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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Secularism
+       A Confession Of Belief
+
+Author: George Jacob Holyoake
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38104]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH SECULARISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENGLISH SECULARISM
+
+A CONFESSION OF BELIEF
+
+By George Jacob Holyoake
+
+1896
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
+
+THE OPEN COURT, in which the series of articles constituting this
+work originally appeared, has given account of many forms of faith,
+supplementary or confirmatory of its own, and sometimes of forms of
+opinions dissimilar where there appeared to be instruction in them. It
+will be an advantage to the reader should its editor state objections,
+or make comments, as he may deem necessary and useful. English
+Secularism is as little known in America as American and Canadian
+Secularisation is understood in Great Britain. The new form of free
+thought known as English Secularism does not include either Theism or
+Atheism. Whether Monism, which I can conceive as a nobler and scientific
+form of Theism, might be a logical addition to the theory of Secularism,
+as set forth in the following pages, the editor of The Open Court may
+be able to show. If this be so, every open-minded reader will better see
+the truth by comparison. Contrast is the incandescent light of argument.
+
+ George Jacob Holyoake.
+ Eastern Lodge,
+ Brighton, England, February, 1896.
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
+
+AMONG the representative freethinkers of the world Mr. George J.
+Holyoake takes a most prominent position. He is a leader of leaders,
+he is the brain of the Secularist party in England, he is a hero and a
+martyr of their cause.
+
+Judged as a man, Mr. Holyoake is of sterling character; he was not
+afraid of prison, nor of unpopularity and ostracism, nor of persecution
+of any kind. If he ever feared anything, it was being not true to
+himself and committing himself to something that was not right. He was
+an agitator all his life, and as an agitator he was--whether or not
+we agree with his views--an ideal man. He is the originator of the
+Secularist movement that was started in England; he invented the name
+Secularism, and he was the backbone of the Secularist propaganda ever
+since it began. Mr. Holyoake left his mark in the history of thought,
+and the influence which he exercised will for good or evil remain an
+indelible heirloom of the future.
+
+Secularism is not the cause which The Open Court Publishing Co. upholds,
+but it is a movement which on account of its importance ought not to be
+overlooked. Whatever our religious views may be, we must reckon with
+the conditions that exist, and Secularism is powerful enough to deserve
+general attention.
+
+What is Secularism?
+
+Secularism espouses the cause of the world versus theology; of the
+secular and temporal versus the sacred and ecclesiastical. Secularism
+claims that religion ought never to be anything but a private affair; it
+denies the right of any kind of church to be associated with the public
+life of a nation, and proposes to supersede the official influence which
+religious institutions still exercise in both hemispheres.
+
+Rather than abolish religion or paralyse its influence, The Open Court
+Publishing Co. would advocate on the one hand to let the religious
+spirit pervade the whole body politic, together with all public
+institutions, and also the private life of every single individual; and
+on the other hand to carry all secular interests into the church, which
+would make the church subservient to the real needs of mankind.
+
+Thus we publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith, which is y an
+exposition of Secularism, not because we are Secularists, which we are
+not, but because we believe that Mr. Holyoake is entitled to a hearing.
+Mr. Holyoake is a man of unusually great common sense, of keen reasoning
+faculty, and of indubitable sincerity. What he says he means, and what
+he believes he lives up to, what he recognises to be right he will do,
+even though the whole world would stand up against him. In a word, he is
+a man who according to our conception of religion proves by his love of
+truth that, however he himself may disclaim it, he is actually a deeply
+religious man. His religious earnestness is rare, and our churches would
+be a good deal better off if all the pulpits were filled with men of his
+stamp.
+
+We publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith not for Secularists only,
+but also and especially for the benefit of religious people, of
+his adversaries, of his antagonists; for they ought to know him and
+understand him; they ought to appreciate his motives for dissenting from
+church views; and ought to learn why so many earnest and honest
+people are leaving the church and will have nothing to do with church
+institutions.
+
+Why is it that Christianity is losing its bold on mankind? Is it because
+the Christian doctrines have become antiquated, and does the church no
+longer adapt herself to the requirements of the present age? Is it that
+the representative Christian thinkers are lacking in intellectuality and
+moral strength? Or is it that the world at large has outgrown religion
+and refuses to be guided by the spiritual counsel of popes and pastors?
+
+Whatever the reason may be, the fact itself cannot be doubted, and the
+question is only, What will become of religion in the future? Will the
+future of mankind be irreligious (as for instance Mr. Lecky and M. Guyau
+prophesy); or will religion regain its former importance and become
+again the leading power in life, dominating both public and private
+affairs?
+
+The first condition of a reconciliation between religion and the
+masses of mankind would be for religious men patiently to listen to
+the complaints that are made by the adversaries of Christianity, and to
+understand the position which honest and sensible freethinkers, such as
+Mr. Holyoake, take. Religious leaders are too little acquainted with the
+world at large; they avoid their antagonists like outcasts, and
+rarely, if ever, try to comprehend their arguments. In the same way,
+freethinkers as a rule despise clergymen as hypocrites who for the sake
+of a living sell their souls and preach doctrines which they cannot
+honestly believe. In order to arrive at a mutual understanding, it
+would be necessary first of all that both parties should discontinue
+ostracising one another and become mutually acquainted. They should lay
+aside for a while the weapons with which they are wont to combat one
+another in the public press and in tract literature; they should cease
+scolding and ridiculing one another and simply present their own case in
+terse terms.
+
+This Mr. Holyoake has done. His Confession of Faith is as concise as any
+book of the kind can be; and he, being the originator of Secularism and
+its standard-bearer, is the man who speaks with authority.
+
+For the sake of religion, therefore, and for promoting the mutual
+understanding of men of a different turn of mind, we present his book to
+the public and recommend its careful perusal especially to the clergy,
+who will learn from this book some of the most important reasons why
+Christianity has become unacceptable to a large class of truth-loving
+men, who alone for the sake of truth find it best to stay out of the
+church.
+
+The preface of a book is as a rule not deemed the right place to
+criticise an author, but such is the frankness and impartiality of Mr.
+Holyoake that he has kindly permitted the manager of The Open
+Court Publishing Co. to criticise his book freely and to state the
+disagreements that might obtain between publishers and author in the
+very preface of the book. There is no need of making an extensive use of
+this permission, as a few remarks will be sufficient to render clear the
+difference between Secularism and the views of The Open Court Publishing
+Co., which we briefly characterise as "the Religion of Science."
+
+Secularism divides life into what is secular and what is religious,
+and would consign all matters of religion to the sphere of private
+interests. The Religion of Science would not divide life into a secular
+and a religious part, but would have both the secular and the religious
+united. It would carry religion into all secular affairs so as to
+sanctify and transfigure them; and for this purpose it would make
+religion practical, so as to be suited to the various needs of life; it
+would make religion scientifically sound, so as to be in agreement with
+the best and most scientific thought of the age; it would reform church
+doctrines and raise them from their dogmatic arbitrariness upon the
+higher plain of objective truth.
+
+In emphasising our differences we should, however, not fail to recognise
+the one main point of agreement, which is our belief in science. Mr.
+Holyoake would settle all questions of doubt by the usual method of
+scientific investigation. But there is a difference even here, which
+is a different conception of science. While science to Mr. Holyoake
+is secular, we insist on the holiness and religious significance of
+science. If there is any revelation of God, it is truth; and what is
+science but truth ascertained? Therefore we would advise all preachers
+and all those to whose charge souls of men are committed, to take off
+their shoes when science speaks to them, for science is the voice of
+God.
+
+The statement is sometimes made by those who belittle science in the
+vain hope of exalting religion, that the science of yesterday has been
+upset by the science of to-day, and that the science of today may again
+be upset by the science of to-morrow. Nothing can be more untrue.
+
+Of course, science must not be identified with the opinion of
+scientists. Science is the systematic statement of facts, and not the
+theories which are tentatively proposed to fill out the gaps of our
+knowledge. What has once been proved to be a fact has never been
+overthrown, and the actual stock of science has grown slowly but surely.
+The discovery of new facts or the proposition of a new and reliable
+hypothesis has often shown the old facts of science in a new light, but
+it has never upset or disproved them. There are fashions in the opinions
+of scientists, but science itself is above fashion, above change,
+above human opinion. Science partakes of that stern immutability, it is
+endowed with that eternality and that omnipresent universality which
+have since olden times been regarded as the main attribute of Godhood.
+
+There appears in all religions, at a certain stage of the religious
+development, a party of dogmatists. They are people who, in their zeal,
+insist on the exclusiveness of their own religion, as if truth were a
+commodity which, if possessed by one, cannot be possessed by anybody
+else. They know little of the spirit that quickens, but believe blindly
+in the letter of the dogma. It is not faith in their opinion that saves,
+but the blindness of faith. They interpret Christ's words and declare
+that he who has another interpretation must be condemned.
+
+The dogmatic phase in the development of religion is as natural as
+boyhood in a human life and as immaturity in the growth of fruit; it
+is natural and necessary, but it is a phase only which will pass as
+inevitably by as boyhood changes into manhood, and as the prescientific
+stage in the evolution of civilisation gives way to a better and deeper
+knowledge of nature.
+
+The dogmatist is in the habit of identifying his dogmatism with
+religion; and that is the reason why his definitions of religion and
+morality will unfailingly come in conflict with the common sense of
+the people. The dogmatist makes religion exclusive. In the attempt
+of exalting religion he relegates it to supernatural spheres, thus
+excluding it from the world and creating a contrast between the sacred
+and the profane, between the divine and the secular, between religion
+and life. Thus it happens that religion becomes something beyond,
+something extraneous, something foreign to man's sphere of being. And
+yet religion has developed for the sake of sanctifying the daily walks
+of man, of making the secular sacred, of filling life with meaning and
+consecrating even the most trivial duties of existence.
+
+Secularism is the reaction against dogmatism, but secularism still
+accepts the views of the dogmatist on religion; for it is upon the
+dogmatist's valuations and definitions that the secularist rejects
+religion as worthless.
+
+* * *
+
+The religious movement, of which The Open Court Publishing Co. is an
+exponent, represents one further step in the evolution of religious
+aspirations. As alchemy develops into chemistry, and astrology into
+astronomy, as blind faith changes into seeing face to face, as belief
+changes into knowledge, so the religion of miracles, the religion of
+a salvation by magic, the religion of the dogmatist, ripens into the
+religion of pure and ascertainable truth. The old dogmas, which in their
+literal acceptance appear as nonsensical errors, are now recognised
+as allegories which symbolise deeper truths, and the old ideals are
+preserved not with less, but with more, significance than before.
