The seeds of inquiry sown in the sixteenth century resulted in a
fruitful display of advanced opinions during the next age. In the page
of seventeenth century history, more names of men, either avowedly
heretics, or charged by the orthodox with heresy, or whose labours
can be shown to have tended to the growth of heresy, may probably be
recorded than can be found during the whole of the previously long
period during which the Christian Church assumed to dominate and control
European thought. The seventeenth century muster-roll of heresy is
indeed a grand one, and gloriously filled. One of its early martyrs was
Julius Caesar Vanini, who was burned at Toulouse, in the year 1619, aged
34, as "an impious and obstinate Atheist." Was he Atheist, or was he
not? This is a question, in answering which the few remains of his works
give little ground for sharing the opinion of his persecutors. Yet
many writers agree in writing as if his Atheism were of indisputable
notoriety. He was a poor Neapolitan priest, he preached a sort of
Pantheism; unfortunately for himself, he believed in the utility of
public discussion on theological questions, and thus brought upon his
head the charge of seeking to convert the world to Atheism.
In 1611, two men, named Legat and Whitman, were burned in England for
heresy. "But," says Buckle, "this was the last gasp of expiring bigotry;
and since that memorable day, the soil of England has never been stained
by the blood of a man who has suffered for his religious creed."
Peter Charron, of Paris, ought perhaps to have been included in the
sixteenth century list, for he died in 1603, but his only known work,
"La Sagesse," belongs to the seventeenth century, in which it circulated
and obtained reputation.
He urged that religion is the accidental result of birth and education,
and that therefore variety of creed should not be cause of quarrel
between men, as such variety is the result of circumstances over which
the men themselves have had no control; and he urges that as each sect
claims to be the only true one, we ought to rise superior to all sects,
and without being terrified by the fear of future punishment, or
allured by the hope of future happiness, "be content with such practical
religion as consists in performing the duties of life." Buckle, who
speaks in high terms of Charron, says, "The Sorbonne went so far as
to condemn Charron's great work, but could not succeed in having it
prohibited."
Rene Descartes Duperron, a few years later than Bacon (he was born in
1596, at La Haye, in Touraine, died 1650, at Stockholm) established the
foundations of the deductive method of reasoning, and applied it in a
manner which Bacon had apparently carefully avoided. Both Descartes
and Bacon addressed themselves to the task of substituting for the old
systems, a more comprehensive and useful spirit of philosophy; but while
Bacon sought to accomplish this by persuading men to experiment and
observation, Descartes commenced with the search for a first and
self-evident ground of all knowledge. This, to him, is found in
consciousness. The existence of Deity was a point which Bacon left
untouched by reason, yet with Descartes it was the first proposition he
sought to prove. He says, "I have always thought that the two questions
of the existence of God and the nature of the soul, were the chief
of those which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy than by
theology, for although it is sufficient for us, the faithful, to believe
in God, and that the soul does not perish with the body, it does not
seem possible ever to persuade the infidels to any religion unless we
first prove to them these two things by natural reason." To prove this
existence of God and the immortality of the soul, Descartes needed
a firm starting point, one which no doubt could touch, one which
no argument could shake. He found this point in the fact of his own
existence. He could doubt everything else, but he could not doubt that
he, the thinking doubter, existed. His own existence was the primal
fact, the indubitable certainty, which served as the base for all other
reasonings, hence his famous "Cogito ergo sum:" I think, therefore I am.
And although it has been fairly objected that Descartes did not exist
because he thought, but existed and thought; it is nevertheless clear
that it is only in the thinking that Descartes had the consciousness of
his existence. The fact of Descartes' existence was, to him, one above
and beyond all logic, Evidence could not add to the certitude, no
scepticism could impeach it. Whether or not we agree with the Cartesian
philosophy, or the reasonings used to sustain it, we must admire the
following four rules which he has given us, and which, with the view
of consciousness in which we do not entirely concur, are the essential
features of the basis of a considerable portion of Descartes' system;--
"1. Never to accept anything as true but what is evidently so; to admit
nothing but what so clearly and distinctly presents itself as true, that
there can be no reason to doubt it.
"2. To divide every question into as many separate parts as possible,
that each part being more easily conceived, the whole may be more
intelligible.
"3. To conduct the examination with order, beginning by that of objects
the most simple, and therefore the easiest to be known, and ascending
little by little up to knowledge of the most complex.
"4. To make such exact calculations, and such circumspections as to be
confident that nothing essential has been omitted."
