only a question of time for these
branches of knowledge to follow the same course as the physical
sciences. In morals we are able to trace, more or less completely, the
development of the moral sense from its first beginnings in the animal
world to its highest developments in man. What is called the "mystery of
morality" simply has no existence to anyone who is not a mystery-monger
by profession or inclination. And here, too, the gods have been
receiving their deserts. For it is now clear that instead of being a
help to morals there has been no greater obstacle to a healthy morality
than the play of religious ideas. In the name of God vices have been
declared virtues and virtues branded as vices. Belief in God has been an
unending source of moral perversion, and it lies upon the face of
historical development that an intelligent morality, one that is capable
of adapting itself to the changing circumstances of human nature, has
only become possible with the breaking down of religious authority.
Exactly the same phenomenon faces us in connection with social life. We
have to go back but a little way in human history to come to a time
when the existence of a State without a religion would have seemed to
people impossible. Much as Christians have quarrelled about other
things, they have been in agreement on this point. The historic fight
between the established Church and the Nonconformists has never really
been for the disestablishment of all religion, and the confining of the
State to the discharge of purely secular functions, but mainly as to
_which_ religion the State shall uphold. To-day, the central issue is
whether the State shall teach any religion, whether that does not lie
right outside its legitimate functions. And this marks an enormous
advance. It is a plain recognition of the truth that the gods have
nothing to contribute of any value to the development of our social
life. It marks the beginning of the end, and registers the truth that
man must be his own saviour here as elsewhere. As in Lucian's day we are
beginning to realize that whether we pray or don't pray, go to church or
don't go to church, believe in the gods or don't believe in them, makes
no real or substantial difference to natural happenings. Now as then we
see good men punished and bad ones rewarded, and they who are not fools
and have the courage to look facts in the face, decline to put their
faith in a deity who is incapable of doing all things right or too
careless to exert his power.
It is not that the fight is over, or that there is to-day little need to
fight the forces of superstition. If that were so, there would be no
need to write what is here written. Much as has been done, there is much
yet to do. The revolt against specific beliefs only serves to illustrate
a fight that is of much greater importance. For there is little real
social gain if one merely exchanges one superstition for another. And,
unfortunately, the gentleman who declared that he had given up the
errors of the Church of Rome in order to embrace those of the Church of
England represents a fairly common type. It is the prevalence of a
particular type of mind in society that constitutes a danger, and it is
against this that our aim is ultimately directed. Great as is the amount
of organized superstition that exists, the amount of unorganized
superstition is still greater, and probably more dangerous. One of the
revelations of the late war was the evidence it presented of the
tremendous amount of raw credulity, of the low type of intelligence that
was still current, and the small amount of critical ability the mass of
people bring to bear upon life. The legends that gained currency--the
army of Russians crossing England, the number of mutilated Belgian
babies that were seen, the story of the Germans boiling down their dead
to extract the fat, a story that for obscene stupidity beats everything
else, the Mons angels, the craze for mascots--all bore witness to the
prevalence of a frame of mind that bodes ill for progress.
The truth is, as Sir James Frazer reminds us, that modern society is
honeycombed with superstitions that are not in themselves a whit more
intellectually respectable than those which dominate the minds of
savages. "The smooth surface of cultured society is sapped and mined by
superstition." Now and again these hidden mines explode noisily, but the
superstition is always there, to be exploited by those who have the wit
to use it. From this point of view Christianity is no more than a
symptom of a source of great social weakness, a manifestation of a
weakness that may find expression in strange and unexpected but always
more or less dangerous ways. It is against the prevalence of this type
of mind that the Freethinker is really fighting. Freethinkers
realize--apparently they are the only ones that do realize--that the
creation of a better type of society is finally dependent upon the
existence of a sanely educated intelligence, and that will never exist
while there are large bodies of people who can persuade themselves that
human welfare is in some way dependent upon, or furthered by, practices
and beliefs that are not a bit more intellectually respectable than
those of the cave men. If Christianity, as a mere system of beliefs,
were destroyed, we should only have cleared the way for the final fight.
Thousands of generations of superstitious beliefs and practices that
have embodied themselves in our laws, our customs, our language, and our
institutions, are not to be easily destroyed. It is comparatively simple
to destroy a particular manifestation of this disastrous heritage, but
the type of mind to which it has given birth is not so easily removed.
The fight is not over, but it is being fought from a new vantage ground,
and with better weapons than have ever before been employed. History,
anthropology, and psychology have combined to place in the hands of the
modern Freethinker more deadly weapons than those of previous
generations were able to employ. Before these weapons the defences of
the faith crumble like wooden forts before modern artillery. It is no
longer a question of debating whether religious beliefs are true. So
long as we give a straightforward and honest meaning to those beliefs we
know that they are not true. It is, to-day, mainly a question of making
plain the nature of the forces which led men and women to regard them as
being true. We know that the history of religion is the history of a
delusion, and the task of the student is to recover those conditions
which gave to this delusion an appearance of truth and reality. That is
becoming more and more evident to all serious and informed students of
the subject.
The challenge of Freethought to religion constitutes one of the oldest
struggles in human history. It must have had its beginning in the first
glimmer of doubt concerning a tribal deity which crossed the mind of
some more than usually thoughtful savage. Under various forms and in
many ways it has gone on ever since. It has had many variations of
fortune, often apparently completely crushed, only to rise again
stronger and more daring than ever. To-day, Freethought is the accepted
mental attitude of a growing number of men and women whose intelligence
admits of no question. It has taken a recognized place in the
intellectual world, and its hold on the educated intelligence is rapidly
increasing. It may well be that in one form or another the antagonism
between critical Freethought and accepted teaching, whether secular or
religious, will continue as one of the permanent aspects of social
conflict. But so far as supernaturalism is concerned the final issue can
be no longer in doubt. It is not by one voice or by one movement that
supernaturalism is condemned. Its condemnation is written in the best
forms of art, science and literature. And that is only another way of
saying that it is condemned by life. Freethought holds the future in
fee, and nothing but an entire reversal of the order of civilization can
force it to forego its claims.