+
+God is not smaller but greater since we know more about Him, as to what
+He is and what He is not, just as the universe is not smaller but larger
+since Copernicus and Kepler opened our eyes and showed us what the
+relation of our earth in the solar system is and what it is not.
+
+Secularism is one of the signs of the times. It represents the unbelief
+in a religious alchemy; but its antagonism to the religion of dogmatism
+does not bode destruction but advance. It represents the transition to
+a purer conception of religion. It has not the power to abolish the
+church, but only indicates the need of its reformation.
+
+It is this reformation of religion and of religious institutions which
+is the sole aim of all the publications of The Open Court Publishing
+Co., and we see in Secularism one of those agencies that are at work
+preparing the way for a higher and nobler comprehension of the truth.
+
+Mr. Holyoake's aspirations, in our opinion, go beyond the aims which he
+himself points out, and thus his Confession of Faith, although nominally
+purely secular, will finally, even by churchmen, be recognised in its
+religious importance. It will help to purify the confession of faith of
+the dogmatist.
+
+In offering Mr. Holyoake's best and maturest thoughts to the public, we
+hope that both the secularists and the believers in religion will by
+and by learn to understand that Secularism as much as dogmatism is a
+phase--both are natural and necessary phases--in the religious evolution
+of mankind. There is no use in scolding either the dogmatist or the
+secularist, or in denouncing the one on account of his credulity and
+superstition, and the other on account of his dissent; but there is a
+use in--nay, there is need of--understanding the aspirations of both.
+
+There is a need of mutual exchange of thought on the basis of mutual
+esteem and good-will. Above all, there is a need of opening the church
+doors to the secularist.
+
+The church, if it has any right of existence at all, is for the
+world, and not for believers alone. Church members can learn from the
+secularist many things which many believers seem to have forgotten, and,
+on the other hand, they can teach the unbeliever what he has overlooked
+in his sincere attempts at finding the truth, May Mr. Holyoake's
+confession of faith be received in the spirit in which the author wrote
+it, which is a candid love of truth, and also in the spirit in which
+the publishers undertook its publication, with the irenic endeavor
+of letting every honest aspiration be rightly understood and rightly
+valued.
+
+Paul Carus, Manager of The Open Court Publishing Co.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. OPEN THOUGHT THE FIRST STEP TO INTELLIGENCE
+
+     "It is not prudent to be in the right too soon, nor to be in
+     the right against everybody else. And yet it sometimes
+     happens that after a certain lapse of time, greater or
+     lesser, you will find that one of those truths which you had
+     kept to yourself as premature, but which has got abroad in
+     spite of your teeth, has become the most commonplace thing
+     imaginable."
+
+     --Alphonse Karr.
+
+ONE purpose of these chapters is to explain how unfounded are the
+objections of many excellent Christians to Secular instruction in State,
+public, or board schools. The Secular is distinct from theology, which
+it neither ignores, assails, nor denies. Things Secular are as separate
+from the Church as land from the ocean. And what nobody seems to discern
+is that things Secular are in themselves quite distinct from Secularism.
+The Secular is a mode of instruction; Secularism is a code of conduct.
+Secularism does conflict with theology; Secularist teaching would, but
+Secular instruction does not.
+
+Persuaded as I am that lack of consideration for the convictions of
+the reader creates an impediment in the way of his agreement with the
+writer, and even disinclines him to examine what is put before him; yet
+some of these pages may be open to this objection. If so, it is owing
+to want of thought or want of art in statement, and is no part of the
+intention of the author.
+
+He would have diffidence in expressing, as he does in these pages,
+his dissent from the opinions of many Christian advocates--for whose
+character and convictions he has great respect, and for some even
+affection--did he not perceive that few have any diffidence or
+reservation (save in one or two exalted instances)* in maintaining their
+views and dissenting from his.
+
+Open thought, which in this chapter is brought under the reader's notice
+is sometimes called "self-thought," or "free thought," or "original
+thought"--the opposite of conventional second-hand thought--which is all
+that the custom-ridden mass of mankind is addicted to.
+
+Open thought has three stages:
+
+The first stage is that in which the right to think independently is
+insisted on; and the free action of opinion--so formed--is maintained.
+Conscious power thus acquired satisfies the pride of some; others limit
+its exercise from prudence. Interests, which would be jeopardised by
+applying independent thought to received opinion, keep more persons
+silent, and thus many never pass from this stage.
+
+     *  Of whom the greatest is Mr. Gladstone.
+
+The second stage is that in which the right of self-thought is applied
+to the criticism of theology, with a view to clear the way for life
+according to reason. This is not the work of a day or year, but is so
+prolonged that clearing the way becomes as it were a profession, and is
+at length pursued as an end instead of a means. Disputation becomes
+a passion and the higher state of life, of which criticism is the
+necessary precursor, is lost sight of, and many remain at this stage
+when it is reached and go no further.
+
+The third stage is that where ethical motives of conduct apart
+from Christianity are vindicated for the guidance of those who are
+indifferent about theology, or who reject it altogether. Supplying to
+such persons Secular reasons for duty is Secularism, the range of
+which is illimitable. It begins where free thought usually ends, and
+constitutes a new form of constructive thought, the principles and
+policy of which are quite different from those acted upon in the
+preceding stages. Controversy concerns itself with what is; Secularism
+with what ought to be.
+
+It is pertinent here to say that Christianity does not permit
+eclecticism--that is, it does not tolerate others selecting portions of
+Christian Scriptures possessing the mark of intrinsic truth, to which
+many could cheerfully conform in their lives. This rule compels all who
+cannot accept the entire Scriptures to deal with its teachings as
+they find them expressed, and for which Christianity makes itself
+responsible.
+
+All the while it is quite evident that Christians do permit eclecticism
+among themselves. The great Congress of the Free Churches, recently held
+in Nottingham, representing the personal and vital form of Christianity,
+had a humanness and tolerance un manifested by Christianity before,
+showing that humanity is stronger than historical integrity. If any one,
+therefore, should draw up, as might be done, a theory of Christianity
+solely from such doctrines as are represented in the elliptical
+preaching, practice, and social life of Christians of to-day, a very
+different estimate of the Christian system would have to be given from
+that with which the author deals in the subsequent chapters. In them
+Christianity is represented as Free-thought has found it, and as it
+exists in the Scriptures, in the law, in the pulpit, and in the school,
+which constitute its total force in the respects in which it represses
+and discourages independent thought. Science, truth, and criticism have
+engrafted themselves on historic Christianity. It has now new articles
+of belief. When it avows them it will win larger concurrence and respect
+than it can now command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE QUESTION STATED
+
+     "Look forward--not backward; Look up--not down; Look around;
+     Lend a hand."*
+
+     --Edward Everett Hale, D. D.
+
+Where a monarchy is master, inquiry is apt to be a disturbing element;
+and though exercised in the interest of the commonwealth it is none the
+less resented. Where the priest is master inquiry is sharply prohibited.
+The priest represents a spiritual monarchy in which the tenets of belief
+are fixed, assumed to be infallible, and to be prescribed by deity. Thus
+the priest regards inquiry as proceeding from an impertinent distrust,
+to which he is not reconciled on being assured that it is undertaken in
+the interest of truth. Thus the king denounces inquiry as sedition, and
+the priest as sin. In the end the inquirer finds himself an alien in
+State and Church, and laws are made against his life, his liberty,
+property, and veracity.**
+
+     * Dr. Hale did not popularise these energetic maxims of
+     earnestness in the connexion in which they are here used;
+     but their wisdom is of general application.
+
+     **When martyrdoms and imprisonments ceased, disabling laws
+     remained which imposed the Christian oath on all who
+     appealed to the courts, and any who had the pride of
+     veracity and declined to to swear, were denied protection
+     for property, or credence of their word.
+
+Thus from the time when monarch and priest first set up their
+pretensions in the world, the inquiring mind has had small
+encouragement. When Protestantism came it merely conceded inquiry _under
+direction_, and only so far as it tended to confirm its own anti-papal
+tenets. But when inquiry claimed to be independent, unfettered,
+uncontrolled,--in fact to be _free_ inquiry,--then Papist, Lutheran, and
+Dissenter, alike regarded it as dangerous, and stigmatised it by every
+term calculated to deter or dissuade people from it.
+
+But though this combined defamation of inquiry set many against it, it
+did not intimidate men entirely. There arose independent thinkers who
+held that unfettered investigation was the discoverer of truth and
+dangerous to error only, and that the freer it was the more effective it
+must be.
+
+Still timorous-minded persons remained suspicious of _free_ thought.
+At its best they found it involved conflict with false opinion, and
+conflict, to those without aspiration or conscience, is disquieting; and
+where impartial investigation interfered with personal interests it was
+opposed. No one could enter on the search for truth without finding his
+path obstructed by theological errors and interdictions. Having taken
+the side of truth, all who were loyal to it, were bound like Bunyan's
+
+Pilgrim to withstand the Apollyons who opposed it, and a combat began
+which lasted for centuries, and is not yet ended. But though theology
+was always in power, men of courage at length established the right of
+free inquiry, and established also a free press for the publication of
+the results arrived at. These rights were so indispensable for progress
+and were so long resisted, that generations fought for them as ends in
+themselves. Thus there grew up, as in military affairs, a class whose
+profession was destruction, and free thinkers came to be regarded as
+negationists. When I came into the field the combat was raging. Richard
+Carlile had not long been liberated from successive imprisonments of
+more than nine years duration in all. Charles Southwell was in Bristol
+gaol. Before his sentence had half expired I was in Gloucester gaol.
+George Adams was there; Mrs. Harriet Adams was committed for trial from
+Cheltenham. Matilda Roalfe, Thomas Finlay, Thomas Paterson, and others
+were incarcerated in Scotland. Robert Buchanan and Lloyd Jones, two
+social missionaries--colleagues of my own--only escaped imprisonment by
+swearing they believed what they did not believe,--an act I refused to
+imitate, and no mean inconvenience has resulted to me from it. I took
+part in the vindication of the free publicity of opinion until it was
+practically conceded. At the time when I was arrested in 1842, the
+Cheltenham magistrates who were angered at defiant remarks I made, had
+the power (and used it) of committing me to the Quarter Sessions as a
+"felon," where the same justices could resent, by penalties, what I had
+said to them. On representations I made to Parliament--through my friend
+John Arthur Roebuck and others--Sir James Graham caused a Bill to be
+passed which removed trials for opinion to the Assizes. I was the first
+person tried under this act. Thus for the first time heresy was ensured
+a dispassionate trial and was no longer subject to the jurisdiction of
+local prejudice and personal magisterial resentment.