"Consciousness being the basis of all certitude, everything of which you
are clearly and distinctly conscious must be true: everything which you
clearly and distinctly conceive, exists, if the idea involve existence."
It should be remarked that consciousness being a state of condition of
the mind, is by no means an infallible guide? Men may fancy they have
clear ideas, when their consciousness, if carefully examined, would
prove to have been treacherous. Descartes argued for three classes of
ideas--acquired, compounded, and innate. It is in his assumption of
innate ideas that you have one of the radical weaknesses of his system.
Sir William Hamilton points out that the use of the word idea by
Descartes, to express the object of memory, imagination, and sense,
was quite a new usage, only one other writer, David Buchanan, having
previously used the word idea with this signification.
Descartes did not write for the mass, and his philosophy would have
been limited to a much narrower circle had its spread rested on his own
efforts. But the age was one for new thought, and the contemporaries and
successors of Descartes carried the Cartesian logic to extremes he had
perhaps avoided, and they taught the new philosophy to the world in a
fearless spirit, with a boldness for which Descartes could have given
them no example. Descartes, who in early life had travelled much more
than was then the custom, had probably made the personal acquaintance
of most of the leading thinkers of Europe then living; it would be
otherwise difficult to account for the very ready reception given by
them to his first work. Fortunately for Descartes, he was born with a
fair fortune, and escaped such difficulties as poorer philosophers must
needs submit to. There is perhaps a _per contra_ side. It is more
than possible that if the needs of life had compelled him, Descartes'
scientific predilections might have resulted in more immediate advantage
to society. His philosophy is often pedantic to weariness, and his
scientific theories are often sterile. The fear of poverty might have
quickened some of his speculations into a more practical utterance.
Buckle reminds us that Descartes "was the first who successfully applied
algebra to geometry; that he pointed out the important law of the sines;
that in an age in which optical instruments were extremely imperfect,
he discovered the changes to which light is subjected in the eye by
the crystalline lens; that he directed attention to the consequences
resulting from the weight of the atmosphere, and that he detected the
causes of the rainbow." "Descartes," says Saintes, "throwing off the
swaddling clothes of scholasticism, resolved to owe to himself alone the
acquisition of the truth which he so earnestly desired to possess. For
what else is the methodical doubt which he established as the starting
point in his philosophy, than an energetic protest of the human mind
against all external authority? Having thus placed all science on a
philosophical basis, no matter what, he freed philosophy herself from
her long servitude, and proclaimed her queen of the intellect. Hence
every one who has wished to account to himself for his existence, every
one who has desired to know himself to know nature, and to rise to
its author; in a word, all who have wished to make a wise use of their
intellectual faculties, to apply them, not to hollow speculations which
border on nonentity, but to sensible and practical inquiries, have taken
and followed some direction from Descartes." It is almost amusing when
philosophers criticise their predecessors. Mons. Henri Bitter denies to
Descartes any originality of method or even of illustration, while Hegel
describes him as the founder of modern philosophy, whose influence
upon his own age and on modern times it is impossible to exaggerate. To
attempt to deal fully and truly with Descartes in the few lines which
can be spared here, is impossible; all that is sought is to as it were
catalogue his name in the seventeenth century list. Whether originator
or imitator, whether founder or disciple, it is certain that Descartes
gave a sharp spur to European thought, and mightily hastened the
progress of heresy. It is not the object or duty of the present writer
to examine or refute any of the extraordinary views entertained by
Descartes as to vortices. Descartes himself is reported to have said
"my theory of vortices is a philosophical romance." Science in the last
three centuries has travelled even more rapidly than philosophy; and
most of the physical speculations of Descartes are relegated to the
region of grandly curious blunderings. There is one point of error held
by Descartes sufficiently entertained even to-day--although most often
without a distinct appreciation of the position--to justify a few words
upon it. Descartes denied mental faculties to all the animal kingdom
except mankind. All the brute kingdom he regarded as machines without
intelligence. In this he was logical, even in error, for he accorded
a soul to man which he denied to the brute. Soul and mind with him are
identified, and thought is the fundamental attribute of mind. To admit
that a dog, horse, or elephant can think, that it can remember what
happened yesterday, that it can reason ever so incompletely, would be to
admit that that dog, horse, or elephant, has some kind of soul; to avoid
this he reduces all animals outside the human family to the position of
machines. To-day science admits in animals, more or less according to
their organisation, perception, memory, judgment, and even some sort of
reason. Yet orthodoxy still claims a soul for man even if he be a madman
from his birth, and denies it to the sagacious elephant, the intelligent
horse, the faithful dog, and the cunning monkey. His proof of the
existence of Deity is thus stated by Lewes:--"Interrogating his
consciousness, he found that he had the idea of God, understanding by
God, a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient,
omnipotent. This, to him, was as certain a truth as the truth of his
own existence. I exist: not only do I exist, but exist as a miserably
imperfect finite being, subject to change, greatly ignorant, and
incapable of creating anything. In this, my consciousness, I find by
my finitude that I am not the All; by my imperfection, that I am not
perfect. Yet an infinite and perfect being must exist, because infinity
and perfection are implied as correlatives in my ideas of imperfection
and finitude. God therefore exists: his existence is clearly proclaimed
in my consciousness, and can no more be a matter of doubt, when fairly
considered, than my own existence. The conception of an infinite being
proves his real existence; for if there is not really such a being, I
must have made the conception; but if I could make it, I can also unmake
it, which evidently is not true; therefore there must be, externally to
myself an archetype from which the conception was derived. All that we
clearly and distinctly conceive as contained in anything, is true of
that thing. Now we conceive, clearly and distinctly, that the existence
of God is contained in the idea we have of him--_Ergo_, God exists." It
may not be out of place to note at this demonstration, that the Jesuit
writer, Father Hardouin, in his "Atheists Unmasked," as a recompense for
this demonstration of the existence of Deity, places Descartes and
his disciples, le Grand and Regis, in the first rank of atheistical
teachers. Voltaire, commenting on this, remarks, "The man who had
devoted all the acuteness of his extraordinary intellect to the
discovery of new proofs of the existence of a God, was most absurdly
charged with denying him altogether." Speaking of the proof of the
existence of Deity, "Demonstrations of this kind," says Froude, "were
the characteristics of the period. Descartes had set the example of
constructing them, and was followed by Cudworth, Clarke, Berkeley, and
many others besides Spinoza. The inconclusiveness of the method may
perhaps be observed most readily in the strangely opposite conceptions
formed by all these writers of the nature of that Being whose existence
they nevertheless agreed, by the same process, to gather each out of
their ideas. It is important, however, to examine it carefully, for it
is the very keystone of the Pantheistic system. As stated by Descartes,
the argument stands something as follows:--God is an all-perfect Being,
perfection is the idea which we form of Him, existence is a mode of
perfection, and therefore God exists. The sophism, we are told, is only
apparent, existence is part of the idea--as much involved in it as the
equality of all lines drawn from the centre to the circumference of a
circle is involved in the idea of a circle. A non-existent all-perfect
Being is as inconceivable as a quadrilateral triangle. It is sometimes
answered that in this way we may prove the existence of anything,
Titans, Chimaeras, or the Olympian gods; we have but to define them as
existing, and the proof is complete. But this objection is summarily set
aside; none of these beings are by hypothesis absolutely perfect, and,
therefore, of their existence we can conclude nothing. With greater
justice, however, we may say, that of such terms as perfection
and existence we know too little to speculate. Existence may be an
imperfection for all we can tell, we know nothing about the matter.
Such arguments are but endless _petitiones principii_--like the
self-devouring serpent, resolving themselves into nothing. We wander
round and round them, in the hope of finding some tangible point at
which we can seize their meaning; but we are presented everywhere
with the same impracticable surface, from which our grasp glides off
ineffectual."
Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, is one of those men more often freely
abused than carefully read; he was born April 5th, 1588, died 1679. He
was "the subtlest dialectician of his time," and one of the earliest
English advocates of the materialistic limitation of mind; he denies the
possibility of any knowledge other than as resulting from sensation; his
doctrine is in direct negation of Descartes' theory of innate ideas, and
would be fatal to the orthodox dogma of mind as spiritual. "Whatever
we imagine," he says, "is finite. Therefore, there is no idea, no
conception of anything we call infinite." In a brief pamphlet on his
own views, published in 1680, in reply to attacks upon him, he writes,
"Besides the creation of the world there is no argument to prove a
Deity," and "that it cannot be decided by any argument that the world
had a beginning;" but he professes to admit the authority of the
Magistrate and the Scriptures to override argument. He says that he does
not "believe that the safety of the state depends upon the safety of the
church." Some of Hobbes' pieces were only in Latin, others were issued
in English. In one of those on Heresy, he mentions that by the statute
of 1 Edward VI. cap 12, there is provision for the repeal of all former
acts of parliament "made to punish any manner of doctrine concerning
religion."