+
+When overt acts of outrage were no longer possible against the adherents
+of free thought, Christians, some from fairness, and others from
+necessity, began to reason with them and asked: "Now you have
+established your claim to be heard. What have you to say?" The reply
+I proposed was: "Secularism--a form of opinion relating to the duty of
+this life which substituted the piety of useful men for the usefulness
+of piety."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE FIRST STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATION
+
+     "He who cannot reason is defenceless; he who fears to reason
+     has a coward mind; he who will not reason is willing to be
+     deceived and will deceive all who listen to him."
+
+     --Maxim of Free Thought.
+
+FREE THOUGHT is founded upon reason. It is the exercise of reason,
+without which free thought is free foolishness. Free thought being
+the precursor of Secularism, it is necessary first to describe its
+principles and their limitation. Free thought means independent
+self-thinking. Some say all thought is free since a man can think what
+he pleases and no one can prevent him, which is not true. Unfortunately
+thinking can be prevented by subtle spiritual intimidation, in earlier
+and even in later life.
+
+When a police agent found young Mazzini in the fields of Genoa,
+apparently meditating, his father's attention was called to the
+youth. His father was told that the Austrian Government did not permit
+thinking. The Inquisition intimidated nations from thinking. The priests
+by preventing instruction and prohibiting books, limited thinking.
+Archbishop Whately shows that no one can reason without words, and since
+speech can be, and is, disallowed and made penal, the highway of
+thought can be closed. No one can think to any purpose without inquiry
+concerning his subject, and inquiry can be made impossible. It is of
+little use that any one thinks who cannot verify his ideas by comparison
+with those of his compeers. To prevent this is to discourage thought. In
+fact thousands are prevented thinking by denying them the means and the
+facilities of thinking.
+
+Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal
+penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does
+not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not
+authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he
+is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law,
+nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society--whose opinion appals so many. He
+who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save
+the fear of error.
+
+Fearlessness is the essential condition of effective thought. If Satan
+sits at the top of the Bible with perdition open underneath it, into
+which its readers will be pushed who may doubt what they find in its
+pages, the right of private judgment is a snare. A man is a fool who
+inquires at this risk. He had better accept at once the superstition of
+the first priest he meets. It is not conceivable how a Christian can be
+a _free_ thinker.
+
+He who is afraid to know both sides of a question cannot think upon
+it. Christians do not, as a rule, want to know what can be said against
+their views, and they keep out of libraries all books which would inform
+others. Thus such Christians cannot think freely, and are against others
+doing it. Doubt comes of thinking; the Christian commonly regards doubt
+as sin. How can he be a free thinker who thinks thinking is a sin?
+
+Free thought implies three things as conditions of truth:
+
+1. Free inquiry, which is the pathway to truth.
+
+2. Free publicity to the ideas acquired, in order to learn whether they
+are useful--which is the encouragement of truth.
+
+3. The free discussion of convictions without which it is not possible
+to know whether they are true or false, which is the verification of
+truth.
+
+A man is not a man unless he is a thinker; he is a fool having no ideas
+of his own. If he happens to live among men who do think, he browses
+like an animal on their ideas. He is a sort of kept man being supported
+by the thoughts of others. He is what in England is called a pauper, who
+subsists upon "outdoor relief," allowed him by men of intellect.
+
+Without the right of publicity, individual thought, however praiseworthy
+and however perfect, would be barren to the community. Algernon Sidney
+said: "The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech and the
+example of using it."
+
+The clergy of every denomination are unfriendly to its use. The soldiers
+of the cross do not fight adversaries in the open. Mr. Gladstone alone
+among eminent men of piety has insisted upon the duty of the Church to
+prove its claims in discussion. In his Introduction to his address at
+the Liverpool College (1872 or 1873) he said: "I wish to place on record
+my conviction that belief cannot now be defended by reticence any more
+than by railing, or by any privileges or assumption." Since the day of
+Milton there has been no greater authority on the religious wisdom of
+debate.
+
+Thought, even theological, is often useless, ill-informed, foolish,
+mischievous, or even wicked; and he alone who submits it to free
+criticism gives guarantees that he means well, and is self-convinced. By
+criticism alone comes exposure, correction, or confirmation. The right
+of criticism is the sole protection of the community against error
+of custom, ignorance, prejudice, or incompetence. It is not until a
+proposition has been generally accepted after open and fair examination,
+that it can be considered as established and can safely be made a ground
+of action or belief.*
+
+     * See Formation of Opinions, by Samuel Bailey.
+
+These are the implementary rights of thought. They are what grammar is
+to the writer, which teaches him how to express himself, but not what
+to say. These rights are as the rules of navigation to the mariner. They
+teach him how to steer a ship but do not instruct him where to steer to.
+
+The full exercise of these rights of mental freedom is what training
+in the principles of jurisprudence is to the pleader, but it does not
+provide him with a brief. It is conceivable that a man may come to be a
+master of independent thinking and never put his powers to use; just as
+a man may know every rule of grammar and yet never write a book. In
+the same way a man may pass an examination in the art of navigation and
+never take command of a vessel; or he may qualify for a Barrister, be
+called to the Bar and never plead in any court. We know from experience
+that many persons join in the combat for the right of intellectual
+freedom for its own sake, without intending or caring to use the right
+when won. Some are generous enough to claim and contend for these rights
+from the belief that they may be useful to others. This is the first
+stage of free thought, and, as has been said, many never pass beyond it.
+
+Independent thinking is concerned primarily with removing obstacles to
+its own action, and in contests for liberty of speech by tongue and
+pen. The free mind fights mainly for its own freedom. It may begin in
+curiosity and may end in intellectual pride--unless conscience takes
+care of it. Its nature is iconoclastic and it may exist without ideas of
+reconstruction.
+
+Though a man goes no further, he is a better man than he who never went
+as far. He has acquired a new power, and is sure of his own mind.
+Just as one who has learned to fence, or to shoot, has a confidence in
+encountering an adversary, which is seldom felt by one who never had
+a sword in hand, or practised at a target. The sea is an element of
+recreation to one who has learned to swim; it is an element of death to
+one ignorant of the art. Besides, the thinker has attained a courage
+and confidence unknown to the man of orthodox mind. Since God (we are
+assured) is the God of truth, the honest searcher after truth has God on
+his side, and has no dread of the King of Perdition--the terror of all
+Christian people--since the business of Satan is with those who are
+content with false ideas; not with those who seek the true. If it be a
+duty to seek the truth and to live the truth, honest discussion, which
+discerns it, identifies it, clears it, and establishes it, is a form
+of worship of real honor to God and of true service to man. If the
+clergyman's speech on behalf of God is rendered exact by criticism, the
+criticism is a tribute, and no mean tribute to heaven. Thus the free
+exercise of the rights of thought involve no risk hereafter.
+
+Moreover, so far as a man thinks he gains. Thought implies enterprise
+and exertion of mind, and the result is wealth of understanding, to
+be acquired in no other way. This intellectual property like other
+property, has its rights and duties. The thinker's right is to be left
+in undisturbed possession of what he has earned; and his duty is
+to share his discoveries of truth with mankind, to whom he owes his
+opportunities of acquiring it.
+
+Free expression involves consideration for others, on principle.
+Democracy without personal deference becomes a nuisance; so free speech
+without courtesy is repulsive, as free publicity would be, if not mainly
+limited to reasoned truth. Otherwise every blatant impulse would have
+the same right of utterance as verified ideas. Even truth can only claim
+priority of utterance, when its utility is manifest. As the number and
+length of hairs on a man's head is less important to know, than the
+number and quality of the ideas in his brain.
+
+True free thought requires special qualities to insure itself
+acceptance. It must be owned that the thinker is a disturber. He is a
+truth-hunter, and there is no telling what he will find. Truth is an
+exile which has been kept out of her kingdom, and Error is a usurper in
+possession of it; and the moment Truth comes into her right, Error has
+to give up its occupancy of her territory; and as everybody consciously,
+or unconsciously harbors some of the emissaries of the usurper, they
+do not like owning the fact, and they dispute the warrant of truth
+to search their premises, though to be relieved of such deceitful and
+costly inmates would be an advantage to them.
+
+An inalienable attribute of free thought, which no theology possesses,
+is absolute toleration of all ideas put forward in the interests of
+public truth, and submitted to public discussion. The true free thinker
+is in favor of the free action of all opinion which injures no one else,
+and of putting the best construction he can on the acts of others, not
+only because he has thereby less to tolerate, but from perceiving that
+he who lacks tolerance towards the ideas of others has no claim for
+the tolerance of his own. The defender of toleration must himself be
+tolerant. Condemning the coercion of ideas, he is pledged to combat
+error only by reason. Vindictiveness towards the erring is not only
+inconsistency, it is persecution. Thus free thought is not only
+self-defence against error but, by the toleration it imposes, is itself
+security for respectfulness in controversy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ENTERPRISE
+
+     "Better wild ideas than no ideas at all."
+
+     --Professor Nichol at Horsham.
+
+THE emancipation of the understanding from intimidation and penal
+restraint soon incited thinkers of enterprise to put their new powers
+to use. Theology being especially a forbidden subject and the greatest
+repressive force, inquiry into its pretensions first attracted critical
+attention.
+
+In every century forlorn hopes of truth had set out to storm one or
+other of the ramparts of theology. Forces had been marshalled by
+great leaders and battle often given in the open field; and unforeseen
+victories are recorded, in the annals of the wars of infantine
+rationalism, against the full-grown powers of superstition and darkness.
+In every age valiant thinkers, scholars, philosophers, and critics, even
+priests in defiance of power, ecclesiastical and civil, have, at their
+own peril, explored the regions of forbidden truth.
+
+In Great Britain it was the courage of insurgent thinkers among the
+working class--whom no imprisonment could intimidate--who caused the
+right of free speech and free publicity to be finally conceded. Thus
+rulers came round to the conclusion of Caballero, that "tolerance is as
+necessary in ideas as in social relations."