In the following extracts the reader will find the prominent features of
that sensationalism which to-day has so many adherents:--"Concerning the
thoughts of man, I will consider them first singly, and afterwards in
a train or dependence upon one another. Singly they are every one a
representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body
without us, which is commonly called an object. Which object worketh
on the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man's body, and by diversity of
working, produceth diversity of appearances. The original of them all
is that which we call sense, for there is no conception in a man's
mind which hath not at first totally or by parts been begotten upon the
organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original." The effect
of this is to deny any possible knowledge other than as results from the
activity of the sensative faculties, and is also fatal to the doctrine
of a soul. "According," says Hobbes, "to the two principal parts of
man, I divide his faculties into two sorts--faculties of the body, and
faculties of the mind. Since the minute and distinct anatomy of the
powers of the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, I
will only sum them up in these three heads--power nutritive, power
generative, and power motive, Of the powers of the mind there be two
sorts--cognitive, imaginative, or conceptive, and motive. For the
understanding of what I mean by the power cognitive, we must remember
and acknowledge that there be in our minds continually certain images or
conceptions of the things without us. This imagery and representation
of the qualities of the things without, is that which we call our
conception, imagination, ideas, notice, or knowledge of them; and the
faculty, or power by which we are capable of such knowledge, is that
I here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the power of knowing or
conceiving." All the qualities called sensible are, in the object that
causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter by which it
presseth on our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are
they anything else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but
motion. Because the image in vision, consisting of colour and shape, is
the knowledge we have of the qualities of the objects of that sense;
it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion that the same
colour and shape are the very qualities themselves, and for the same
cause that sound and noise are the qualities of the bell or of the air.
And this opinion hath been so long received that the contrary must needs
appear a great paradox, and yet the introduction of species visible and
intelligible (which is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion)
passing to and fro from the object is worse than any paradox, as being
a plain impossibility. I shall therefore endeavour to make plain these
points. That the subject wherein colour and image are inherent, is not
the object or thing seen. That there is nothing without us (really)
which we call an image or colour. That the said image or colour is but
an apparition unto us of the motion, agitation, or alteration which the
object worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of
the head. That as in visions, so also in conceptions that arise from the
other senses, the subject of their inference is not the object but
the sentient. Strange to say Hobbes was protected from his clerical
antagonists by the favour of Charles II., who had the portrait of the
philosopher of Malmesbury hung on the walls of his private room at
Whitehall.
Lord Herbert, of Cherbury (one of the friends of Hobbes) born 1581, died
1648, is remarkable for having written a book "De Veritate," in favour
of natural--and against any necessity for revealed--religion; and yet at
the same time pleading a sort of special sign or revelation to himself
in favour of its publication.
Peter Gassendi, a native of Provence, born 1592, died 1655, was one of
the opponents of Descartes and of Lord Herbert, and was an admirer
of Hobbes; he advocated the old philosophy of Epicurus, professing
to reject "from it everything contrary to Christianity." "But," asks
Cousin, "how could he succeed in this? Principles, processes, results,
everything in Epicurus is sensualism, materialism, atheism." Gassendi's
works were characterised by great learning and ability, but being
confined to the Latin tongue, and written avowedly with the intent of
avoiding any conflict with the church, they gave but little immediate
impetus to the great heretical movement. Arnauld charges Gassendi
with overturning the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in his
discussion with Descartes, and Leibnitz charges Gassendi with corrupting
and injuring the whole system of natural religion by the wavering nature
of his opinions. Buckle says, "The rapid increase of heresy in the
middle of the seventeenth century is very remarkable, and it greatly
aided civilisation in England by encouraging habits of independent
thought." In February 1646, Boyle writes from London, "There are few days
pass here, that may not justly be accused of the brewing or broaching of
some new opinion. If any man have lost his religion, let him repair to
London, and I'll warrant him he shall find it: I had almost said too,
and if any man has a religion, let him but come hither now and he shall
go near to lose it."
About 1655, one Isaac La Peyrere wrote two small treatises to prove that
the world was peopled before Adam, but being arrested at Brussels, and
threatened with the stake, he, to escape the fiery refutation, made
a full recantation of his views, and restored to the world its dearly
prized stain of natural depravity, and to Adam his position as the first
man. La Peyrere's forced recantation is almost forgotten, the opinions
he recanted are now amongst common truths.
Baruch D'Espinoza or Benedict Spinoza, was born Nov. 24,1632, in
Amsterdam; an apt scholar, he, at the early age of fourteen, had
mastered the ordinary tasks set him by his teacher, the Babbi Morteira,
and at fifteen puzzled and affrighted the grave heads of the synagogue,
by attempting the solution of problems which they themselves were
well content to pass by. As he grew older his reason took more daring
flights, and after attempts had been made to bribe him into submissive
silence, when threats had failed to check or modify him, and when even
the knife had no effect, then the fury of disappointed fanaticism found
vent in the bitter curse of excommunication, and when about twenty-four
years of age, Spinoza found himself outcast and anathematised. Having no
private means or rich patrons, and differing in this from nearly every
one whose name we have yet given our hero subsisted as a polisher
of glasses, microscopes, &c., devoting his leisure to the study of
languages and philosophy. There are few men as to whom modern writers
have so widely differed in the description of their views, few who have
been so thoroughly misrepresented. Bayle speaks of him as a systematic
Atheist. Saintes says that he laid the foundations of a Pantheism
as destructive to scholastic philosophy as to all revealed religion.
Voltaire repeatedly writes of Spinoza as an Atheist and teacher of
Atheism. Samuel Taylor Coleridge speaks of Spinoza as an Atheist, and
prefaces this opinion with the following passage, which we commend to
more orthodox, and less acute writers:--"Little do these men know what
Atheism is. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind,
or goodness of heart to be an Atheist. I repeat it--Not one man in a
thousand has either goodness of heart, or strength of mind, to be, an
Atheist." "And yet," says Froude, "both in friend and enemy alike, there
has been a reluctance to see Spinoza as he really was. The Herder and
Schleiermacher school have claimed him as a Christian, a position
which no little disguise was necessary to make tenable; the orthodox
Protestants and Catholics have called him an Atheist, which is still
more extravagant; and even a man like Novalis, who, it might have been
expected, would have said something reasonable, could find no better
name for him than a 'Gott trunkener mann,' a God intoxicated man; an
expression which has been quoted by everybody who has since written on
the subject, and which is about as inapplicable as those laboriously
pregnant sayings usually are. With due allowance for exaggeration, such
a name would describe tolerably the transcendental mystics, a Toler, a
Boehmen, or a Swedenborg; but with what justice can it be applied to the
cautious, methodical Spinoza, who carried his thoughts about with him
for twenty years, deliberately shaping them, and who gave them at last
to the world in a form more severe than with such subjects had ever
been so much as attempted before? With him, as with all great men, there
was no effort after sublime emotions. He was a plain, practical person;
his object in philosophy, was only to find a rule by which to govern his
own actions and his own judgment; and his treatises contain no more than
the conclusions at which he arrived in this purely personal search, with
the grounds on which he rested them." Spinoza, who was wise enough to
know that it was utterly useless to expect an unfettered examination of
philosophical problems by men who are bound to accept as an infallible
arbiter any particular book, and who knew that reasonings must be of a
very limited character which took the alleged Hebrew Revelation as the
centre and starting point for all inquiry, and also as the circling,
limitation line for all investigation--devoted himself to the task
of examining how far the ordinary orthodox doctrines as to the
infallibility of the Old Testament were fairly maintainable. It was for
this reason he penned his "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," wherein
he says--"We see that they who are most under the influence of
superstitious feelings, and who covet uncertainties without stint or
measure, more especially when they fall into difficulty or danger,
cannot help themselves, are the persons, who, with vows and prayers and
womanly tears, implore the Divine assistance; who call reason, blind,
and human wisdom vain; and all, forsooth, because they cannot find
an assured way to the vanities they desire." "The mainspring of
superstition is fear; by fear too is superstition sustained and
nourished." "Men are chiefly assailed by superstition When suffering
from fear, and all they then do in the name of a vain religion is, in
fact, but the vaporous product of a sorrowful spirit, the delirium of
a mind overpowered by terror." He proceeds, "I have often wondered that
men who boast of the great advantage they enjoy under the Christian
dispensation--the peace, the joy they experience, the brotherly love
they feel towards all in its exercise--should nevertheless contend with
so much acrimony, and show such intolerance and unappeasable hatred
towards one another. If faith had to be inferred from action rather than
profession, it would indeed be impossible to say to what sect or creed
the majority of mankind belong." He laid down that "No one is bound by
natural law to live according to the pleasure of another, but that every
one is by natural title the rightful asserter of his own independence,"
and that "he or they govern best who concede to every one the privilege
of thinking as he pleases, and of saying what he thinks." Criticising
the Hebrew prophets, he points out that "God used no particular style
in making his communications; but in the same measure as the prophet
possessed learning and ability, his communications were either concise
and clear, or on the contrary, they were rude, prolix, and obscure." The
representations of Zechariah, as we learn from the accounts themselves,
were so obscure that without an explanation they could not be understood
by himself; and those of Daniel were so dark, that even when explained,
they were still unintelligible, not to others only, but also to the
prophet himself. He argues entirely against miracles, as either contrary
to nature or above nature, declaring any such to be "a sheer absurdity,"
"_merum esse absurdum_" Of the Scriptures themselves he points out that
the ancient Hebrew is entirely lost. "Of the authors, or, if you please,
writers, of many books, we either know almost nothing, or we entertain
grave doubts as to the correctness with which the several books are
ascribed to the parties whose names they bear." "Then we neither know on
what occasion, nor at what time those books were indited, the writers
of which are unknown to us. Further, we know nothing of the hands into
which the books fell; nor of the codices which have furnished such a
variety of readings, nor whether, perchance, there were not many other
variations in other copies." Voltaire says of Spinoza, "Not only in the
character of a Jew he attacks the New Testament, but in the character
of a scholar he ruins the Old." The logic of Spinoza was directed to the
demonstration of one substance with infinite attributes, for which one
substance with infinite attributes he had as equivalent the name "God."