+
+As soon as opinion was known to be emancipated, men began to think who
+never thought before. The thinker no longer had to obtain a "Ticket
+of Leave" from the Churches before he could inquire; he was free to
+investigate where he would and what he would. Power is, as a rule, never
+imparted nor acquired in vain, and honest men felt they owed it to those
+who had won freedom for them, that they should extend it. Thus it
+came to pass that independence was an inspiration to action in men
+of intrepid minds. Professor Tyndall in the last words he wrote for
+publication said, "I choose the nobler part of Emerson when, after
+various disenchantments, he exclaims, 'I covet truth!'" On printing
+these words the _Westminster Gazette_ added: "The gladness of true
+heroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to say this."
+The energies of intellectual intrepidity had doubtless been devoted to
+science and social progress; but as philosophers have found, down
+to Huxley's day, all exploration was impossible in that direction.
+Murchison, Brewster, Buckland, and other pioneers of science were
+intimidated. Lyell held back his book, on the Antiquity of Man, twenty
+years. Tyndall, Huxley, and Spencer were waiting to be heard. As
+Huxley has justly said: "there was no Thoroughfare into the Kingdom
+of Nature--By Order--Moses." Hence, to examine theology, to discover
+whether its authority was absolute, became a necessity. It was soon seen
+that there was ground for scepticism. The priests resented criticism
+by representing the sceptic of their pretensions, as being sceptical of
+everything, whereas they were only sceptics of clerical infallibility.
+They indeed did aver that branches of human knowledge, received as well
+established, were really open to question, in order to show that if men
+could not be confident of things of which they had experience, how could
+the Churches be confident of things of which no man had experience--and
+which contradicted experience? So far from disbelieving everything,
+scepticism went everywhere in search of truth and certainty. Since the
+Church could not be absolutely certain of the truth of its tenets,
+its duty was to be tolerant. But being intolerant it became as Julian
+Hibbert put it--"well-understood self-defence" to assail it. The Church
+fought for power, the thinker fought for truth. Free thought among the
+people may be likened to a good ship manned by adventurous mariners,
+who, cruising about in the ocean of theology came upon sirens, as other
+mariners had done before--dangerous to be followed by navigators
+bound to ports of progress. Many were thereby decoyed to their own
+destruction. The sirens of the Churches sang alluring songs whose
+refrains were:
+
+1. The Bible the guide of God.
+
+2. The origin of the universe disclosed.
+
+3. The care of Providence assured.
+
+4. Deliverance from peril by prayer dependable.
+
+5. Original sin effaceable by grace.
+
+6. Perdition avoidable by faith in crucifixion.
+
+7. Future life revealed.
+
+These propositions were subjects of resonant hymns, sermons, and tracts,
+and were not, and are not, disowned, but still defended in discussion by
+orthodox and clerical advocates. Save salvation by the blood of Christ
+(a painful idea to entertain), the other ideas might well fascinate the
+uninquiring. They had enchanted many believers, but the explorers of
+whom we speak had acquired the questioning spirit, and had learned
+prudently to look at both sides of familiar subjects and soon discovered
+that the fair-seeming propositions which had formerly imposed on their
+imagination were unsound, unsightly, and unsafe. The Syracusans of
+old kept a school in which slaves were taught the ways of bondage.
+Christianity has kept such a school in which subjection of the
+understanding was inculcated, and the pupils, now free to investigate,
+resolved to see whether such things were true.
+
+Then began the reign of refutation of theological error, by some from
+indignation at having been imposed upon, by others from zeal that
+misconception should end; by more from enthusiasm for facts; by the
+bolder sort from resentment at the intimidation and cruelty with which
+inquiry had been suppressed so long; and by not a few from the love
+of disputation which has for some the delight men have for chess or
+cricket, or other pursuit which has conflict and conquest in it.
+
+Self-determined thought is a condition of the progress of nations. Where
+would science be but for open thought, the nursing mother of enterprise,
+of discovery, of invention, of new conditions of human betterment?
+
+A modern Hindu writer* tells us that: "The Hindu is sorely handicapped
+by customs which are prescribed by his religious books. Hedged in by
+minute rules and restrictions the various classes forming the Hindu
+community have had but little room for expansion and progress. The
+result has been stagnation. Caste has prevented the Hindus from sinking,
+but it has also preventing them from rising."
+
+     *  Pramatha Nath Bose.
+
+The old miracle-bubbles which the Jews blew into the air of wonder two
+thousand years ago, delight churches still in their childhood. The sea
+of theology would have been stagnant centuries ago, had not insurgent
+thinkers, at the peril of their lives, created commotion in it. Morals
+would have been poisoned on the shores of theology had not free thought
+purified the waters by putting the salt of reason into that sea,
+freshening it year by year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CONQUESTS OF INVESTIGATION
+
+     "The secret of Genius is to suffer no fiction to live."
+
+     --Goethe.
+
+THEOLOGIANS had so choked the human mind with a dense undergrowth of
+dogmas that it was like cutting through an African forest, such as
+Stanley encountered, to find the paths of truth.
+
+On that path, when found, many things unforeseen before, became plain.
+The siren songs of orthodoxy were discovered to have strange discords of
+sense in them.
+
+1. The Guide of God seemed to be very human--not authentic, not
+consistent--containing things not readable nor explainable in the
+family; pagan fictions, such as the Incarnation reluctantly believable
+as the device of a moral deity. Men of genius and of noble ethical
+sympathy do however deem it defensible. In any human book the paternal
+exaction of such suffering as fell to Christ, would be regarded with
+alarm and repugnance. Wonder was felt that Scripture, purporting to
+contain the will of deity, should not be expressed so unmistakably that
+ignorance could not misunderstand it, nor perversity misconstrue it. The
+gods know how to write.
+
+2. The origin of all things has excited and disappointed the curiosity
+of the greatest exploring minds of every age. That the secret of the
+universe is undisclosed, is manifest from the different and differing
+conjectures concerning it. The origin of the universe remains
+unknowable. What awe fills or rather takes possession of the mind which
+comprehends this! Why existence exists is the cardinal wonder.
+
+3. Pleasant and free from anxiety, life would be were it true, that
+Providence is a present help in the day of need. Alas, to the poor it is
+evident that Providence does not interfere, either to befriend the good
+in their distress, or arrest the bad in the act of crime.
+
+4. The power of prayer has been the hope of the helpless and the
+oppressed in every age. Every man wishes it was true that help could be
+had that way. Then every just man could protect himself at will against
+his adversaries. But experience shows that all entreaty is futile to
+induce Providence to change its universal habit of non-intervention.
+Prayer beguiles the poor but provides no dinner. Mr. Spurgeon said at
+the Tabernacle that prayer filled his meal barrel when empty. I asked
+that he should publish the recipe in the interests of the hungry. But he
+made no reply.
+
+5. There is reason to think that original sin is not anything more than
+original ignorance. The belief in natural depravity discourages all
+efforts of progress. The primal imperfection of human nature is only
+effaceable by knowledge and persistent endeavor. Even in things lawful
+to do, excess is sin, judged by human standards. There may be error
+without depravity.
+
+6. Eternal perdition for conscientious belief, whether erroneous or
+not, is humanly incredible. The devisors of this doctrine must have
+been unaware that belief is an affair of ignorance, prejudice, custom,
+education, or evidence. The liability of the human race to eternal
+punishment is the foundation on which all Christianity (except
+Unitarianism) rests. This awful belief, if acted upon with the sincerity
+that Christianity declares it should be, would terminate all enjoyment,
+and all enterprise would cease in the world. None would ever marry. No
+persons, with any humanity in their hearts would take upon themselves
+the awful responsibility of increasing the number of the damned. The
+registrar of births would be the most fiendish clerk conceivable. He
+would be practically the secretary of hell.
+
+The theory that all the world was lost through a curious and
+enterprising lady, eating an apricot or an apple, and that three
+thousand or more years after, mankind had to be redeemed by the murder
+of an innocent Jew, is of a nature to make men afraid to believe in a
+deity accused of contriving so dreadful a scheme.
+
+Though this reasoning will seem to many an argument against the
+existence of God whereas it is merely against the attributes of deity,
+as ascribed to him by Christianity. If God be not moral, in the human
+sense of the term, he may as well be not moral at all. It is only he
+whose principles of justice, men can understand, that men can
+trust. Prof. T. H. Huxley, conspicuous for his clearness of view and
+dispassionateness of judgment, was of this opinion, and said: "The
+suggestion arises, if God is the cause of all things he is responsible
+for evil as well as for good, and it appears utterly irreconcilable with
+our notions of justice that he should punish another for that which he
+has in fact done himself." The poet concurs with the philosopher when he
+exclaims:
+
+     "The loving worm within its clod,
+     Were diviner than a loveless God Amid his worlds."*
+
+     * Browning.
+
+Christianity indeed speaks of the _love_ of God in sending his son
+to die for the security of others. But not less is the heart of the
+intelligent and humane believer torn with fear, as he thinks what
+must be the character of that God who could only be thus appeased.
+The example of self-sacrifice is noble--but is it noble in any one
+who deliberately creates the necessity for it? The better side of
+Christianity seems overshadowed by the worse.
+
+7. Future life is uncertain, being unprovable and seemingly improbable,
+judging from the dependence of life on material conditions. Christians
+themselves do not seem confident of another existence. If they were
+_sure_ of it, who of them would linger here when those they love and
+honor have gone before? Ere we reach the middle of our days, the joy of
+every heart lies in some tomb. If the Christian actually believed that
+the future was real, would he hang black plumes over the hearse, and
+speak of death as darkness? No! the cemeteries would be hung with joyful
+lights, the grave would be the gate of Paradise. Every one would find
+justifiable excuse for leaving this for the happier world. All tenets
+which are contradicted by reason had better not be.
+
+Many preachers now disown, in controversy, these doctrines, but until
+they carry the professions of the platform into the statute book,
+the rubric, and the pulpit, such doctrines remain operative, and the
+Churches remain answerable for them. Nonconformists do not protest
+against a State Church on account of its doctrines herein enumerated.
+When the doctrines which conflict with reason and humanity are disowned
+by authority, ecclesiastical and legal, in all denominations, the duty
+of controverting them as impediments to progress will cease.
+
+It may be said in reply to what is here set forth as tenets of Christian
+Scripture, that the writer follows the letter and not the spirit of the
+word. Yes, that is what he does. He is well aware of the new practice of
+seeking refuge in the "spirit," of "expanding" the letter and taking a
+"new range of view." He however holds that to drop the "letter" is to
+drop the doctrine. To "expand" the "letter" is to change it. New "range
+of view" is the term under which desertion of the text is disguised.
+But "new range" means new thought, which in this insidious way is put
+forward to supersede the old. The frank way is to say so, and admit
+that the "letter" is obsolete--is gone, is disproved, and that new views
+which are truer constitute the new letter of progress. The best thing to
+do with the "dead hand" is to bury it. To try to expand dissolution is
+but galvanising the corpse and tying the dead to the living.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. STATIONARINESS OF CRITICISM
+
+     "Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the
+     dark."
+
+     --John Newton.
+
+CRITICISM in theology, as in literature, is with many an intoxication.
+Zest in showing what is wrong is apt to blunt the taste for what is
+right, which it is the true end of criticism to discover. Lord Byron
+said critics disliked Pope because he afforded them so few chances
+of objection. They found fault with him because he had no faults. The
+criticism of theology begets complacency in many. There is a natural
+satisfaction in being free from the superstition of the vulgar, in the
+Church as well as out of it. No wonder many find abiding pleasure in the
+intellectual refutation of the errors of supernaturalism and in putting
+its priests to confusion. Absorbed in the antagonism of theology, many
+lose sight of ultimate utility, and regard error, not as a misfortune
+to be alleviated, so much as a fault to be exposed. Like the theologian
+whose color they take, they do not much consider whether their method
+causes men to dislike the truth through its manner of being offered
+to them. Their ambition is to make those in error look foolish. Free
+thinkers of zeal are apt to become intense, and like Jules Ferry (a late
+French premier), care less for power, than for conflict, and the lover
+of conflict is not easily induced to regard the disproof of theology
+as a means to an end* higher than itself. It is difficult to impart to
+uncalculating zealots a sense of proportion. They dash along the warpath
+by their own momentum. Railway engineers find that it takes twice as
+much power to stop an express train as it does to start it.
+
+     * Buckle truly says, "Liberty is not a means, it is an end
+     in itself," But the uses of liberty are means to ends
+     Else why do we want liberty?
+
+When I first knew free thought societies they were engaged in
+Church-fighting--which is still popular among them, and which has led
+the public to confuse criticism with Secularism, an entirely different
+thing.
+
+Insurgent thought exclusively directed, breeds, as is said elsewhere,
+a distinguished class of men--among scholars as well as among the
+uninformed--who have a passion for disputation, which like other
+passions "grows by what it feeds upon." Yet a limited number of such
+paladins of investigation are not without uses in the economy of
+civilisations. They resemble the mighty hunters of old, they extirpate
+beasts of prey which roam the theological forests, and thus they render
+life more safe to dwellers in cities, open to the voracious incursions
+of supernaturalism.
+
+Without the class of combatants described, in whom discussion is
+irrepressible, and whose courage neither odium nor danger abates,
+many castles of superstition would never be stormed. But mere
+intellectual-ism generates a different and less useful species of
+thinkers, who neither hunt in the jungles of theology nor storm
+strongholds. We all know hundreds in every great town who have freed
+themselves, or have been freed by others, from ecclesiastical error, who
+remain supine. Content with their own superiority (which they owe to
+the pioneers who went before them more generous than they) they speak no
+word, and lend no aid towards conferring the same advantages upon such
+as are still enslaved. They affect to despise the ignorance they ought
+to be foremost to dissipate. They exclaim in the words of Goethe's
+Coptic song:
+
+     "Fools from their folly 'tis hopeless to stay,
+     Mules will be mules by the laws of their mulishness,
+     Then be advised and leave fools to their foolishness,
+     What from an ass can be got but a bray."
+
+These Coptic philosophers overlook that they would have been "asses"
+also, had those who vindicated freedom before their day, and raised it
+to a power, been as indifferent and as contemptuous as believers in
+the fool-theory are. Coptic thinkers forget that every man is a fool
+in respect of any question on which he gives an opinion without having
+thought independently upon it. With patience you can make a thinker out
+of a fool; and the first step from the fool stage is accomplished by a
+little thinking. It is well to remember the exclamation of Thackeray:
+"If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man."
+
+It is, however, but justice to some who join the stationariness, to
+own that they have fared badly on the warpath against error, and are
+entitled to the sympathy we extend to the battered soldier who falls
+out of the ranks on the march. Grote indicates what the severity of
+the service is, in the following passage from his _Mischiefs of Natural
+Religion_:--"Of all human antipathies that which the believer in a God
+bears to the unbeliever, is the fullest, the most unqualified, and
+the most universal. The mere circumstance of dissent involves a tacit
+imputation of error and incapacity on the part of the priest, who
+discerns that his persuasive power is not rated so highly by others
+as it is by himself. This invariably begets dislike towards his
+antagonist."
+
+Nevertheless it is a reproach to those whom militant thought has made
+free, if they remain unmindful of the fate of their inferiors. Yet
+Christian churches, with all self-complacent superiority to which
+many of them are prone, are not free from the sins of indifference and
+superfineness. This was conspicuously shown by Southey in a letter to
+Sir Henry Taylor, in which he says:--"Have you seen the strange
+book which Anastasius Hope left for publication and which his
+representatives, in spite of all dissuasion, have published? His notion
+of immortality and heaven is that at the consummation of all things he,
+and you, and I, and John Murray, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Lambert the fat
+man, and the Living Skeleton, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Hottentot,
+Venus, and Thutell, and Probert, and the Twelve Apostles, and the noble
+army of martyrs, and Genghis Khan and all his armies, and Noah with all
+his ancestors and all his posterity,--yea, all men, and all women, and
+all children that have ever been, or ever shall be, saints and sinners
+alike, are all to be put together and made into one great celestial,
+eternal human being.... I do not like the scheme. I don't like the
+notion of being mixed up with Hume, and Hunt, and Whittle Harvey, and
+Philpotts, and Lord Althorp, and the Huns, and the Hottentots, and the
+Jews, and the Philistines, and the Scotch, and the Irish. God forbid! I
+hope to be I, myself, in an English heaven, with you yourself,--you and
+some others without whom heaven would be no heaven to me."
+
+Most of these persons would have the same dislike to be mixed up with
+Mr. Southey. Lord Byron would not have been enthusiastic about it. The
+Comtists have done something to preach a doctrine of humanity, and
+to put an end to this pitiful contempt of a few men for their
+fellows,--fellows who in many respects are often superior to those who
+despise them.
+
+All superiority is apt to be contemptuous of inferiors, unless
+conscience and generosity takes care of it, and incites it to instruct
+inferior natures. The prayer of Browning is one of noble discernment:--
+
+     "Make no more giants, God--
+     But elevate the race at once."
+
+Even free thought, so far as it confines itself to itself, becomes
+stationary. Like the squirrel in its cage:
+
+     "Whether it turns by wood or wire,
+     Never gets one hair's breadth higher."
+
+If any doubt whether stationariness of thought is possible, let them
+think of Protestantism which climbed on to the ledge of private judgment
+three centuries ago--and has remained there. Instead of mounting higher
+and overrunning all the plateaus of error above them, it has done its
+best to prevent any who would do it, from ascending. There is now,
+however, a new order of insurgent thought of the excelsior caste which
+seeks to climb the heights. Distinguished writers against theology in
+the past have regarded destructive criticism as preparing the way to
+higher conceptions of life and duty. If so little has been done in this
+direction among working class thinkers, it is because destructiveness
+is more easy. It needs only indignation to perfect it, and indignation
+requires no effort. The faculty of constructiveness is more arduous in
+exercise, and is later in germination. More men are able to take a state
+than to make a state. Hence Secularism, though inevitable as the next
+stage of militant progress, more slowly wins adherents and appreciation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THIRD STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT--SECULARISM
+
+     "Nothing is destroyed until it has been replaced."
+
+     --Madame de Staël.
+
+SEEING this wise maxim in a paper by Auguste Comte, I asked my friend
+Wm. de Fonvielle, who was in communication with Comte, to learn for me
+the authorship of the phrase. Comte answered that it was the Emperor's
+(Napoleon III.). It first appeared, as I afterwards found, in the
+writings of Madame de Staël, and more fully expressed by her.
+
+Self-regarding criticism having discovered the insufficiency of theology
+for the guidance of man, next sought to ascertain what rules human
+reason may supply for the independent conduct of life, which is the
+object of Secularism.
+
+At first, the term was taken to be a "mask" concealing sinister
+features--a "new name for an old thing"--or as a substitute term for
+scepticism or atheism. If impressions were always knowledge, men would
+be wise without inquiry, and explanations would be unnecessary. The
+term Secularism was chosen to express the extension of free thought to
+ethics. Free thinkers commonly go no further than saying, "We search for
+truth"*; Secularists say we have found it--at least, so much as replaces
+the chief errors and uncertainties of theology.
+
+Harriet Martineau, the most intrepid thinker among the women of her day,
+wrote to Lloyd Garrison a letter (inserted in the _Liberator_, 1853)
+approving "the term Secularism as including a large number of persons
+who are not atheists and uniting them for action, which has Secularism
+for its object. By the adoption of the new term a vast amount of
+prejudice is got rid of." At length it was seen that the "new term"
+designated a new conception.
+
+Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on
+considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find
+theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable.
+
+Its essential principles are three:
+
+1. The improvement of this life by _material_ means.
+
+2. That science is the available** Providence of man.
+
+3. That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the
+good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.
+
+     * M. Aurelius Antoninus said, "I seek the truth by which no
+     man was ever injured." It would be true had he said mankind.
+     Men are continually injured by the truth, or how do martyrs
+     come, or why do we honor them?
+
+     **This phrase was a suggestion of my friend the Rev. Dr. H.
+     T. Crosskey about 1854. I afterwards used the word
+     "available" which does not deny, nor challenge, nor affirm
+     the belief in a theological Providence by others, who,
+     therefore, are not incited to assail the effectual
+     proposition that material resources are an available
+     Providence where a spiritual Providence is inactive.
+
+Individual good attained by methods conducive to the good of others, is
+the highest aim of man, whether regard be had to human welfare in this
+life or personal fitness for another. Precedence is therefore given to
+the duties of this life.