Some who have since followed Spinoza, have agreed in his one substance,
but have denied the possibility of infinite attributes. Attributes or
qualities, they urge, are attributes of the finite or conditioned, and
that you cannot have attributes of substance except as attributes of its
modes. You have in this distinction the division line between Spinozism
and Atheism. Spinoza recognises infinite intelligence, but Atheism
cannot conceive intelligence except in relation as quality of the
conditioned, and not as the essence of the absolute. Spinoza denied
the doctrine of freewill, as with him all phenomena are of God, so he
rejects the ordinary notions of good and evil. The popular views of
Spinoza in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were chiefly derived
from the volumes of his antagonists; men learned his name because
priests abused him, few had perused his works for themselves. To-day we
may fairly say that Spinoza's logic and his biblical criticisms gave a
vigour and force to the heresy of the latter half of the seventeenth
and beginning of the eighteenth century; a directness and effectiveness
theretofore wanting.
As for the Bible, there was no longer an affected reverence for every
yod or comma, church traditions were ignored wherever inconsistent with
reason, and the law itself was boldly challenged when its letter was
against the spirit of human progress.
One of the greatest promoters of heresy in England was Ralph Cudworth,
born 1617, died 1688. He wrote to combat the atheistical tenets
which were then commencing to obtain popularity in England, and was a
controversialist so fair and candid in the statement of the opinions of
his antagonists, that he was actually charged with heresy himself, and
the epithets of Arian, Socinian, Deist, and even Atheist were freely
levelled against him. "He has raised," says Dryden, "such strong
objections against the being of a God and Providence, that many think he
has not answered them." The clamour of bigotry seems to have discouraged
Cudworth, and he left many of his works unprinted. Cousin describes him
as "a Platonist, of a firm and profound mind, who bends somewhat under
the weight of his erudition."
Thomas Burnet, born 1635, died 1715, a clergyman of the Church of
England, who, though high in favour with King William and the famous
Archbishop Tillotson, is said to have been shut out from preferment in
the church chiefly, if not entirely, on account of his many heterodox
views. He did not accept the orthodox notions on the Mosaic account of
the creation, fall, and deluge. Regarding the account of the fall as
allegorical, he argued for the ultimate salvation of everyone, and of
course denied the doctrine of eternal torment.
In a curious passage relating to the equivocations of a large number
of the clergy in openly taking the oath of allegiance to William III.,
while secretly supporting James as King, Burnet says, "the prevarication
of too many in so sacred a matter contributed not a little to fortify
the growing atheism of the time."
As Descartes and Spinoza had been foremost on the continent, so was
Locke in England, and no sketch of the progress of heresy during the
seventeenth century would be deserving serious regard which did not
accord a prominent place to John Locke, whom G. H. Lewes calls "one of
the wisest of Englishmen," and of whom Buckle speaks as "an innovator in
his philosophy, and an Unitarian in his creed." He was born in 1632,
and died 1704. Locke, according to his own fashion, was a sincere and
earnest Christian; but this has not saved him from being furiously
assailed for the materialistic character of his philosophy, and many
have been ready to assert that Locke's principles "lead to Atheism." In
politics Locke laid down, that unjust and unlawful force on the part of
the government might and ought to be resisted by force on the part of
the citizens. He urged that on questions of theology there ought to
be no penalties consequent upon the reception or rejection of any
particular religious opinion. How far those were right who regarded
Locke's metaphysical reasoning as; dangerous to orthodoxy may be, judged
by the following extract on the origin of ideas:--: "Follow a child from
its birth and observe the alterations that time makes, and you shall
find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with
ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, the more it
has matter to think on. After some time, it begins to know the objects,
which being most familiar with it, have made lasting impressions. Thus
it comes, by degrees, to know the persons it daily converses with, and
distinguish them from strangers; which are instances and effects of its
coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to it;
and so we may observe, how the mind, by degrees improves in these,
and advances to the exercise of those other faculties of enlarging,
compounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning about them, and
reflecting upon all these.