+
+Being asked to send to the International Congress of Liberal Thinkers,
+(1886), an account of the tenets of the English party known as
+Secularists, I gave the following explanation to them.
+
+"The Secular is that, the issues of which can be tested by the
+experience of this life.
+
+"The ground common to all self-determined thinkers is that of
+independency of opinion, known as free thought, which though but an
+impulse of intellectual courage in the search for truth, or an impulse
+of aggression against hurtful or irritating error, or the caprice of
+a restless mind, is to be encouraged. It is necessary to promote
+independent thought--whatever its manner of manifestation--since
+there can be no progress without it. A Secularist is intended to be
+a reasoner, that is as Coleridge defined him, one who inquires what a
+thing is, and not only what it is, but _why_ it is what it is.
+
+"One of two great forces of opinion created in this age, is what is
+known as atheism,* which deprives superstition of its standing-ground
+and compels theism to reason for its existence. The other force is
+materialism which shows the physical consequences of error, supplying,
+as it were, beacon lights to morality.
+
+     * Huxley's term agnosticism implies a different thing--
+     unknowingness without denial.
+
+"Though respecting the right of the atheist and theist to their theories
+of the origin of nature, the Secularist regards them as belonging to the
+debatable ground of speculation. Secularism neither asks nor gives any
+opinion upon them, confining itself to the entirely independent field of
+study--the order of the universe. Neither asserting nor denying theism
+or a future life, having no sufficient reason to give if called upon;
+the fact remains that material influences exist, vast and available for
+good, as men have the will and wit to employ them. Whatever may be the
+value of metaphysical or theological theories of morals, utility in
+conduct is a daily test of common sense, and is capable of deciding
+intelligently more questions of practical duty than any other rule.
+Considerations which pertain to the general welfare, operate without the
+machinery of theological creeds, and over masses of men in every land to
+whom Christian incentives are alien, or disregarded."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THREE PRINCIPLES VINDICATED
+
+     "Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise."
+
+     --Francis Quarles.
+
+FIRST PRINCIPLE: _Of material means as conditions of welfare in this
+world_.--Theology works by "spiritual" means, Secularism by _material_
+means. Christians and Secularists both intend raising the character of
+the people, but their methods are very different. Christians are now
+beginning to employ material agencies for the elevation of life, which
+science, and not theology, has brought under their notice. But the
+Christian does not trust these agencies; the Secularist does, and in his
+mind the Secular is sacred. Spiritual means can never be depended upon
+for food, raiment, art, or national defence.
+
+The Archbishop of York (Dr. Magee), a clearheaded and candid prelate,
+surprised his contemporaries (at the Diocesan Conference, Leicester,
+October 19, 1889) by declaring that "Christianity made no claim to
+rearrange the economic relations of man in the State, or in society. He
+hoped he would be understood when he said plainly that it was his firm
+belief that any Christian State, carrying out in all its relations, the
+Sermon on the Mount, could not exist for a week. It was perfectly clear
+that a State could not continue to exist upon what were commonly called
+Christian principles."
+
+From the first, Secularism had based its claims to be regarded on the
+fact that only the rich could afford to be Christians, and the poor must
+look to other principles for deliverance.
+
+Material means are those which are calculable, which are under the
+control and command of man, and can be tested by human experience.
+No definition of Secularism shows its distinctiveness which omits to
+specify _material_ means as its method of procedure.
+
+But for the theological blasphemy of nature, representing it as the
+unintelligent tool of God, the Secular would have ennobled common life
+long ago. Sir Godfrey Kneller said, "He never looked on a bad picture
+but he carried away in his mind a dirty tint." Secularism would efface
+the dirty tints of life which Christianity has prayed over, but not
+removed.
+
+Second Principle: _Of the providence of science_.--Men are limited
+in power, and are oft in peril, and those who are taught to trust to
+supernatural aid are betrayed to their own destruction. We are told we
+should work as though there were no help in heaven, and pray as though
+there were no help in ourselves. Since, however, praying saves no ship,
+arrests no disease, and does not pay the tax-gatherer, it is better to
+work at once and without the digression of sinking prayer-buckets
+into empty wells, and spending life in drawing nothing up. The word
+illuminating secular life is _self-help_. The Secularist vexes not the
+ear of heaven by mendicant supplications. His is the only religion that
+gives heaven no trouble.
+
+Third Principle: _Of goodness as fitness for this world or
+another_.--Goodness is the service of others with a view to their
+advantage. There is no higher human merit. Human welfare is the sanction
+of morality. The measure of a good action is its conducive-ness to
+progress. The utilitarian test of generous rightness in motive may be
+open to objection,--there is no test which is not,--but the utilitarian
+rule is one comprehensible by every mind. It is the only rule which
+makes knowledge necessary, and becomes more luminous as knowledge
+increases. A fool may be a believer,* but not a utilitarian who seeks
+his ground of action in the largest field of relevant facts his mind is
+able to survey.
+
+     * The Guardian told as about 1887 that the Bishop of Exeter
+     confirmed five idiots.
+
+Utility in morals is measuring the good of one by its agreement with the
+good of many. Large ideas are when a man measures the good of his parish
+by the good of the town, the good of the town by the good of the county,
+the good of the county by the good of the country, the good of the
+country by the good of the continent, the good of the continent by the
+cosmopolitanism of the world.
+
+Truth and solicitude for the social welfare of others are the proper
+concern of a soul worth saving. Only minds with goodness in them have
+the desert of future existence. Minds without veracity and generosity
+die. The elements of death are in the selfish already. They could not
+live in a better world if they were admitted.
+
+In a noble passage in his sermon on "Citizenship" the Rev. Stopford
+Brooks said: "There are thousands of my fellow-citizens, men, and women,
+and children, who are living in conditions in which they have no true
+means of becoming healthy in body, trained in mind, or comforted by
+beauty. Life is as hard for them as it is easy for me. I cannot help
+them by giving them money, one by one, but I can help them by making the
+condition of their life easier by a good government of the city in
+which they live. And even if the charge on my property for this purpose
+increases for a time, year by year, till the work is done, that charge I
+will gladly pay. It shall be my ethics, _my religion_, my patriotism, my
+citizenship to do it."* The great preacher whose words are here cited,
+like Theodore Parker, the Jupiter of the pulpit in his day, as Wendell
+Phillips described him to me, is not a Secularist; but he expresses here
+the religion of the Secularist, if such a person can be supposed to have
+a religion.
+
+     * Preached in reference to the London County Council
+     election, March, 1892.
+
+A theological creed which the base may hold, and usually do, has none
+of the merit of deeds of service to humanity, which only the good
+intentionally perform. Conscience is the sense of right with regard
+to others, it is a sense of duty towards others which tells us that we
+should do justice to them; and if not able to do it individually, to
+endeavor to get it done by others. At St. Peter's Gate there can be no
+passport so safe as this. He was not far wrong who, when asked where
+heaven lay, answered: "On the other side of a good action."
+
+If, as Dr. James Martineau says, "there is a thought of God in the thing
+that is true, and a will of God in that which is right," Secularism,
+caring for truth and duty, cannot be far wrong. Thus, it has a
+reasonable regard for the contingencies of another life should it
+supervene. Reasoned opinions rely for justification upon intelligent
+conviction, and a well informed sincerity.
+
+The Secularist, is without presumption of an infallible creed, is
+without the timorous indefiniteness of a creedless believer. He does
+not disown a creed because theologians have promulgated Jew bound,
+unalterable articles of faith. The Secularist has a creed as definite as
+science, and as flexible as progress, increasing as the horizon of truth
+is enlarged. His creed is a confession of his belief. There is more
+unity of opinion among self-thinkers than is supposed. They all maintain
+the necessity of independent opinion, for they all exercise it. They all
+believe in the moral rightfulness of independent thought, or they are
+guilty for propagating it. They all agree as to the right of publishing
+well-considered thought, otherwise thinking would be of little use. They
+all approve of free criticism, for there could be no reliance on thought
+which did not use, or could not bear that. All agree as to the equal
+action of opinion, without which opinion would be fruitless and action
+a monopoly. All agree that truth is the object of free thought, for many
+have died to gain it. All agree that scrutiny is the pathway to truth,
+for they have all passed along it. They all attach importance to the
+good of this life, teaching this as the first service to humanity. All
+are of one opinion as to the efficacy of material means in promoting
+human improvement, for they alone are distinguished by vindicating their
+use. All hold that morals are effectively commended by reason, for all
+self-thinkers have taught so. All believe that God, if he exists, is the
+God of the honest, and that he respects conscience more than creeds,
+for all free thinkers have died in this faith. Independent thinkers from
+Socrates to Herbert Spencer and Huxley* have all agreed:
+
+     * See Biographical Dictionary of Free Thinkers of all Ages
+     and Nations, by J. M. Wheeler, and Four Hundred Years of
+     Free Thought from Columbus to Ingersoll, by Samuel Porter
+     Putnam, containing upwards of 1,000 biographies.
+
+In the necessity of free thought.
+
+In the rightfulness of it.
+
+In the adequacy of it.
+
+In the considerate publicity of it.
+
+In the fair criticism of it.
+
+In the equal action of conviction.
+
+In the recognition of this life, and
+
+In the material control of it.
+
+The Secularist, like Karpos the gardener, may say of his creed, "Its
+points are few and simple. They are: to be a good citizen, a good
+husband, a good father, and a good workman. I go no further," said
+Karpos, "but pray God to take it all in good part and have mercy on my
+soul."*
+
+     * Dialogue between Karpos the gardener and Bashiew Tucton,
+     by Voltaire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. HOW SECULARISM AROSE
+
+     "We must neither lead nor leave men to mistake falsehood for
+     truth. Not to undeceive is to deceive."
+
+     --Archbishop Whately.
+
+BEING one of the social missionaries in the propaganda of Robert Owen,
+I was, like H. Viewssiew, a writer of those days, a "student of
+realities." It soon became clear to me, as to others, that men are much
+influenced for good or evil, by their environments. The word was unused
+then, "circumstances" was the term employed. Then as now there were
+numerous persons everywhere to be met with who explained everything on
+supernatural principles with all the confidence of infinite knowledge.