"If it shall be demanded then, when a man begins to have any ideas? I
think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. For since
there appear not to be any ideas in the mind, before the senses have
conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval
with sensation; which is such an impression or emotion, made in some
part of the body, as produces some perception in the understanding. It
is about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects, that
the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call
perception, remembering, consideration, reasoning, &c.
"In time, the mind comes to reflect on its own operations, about the
ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of
ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These are the impressions that
are made on our senses by outward objects, that are extrinsical to the
mind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and
proper to itself, which, when reflected on by itself, becoming also
objects of its contemplation, are, as I have said, the original of all
knowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind
is fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through the
senses, by outward objects, or by its own operations, when it reflects
on them. This is the first step a man makes towards the discovery of
anything, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which
ever he shall have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts
which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take
their rise and footing here: in all that good extent wherein the mind
wanders, in those remote speculations, it may seem to be elevated with,
it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have
offered for its contemplation.
"In this part, the understanding is merely passive; and whether or no it
will have these beginnings, and, as it were, materials of knowledge, is
not in its own power. For the objects of our senses do, many of them,
obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds, whether we will or no;
and the operations of our minds will not let us be without, at least,
some obscure notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he
does when he thinks. These simple ideas, when offered to the mind,
the understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are
imprinted, nor blot them out and make new ones itself, than a mirror can
refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects
set before it do therein produce. As the bodies that surround us
do diversely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the
impressions, and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that are
annexed to them."
The distinction pointed out by Lewes between Locke and Hobbes and
Gassendi, is that the two latter taught that all our ideas were derived
from sensations, while Locke said there were two sources, not one
source, and these two were sensation and reflection. Locke was in style
a more popular writer than Hobbes, and the heretical effect of the
doctrines on the mind not being so immediately perceived in consequence
of Locke's repeated declarations in favour of Christianity, his
metaphysical productions were more widely read than those of Hobbes; but
Locke really teaches the same doctrine as that laid down by Robert Owen
in his views on the formation of character; and his views on sensation,
as the primary source of ideas, are fatal to all notions of innate
ideas and of freewill. Voltaire, speaking of Locke, says:--"'We shall,
perhaps, never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material
thinks or not.' This judicious and guarded observation was considered
by more than one divine, as neither more nor less than a scandalous and
impious declaration, that the soul is material and mortal. Some English
devotees, after their usual manner, sounded the alarm. The superstitious
are in society what poltroons are in an army--they both feel and
excite causeless terror. The cry was, that Mr. Locke wished to overturn
religion; the subject, however, had nothing to do with religion at all;
it was purely a philosophical question, and perfectly independent of
faith and revelation."
One clergyman, the Rev. William Carrol, wrote, charging Atheism as the
result of Locke's teachings. The famous Sir Isaac Newton even grew so
alarmed with the materialistic tendency of Locke's philosophy, that when
John Locke was reported sick and unlikely to live, it is credibly stated
that Newton went so far as to say that it would be well if the author of
the essay on the Understanding were already dead. In 1689, one Cassimer
Leszynski, a Polish knight, was burned at Warsaw for denying the being
and providence of a God; but there are no easy means of learning whether
the charge arose from prejudice on the part of his accusers, or whether
this unfortunate gentleman really held Atheistic views.
Peter Bayle, born at Carlat, in Foix, 1647, died in Holland, 1706, was a
writer of great power and brilliancy and wide learning. Without standing
avowedly on the side of scepticism, he did much to promote sceptical
views amongst the rapidly growing class of men of letters. He declared
that it was better to be an Atheist, than to have a false or unworthy
idea of God; that a man can be at the same time an Atheist and an honest
man, and that a people without a religion is capable of good order.