+Not having this advantage, I profited as well as I could by such
+observation as was in my power to make. I could see that material laws
+counted for something in the world. This led me to the conclusion that
+the duty of watching the ways of nature was incumbent on all who
+would find true conditions of human betterment, or new reasons for
+morality--both very much needed. To this end the name of Secularism was
+given to certain principles which had for their object human improvement
+by material means, regarding science as the providence of man and
+justifying morality by considerations which pertain to this life alone.
+
+The rise and development (if I may use so fine a term) of these views
+may be traced in the following records.
+
+1. "Materialism will be advanced as the only sound basis of rational
+thought and practice." (Prospectus of the _Movement_, 1843, written by
+me.)
+
+2. Five prizes awarded to me, for lectures to the Manchester Order of
+Odd-fellows. These Degree Addresses (1846) were written on the principle
+that morality, apart from theology, could be based on human reason and
+experience.
+
+3. The _Reasoner_ restricts itself to the known, to the present, and
+seeks to realise the life that is. (Preface to the _Reasoner_, 1846.)
+
+4. A series of papers was commenced in the _Reasoner_ entitled "The
+Moral Remains of the Bible," one object of which was to show that those
+who no longer held the Bible as an infallible book, might still value
+it wherein it was ethically excellent. (_Reasoner_, Vol. V., No. 106, p.
+17, 1848.)
+
+5. "To teach men to see that the sum of all knowledge and duty is
+_Secular_ and that it pertains to this world alone." (_Reasoner_, Nov.
+19, 1851. Article, "Truths to Teach," p. 1.)
+
+This was the first time the word "Secular" was applied as a general test
+of principles of conduct apart from spiritual considerations.
+
+6. "Giving an account of ourselves in the whole extent of opinion, we
+should use the word _Secularist_ as best indicating that province of
+human duty which belongs to this life." (_Reasoner_, Dec. 3, 1851, p.
+34.)
+
+This was the first time the word "Secularist" appeared in literature as
+descriptive of a new way of thinking.
+
+7. "Mr. Holyoake, editor of the _Reasoner_, will lay before the meeting
+[then proposed] the present position of Secularism in the provinces."
+(_Reasoner_, Dec. 10, 1851, p. 62.)
+
+This was the first time the word "Secularism" appeared in the press.
+
+The meeting above mentioned was held December 29, 1851, at which
+the statement made might be taken as an epitome of this book. (See
+_Reasoner_, No. 294, Vol. 12, p. 129. 1852.)
+
+8. A letter on the "Future of Secularism" appeared in the _Reasoner_,
+(_Reasoner_, Feb. 4, 1852, p. 187.)
+
+This was the first time Secularism was written upon as a movement. The
+term was the heading of a letter by Charles Frederick Nicholls.
+
+9. "One public purpose is to obtain the repeal of all acts of Parliament
+which interfere with Secular practice." (Article, "Nature of Secular
+Societies," (Reasoner), No. 325, p. 146, Aug. 18, 1852.)
+
+This is exactly the attitude Secularism takes with regard to the Bible
+and to Christianity. It rejects such parts of the Scriptures, or of
+Christianism, or Acts of Parliament, as conflict with or obstruct
+ethical truth. We do not seek the repeal of all Acts of Parliament, but
+only of such as interfere with Secular progress.
+
+10. "The friends of 'Secular Education' [the Manchester Association was
+then so known] are not Secularists. They do not pretend to be so, they
+do not even wish to be so regarded, they merely use the word Secular as
+an adjective, as applied to a mode of instruction. We apply it to the
+_nature_ of all knowledge." We use the noun Secularism. No one else has
+done it. With others the term Secular is merely a descriptive; with us
+the term is used as a subject. With others it is a branch of knowledge;
+with us it is the primary business of life,--the name of the province of
+speculation to which we confine ourselves.* When so used in these
+pages the word "Secularism" or "Secularist" is employed to mark the
+distinction.
+
+     * See article "The Seculars--the Propriety of Their Name,"
+     by G.J. Holyoake.   Reasoner, p. 177, Sep. 1, 1852.
+
+A Bolton clergyman reported in the _Bolton Guardian_ that Mr. Holyoake
+had announced as the first subject of his Lectures, "Why do the Clergy
+Avoid Discussion and the Secularists Seek it?" (_Reasoner_, No. 328, p.
+294, Vol. 12, 1852.)
+
+These citations from my own writings are sufficient to show the origin
+and nature of Secularism. Such views were widely accepted by liberal
+thinkers of the day, as an improvement and extension of free thought
+advocacy. Societies were formed, halls were given a Secular name, and
+conferences were held to organise adherents of the new opinion. The
+first was held in the Secular Institute, Manchester (Oct. 3, 1852).
+Delegates were sent from Societies in Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton,
+Blackburn, Bradford, Burnley, Bury, Glasgow, Keighley, Leigh, London,
+Manchester, Miles Platting, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oldham, Over Darwen,
+Owen's Journal, Paisley, Preston, Rochdale, Stafford, Sheffield,
+Stockport, Todmorden.
+
+Among the delegates were many well known, long known, and some still
+known--James Charlton (now the famous manager of the Chicago and Alton
+Railway), Abram Greenwood (now the cashier of the Cooperative Wholesale
+Bank of Manchester), William Mallalieu of Todmorden (familiarly known as
+the "Millionaire" of the original Rochdale Pioneers), Dr. Hiram Uttley
+of Burnley, John Crank of Stockport, Thomas Hayes, then of Miles
+Platting, now manager of the Crumpsall Biscuit Works of the Cooperative
+Wholesale Society, Joseph Place of Nottingham, James Motherwell of
+Paisley, Dr. Henry Travis (socialist writer on Owen's system), Samuel
+Ingham of Manchester, J. R. Cooper of Manchester, and the present
+writer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. HOW SECULARISM WAS DIFFUSED
+
+     "Only by varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced on
+     reluctant minds."
+
+     --Herbert Spencer.
+
+IN 1853 the Six-Night Discussion took place in Cowper Street School
+Rooms, London, with the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published
+by Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6d, of which 45,900 were sold, which
+widely diffused a knowledge of Secularistic views.
+
+Our adversary had been appointed with clerical ceremony, on a "Three
+years' mission" against us. He had wit, readiness, and an electric
+velocity of speech, boasting that he could speak three times faster than
+any one else. But he proved to be of use to us without intending it,
+
+                  "His acrid words
+     Turned the sweet milk of kindness into curds."
+
+whereby he set many against the cause he represented. He had the
+cleverness to see that there ought to be a "Christian Secularism," which
+raised Secularism to the level of Christian curiosity. In Glasgow, in
+1854, I met Mr. Grant again during several nights' discussion in the
+City Hall. This debate also was published, as was one of three nights
+with the Rev. J. H. Rutherford (afterwards Dr. Rutherford) in Newcastle
+on Tyne, who aimed to prove that Christianity contained the better
+Secularism. Thus that new form of free thought came to have public
+recognition.
+
+The lease of a house, 147 Fleet Street, was bought (1852), where was
+established a Secular Institute, connected with printing, book-selling,
+and liberal publishing. Further conferences were held in July, 1854, one
+at Stockport. At an adjourned conference Mr. Joseph Barker (whom we had
+converted) presided.* We had a London Secular Society which met at the
+Hall of Science, City Road, and held its Council meetings in Mr. Le
+Blond's handsome house in London Wall. This work, and much more, was
+done before and while Mr. Bradlaugh (who afterwards was conspicuously
+identified with the movement) was in the army.
+
+     * Reasoner, No. 428, Vol. XVII.. p. 87.
+
+It was in 1854 that I published the first pamphlet on _Secularism
+the Practical Philosophy of the People_. It commenced by showing the
+necessity of independent, self-helping, self-extricating opinions. Its
+opening passage was as follows:
+
+"In a state of society in which every inch of land, every blade of
+grass, every spray of water, every bird and flower has an owner,
+what has the poor man to do with orthodox religion which begins by
+proclaiming him a miserable sinner, and ends by leaving him a miserable
+slave, as far as unrequited toil goes?
+
+"The poor man finds himself in an _armed_ world where might is God,
+and poverty is fettered. Abroad the hired soldier blocks up the path
+of freedom, and the priest the path of progress. Every penniless man,
+woman, and child is virtually the property of the capitalist, no less
+in England than is the slave in New Orleans.* Society blockades poverty,
+leaving it scarce escape. The artisan is engaged in an imminent struggle
+against wrong and injustice; then what has he the struggler, to do with
+doctrines which brand him with inherited guilt, which paralyse him by an
+arbitrary faith, which deny saving power to good works, which menace him
+with eternal perdition?"
+
+The two first works of importance, controverting Secularist principles,
+were by the Rev. Joseph Parker and Dr. J. A. Langford; Dr. Parker was
+ingenious, Dr. Langford eloquent. I had discussed with Dr. Parker in
+Banbury. In his _Six Chapters on Secularism_** which was the title of
+his book, he makes pleasant references to that debate. The _Christian
+Weekly News_ of that day said: "These Six Chapters have been written
+by a young provincial minister of great power and promise, of whom the
+world has not yet heard, but of whom it will hear pleasing things some
+day."
+
+     * Not entirely so.   The English slave can run away--at his
+     own peril.
+
+     **  Published by my, then, neighbour, William Freeman, of 69
+     Fleet Street, himself an energetic, pleasant-minded
+     Christian.
+
+This prediction has come true. I had told Mr. Freeman that the "young
+preacher" had given me that impression in the discussion with him. Dr.
+Parker said in his first Chapter that, "If the New Testament teachings
+oppose our own consciousness, violate our moral sense, lead us out of
+sympathy with humanity, then we shall abandon them." This was exactly
+the case of Secularism which he undertook to confute. Dr. Langford held
+a more rational religion than Dr. Parker. His _Answer_, which reached
+a second thousand, had passages of courtesy and friendship, yet he
+contended with graceful vigor against opinions--three-fourths of which
+justified his own.
+
+In an address delivered Sept. 29, 1851, I had said that, "There were
+three classes of persons opposed to Christianity:--
+
+"1. The dissolute.
+
+"2. The indifferent.
+
+"3. The intellectually independent.
+
+"The dissolute are against Christianity because they regard it as a foe
+to sensuality. The indifferent reject it through being ignorant of it,
+or not having time to attend to it, or not caring to attend to it, or
+not being able to attend to it, through constitutional insensibility
+to its appeals. The intellectually independent avoid it as opposed to
+freedom, morality and progress." It was to these classes, and not to
+Christians, that Secularism was addressed. Neither Dr. Parker nor Dr.