Bayle's writings grew more heretical towards the latter part of his
career, and he suffered considerable persecution at the hands of the
Church, for having spoken too plainly of the character of David. He said
that "if David was the man after God's own heart, it must have been
by his penitence, not by his crimes." Bayle might have added, that the
record ot David's penitence is not easily discoverable in any part of
the narrative of his life.
Matthew Tindal, born 1656, died 1733, was, though the son of a clergyman
of the Established Church, one of the first amongst the school of
Deistical writers who became so prominent in the beginning of the
eighteenth century. Dr. Pye Smith catalogues him as "an Atheist," but
we know no ground for this. He was a zealous controversialist, and
commencing by attacking priests, he continued his attack against
the revelation they preached. He was a frequent writer, but his
"Christianity as old as the Creation" is his chief work, and the one
which has provoked the greatest amount of discussion. It was published
nearly at the close of his life, and after he had seen others of his
writings burned by the common hangman. Dr. Matthew Tindal helped much to
shake belief in the Bible, those who wrote against him did much more; if
no one had replied to Tindal, his attacks on; revelation would have
been read by few, but in answering the heretic, Bishop Waterland and his
_confreres_ gave wider circulation to Tindal's heresy.
John Toland was born Nov. 30,1670, at Londonderry, but was educated in
Scotland. He died 1722. His publications were all about the close of
the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and the
ability of his contributions to popular instruction may be judged by
the abusive epithets heaped upon him by his opponents. While severely
attacking the bulk of the clergy as misleaders of the people, and while
also assailing some of the chief orthodox notions, he yet, either in
order to escape the law, or from the effect of his religious education,
professed a respect for what he was pleased to call true Christianity,
but which we should be inclined to consider, at the least, somewhat
advanced Unitarianism. At last, however, his works were ordered to be
burned by the common hangman, and to escape arrest and prosecution he
had to flee to the Continent. Dr. J. Pye Smith describes Toland as a
Pantheist, and calls his Pantheisticon "an Atheistic Liturgy." In one of
Toland's essays he laments "how hard it is to come to a truth yourself,
and how dangerous a thing to publish to others." The publications ot
Toland were none of them very bulky although numerous, and as most
of them were fiercely assailed by the orthodox clergy, they helped to
excite popular interest in England, in the critical examination of the
Scriptures and the doctrines therein taught.
Besides the few authors to whom attention is here drawn, there were
numerous men who--each for a little while, and often coming out from
the lower ranks of the people themselves--stirred the hitherto
almost stagnant pool of popular thought with some daring utterance or
extravagant statement. Fanatics some, mystics some, alchemists some,
materialists some, but all crude and imperfect in their grasp of the
subject they advocated, they nevertheless all helped to agitate the
human mind, to render it more restless and inquiring, and thus they all
promoted the march of heresy.
One feature of the history of the seventeenth century shows how much
philosophy had gained ground, and how deep its roots were striking
throughout the European world--viz., that nearly all the writers wrote
in the vulgar tongue of their country, or there were published editions
of their works in that tongue. A century earlier, and but few escaped
from the narrow bonds of learned Latin: two centuries before, and none
got outside the Latin folios; but in this century theology, metaphysics,
philosophy, and politics are discussed in French, German, English, and
Italian. The commonest reader may peruse the most learned author, for
the writing is in a language which he cannot help knowing.
There were in this century a large number of writers in England and
throughout Europe, who, taking the Bible as a starting-point and
limitation for their philosophy, broached wonderful theories as to
creation, &c, in which reason and revelation were sought to be made
harmonious. Enfield, a most orthodox writer, in his "History of
Philosophy" says, "Who does not perceive, from the particulars which
have been related concerning these Scriptural philosophers, that
their labours, however well intended, have been of little benefit to
philosophy? Their fundamental error has consisted in supposing that the
sacred Scriptures were intended, not only to instruct men in all things
necessary to their salvation, but to teach the true principles of
physical and metaphysical science." How pregnant the admission that
revelation and science cannot be expected to accord--an admission which
in truth declares that in all philosophical research it is necessary
to go beyond the Bible, if not to go against it--an admission which
involves the declaration, that so long as men are bound by the letter of
the Bible, so long all philosophical progress is impossible.
In this century the English Church lost much of the political power it
had hitherto wielded. It was in 1625, that William, Bishop of Lincoln,
was dismissed from the office of Lord Keeper, and since his day no
ecclesiastic has held the great seal of England, and to-day who even
in the Church itself would dream of trying to make a bishop Lord
Chancellor? The church lost ground in the conflict with Charles, but
this it might perhaps have recovered, but it suffered irretrievably loss
of prestige in its struggle with William.