+Langford took notice that it was intended to furnish ethical guidance
+where Christianity, whatever might be its quality, or pretensions, or
+merit, was inoperative.*
+
+     * In 1857 Dr. Joseph Parker published a maturer and more
+     important volume, Helps to Truth Seekers, or, Christianity
+     and Scepticism, containing "The Secularist Theory--A
+     Critique." At a distance of more than thirty-five years it
+     seems to me an abler book, from the Christian point of view,
+     than I thought it on its appearance.
+
+The new form of free thought under the title of the "Principles of
+Secularism" was submitted to John Stuart Mill, to whose friendship and
+criticism I had often been indebted, and he approved the statement as
+one likely to be useful to those outside the pale of Christianity.
+
+A remarkable thing occurred in 1854. A prize of £100 was offered by
+the Evangelical Alliance for the best book on the "Aspects, Causes, and
+Agencies" of what they called by the odious apostolic defamatory name
+of "Infidelity."* The Rev. Thomas Pearson of Eyemouth won the prize by
+a brilliant book, which I praised for its many relevant quotations, its
+instruction and fairness, but I represented that its price (10s. 6d.)
+prevented numerous humble readers from possessing it. The Evangelical
+Alliance inferred that the "relevancy" was on their side, altogether,
+whereas I meant relevant to the argument and to those supposed to be
+confuted by it. They resolved to issue twenty-thousand copies at
+one shilling a volume. The most eminent Evangelical ministers and
+congregations of the day subscribed to the project. Four persons put
+down their names for one thousand copies each, and a strong list of
+subscribers was sent out. Unfortunately I published another article
+intending to induce readers of the _Reasoner_ to procure copies, as they
+would find in its candid pages a wealth of quotations of free-thought
+opinion with which very few were acquainted. The number of eminent
+writers, dissentients from Christianity, and the force and felicity
+of their objections to it, as cited by Mr. Pearson, would astonish
+and instruct Christians who were quite unfamiliar with the historic
+literature of heretical thought. This unwise article stopped the
+project. The "Shilling Edition" never appeared, and the public lost the
+most useful and informing book written against us in my time. The Rev.
+Mr. Pearson died not long after; all too soon, for he was a minister who
+commanded respect. He had research, good faith, candor, and courtesy,
+qualities rare in his day.
+
+     * A term of intentional offence as here used. Infidelity
+     meant treachery to the truth, whereas the heretic has often
+     sacrificed his life from fidelity to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SECULAR INSTRUCTION DISTINCT FROM SECULARISM
+
+     "A mariner must have his eye on the rock and the sand as
+     well as upon the North Star."
+
+     --Maxim of the Sea.
+
+IT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that
+Secular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier
+days the term "scientific" was the distressing word in connexion with
+education, but the trouble of later years is with the word "Secular."
+Theological critics run on the "rock" there.
+
+Many persons regard Secular teaching with distrust, thinking it to be
+the same as Secularism. Secular instruction is known by the sign of
+separateness. It means knowledge given apart from theology. Secular
+instruction comprises a set of rules for the guidance of industry,
+commerce, science, and art. Secular teaching is as distinct from
+theology as a poem from a sermon. A man may be a mathematician, an
+architect, a lawyer, a musician, or a surgeon, and be a
+
+Christian all the same; as Faraday was both a chemist and a devout
+Sandemanian; as Buckland was a geologist as well as a Dean. But
+if theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be
+muddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and
+any learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of
+Christianity by its being distinctive in his mind. Secular instruction
+neither assails Christianity nor prejudices the learner against it; any
+more than sculpture assails jurisprudence, or than geometry prejudices
+the mind against music. If the Secular instructor made it a point, as he
+ought to do, to inculcate elementary ideas of morality, he would
+confine himself to explaining how far truth and duty have sanctions
+in considerations purely human--leaving it to teachers of religion to
+supplement at another time and place, what they believe to be further
+and higher sanctions.
+
+     * Edward Baines (afterwards Sir Edward) was the greatest
+     opponent in his day, of national schools and Secular
+     instruction, sent his sou to a Secular school, because he
+     wanted him to be clever as well as Christian. He was both as
+     I well know.
+
+Secular instruction implies that the proper business of the
+school-teacher is to impart a knowledge of the duties of this world;
+and the proper business of chapel and church is to explain the duties
+relevant to another world, which can only be done in a secondhand way
+by the school-teacher. The wonder is that the pride of the minister does
+not incite him to keep his own proper work in his own hands, and protest
+against the school-teacher meddling with it. By doing so he would
+augment his own dignity and the distinctiveness of his office.
+
+By keeping each kind of knowledge apart, a man learns both, more easily
+and more effectually. Secular training is better for the scholar and
+safer for the State; and better for the priest if he has a faith that
+can stand by itself.
+
+If the reader does not distrust it as a paradox, he will assent that the
+Secular is distinct from Secularism, as distinct as an act is
+distinct from its motive. Secular teaching comprises a set of rules of
+instruction in trade, business, and professional knowledge. Secularism
+furnishes a set of principles for the ethical conduct of life. Secular
+instruction is far more limited in its range than Secularism which
+defends secular pursuits against theology, where theology attacks them
+or obstructs them. But pure Secular knowledge is confined to its own
+pursuit, and does not come in contact with theology any more than
+architecture comes in contact with preaching.
+
+A man may be a shareholder in a gas company or a waterworks, a house
+owner, a landlord, a farmer, or a workman. All these are secular
+pursuits, and he who follows them may consult only his own interest. But
+if he be a Secularist, he will consider not only his own interest, but,
+as far as he can, the welfare of the community or the world, as his
+action or example may tell for the good of universal society. He will do
+"his best," not as Mr. Ruskin says, "the best of an ass," but "the best
+of an intelligent man." In every act he will put his conscience and
+character with a view so to discharge the duties of this life as to
+merit another, if there be one. Just as a Christian seeks to serve God,
+a Secularist seeks to serve man. This it is to be a Secularist. The
+idea of this service is what Secularism puts into his mind. Professor
+Clifford exclaimed: "The Kingdom of God has come--when comes the Kingdom
+of man?" A Secularist is one who hastens the coming of this kingdom:
+which must be agreeable to heaven if the people of this world are to
+occupy the mansions there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE DISTINCTIVENESS MADE FURTHER EVIDENT.
+
+     "The cry that so-called secular education is Atheistic is
+     hardly worth notice. Cricket is not theological; at the same
+     time, it is not Atheistic."
+
+     --Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D., Times, October 11, 1894.
+
+NOR is Secularism atheism. The laws of the universe are quite distinct
+from the question of the origin of the universe. The study of the laws
+of nature, which Secularism selects, is quite different from speculation
+as to the authorship of nature. We may judge and prize the beauty
+and uses of an ancient edifice, though we may never know the builder.
+Secularism is a form of opinion which concerns itself only with
+questions the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this
+life. It is clear that the existence of deity and the actuality of
+another life, are questions excluded from Secularism, which exacts no
+denial of deity or immortality, from members of Secularist societies.
+During their day only two persons of public distinction--the Bishop
+of Peterborough and Charles Bradlaugh--maintained that the Secular was
+atheistic. Yet Mr. Bradlaugh never put a profession of atheism as one of
+the tenets of any Secularist Society. Atheism may be a personal
+tenet, but it cannot be a Secularist tenet, from which it is wholly
+disconnected.
+
+No one would confuse the Secular with the atheistic who understood that
+the Secular is separate. Mr. Hodgson Pratt, a Christian, writing
+in _Concord_ (October, 1894), a description of the burial of Angelo
+Mazzoleni, said "the funeral was entirely Secular," meaning the ceremony
+was distinct from that of the Church, being based on considerations
+pertaining to duty in this world.
+
+In the indefiniteness of colloquial speech we constantly hear the
+phrase, "School Board education." Yet School Boards cannot give
+education. It is beyond their reach. Most persons confuse instruction
+with education. Instruction relates to industrial, commercial,
+agricultural, and scientific knowledge and like subjects. Education
+implies the complete training and "drawing out of the whole powers of
+the mind."* Thus instruction is different from education. Instruction is
+departmental knowledge. Education includes all the influences of life;
+instruction gives skill, education forms character.
+
+     *  Henry Drummond gave this definition in the House of
+     Commons, and it was adopted by W. J. Fox and other leaders
+     of opinion in that day.
+
+The Rev. Dr. Parker is the first Nonconformist preacher of distinction
+who has avowed his concurrence with Secular instruction in Board
+Schools. When Mr. W. E. Forster was framing his Education Act, I
+besought him to raise English educational policy to the level of the
+much smoking, much-pondering Dutch. "The system of education in Holland
+dates from 1857. It is a Secular system, meaning by Secular that
+the Bible is not allowed to be read in schools, nor is any religious
+instruction allowed to be given. The use of the school-room is, however,
+granted to ministers of all denominations for the purpose of teaching
+religion out of school-hours. The schoolmaster is not allowed to give
+religious instruction, or even to read the Bible in school at any
+time."*
+
+     *  Report from the Hague, by Mr. (now Right Hon.) Jesse
+     Collings, M. P., May, 1870.
+
+No State rears better citizens or better Christians than the Dutch.
+Mr. Gladstone, with his customary discernment, has said that "Secular
+instruction does not involve denial of religious teaching, but merely
+separation in point of time." It seems incredible that Christian
+ministers, generally, do not see the advantage of this. I should
+probably have become a Christian preacher myself, had it not been for
+the incessantness with which religion was obtruded on me in childhood
+and youth. Even now my mind aches when I think of it. For myself, I
+respect the individuality of piety. It is always picturesque. Looking
+at religion from the outside, I can see that concrete sectarianism is a
+source of religious strength. A man is only master of his own faith
+when he sees it clearly, distinctly, and separately. Rather than permit
+Secular instruction and religious education to be imparted separately,
+Christian ministers permit the great doctrines they profess to maintain
+to be whittled down to a School Board average, in which, when done
+honestly towards all opinions, no man can discern Christianity without
+the aid of a microscope. And this passes, in these days, for good
+ecclesiastical policy. In a recent letter (November, 1894) Mr. Gladstone
+has re-affirmed his objection to "an undenominational system of religion
+framed by, or under the authority of, the State." He says: "It would,
+I think, be better for the State to limit itself to giving Secular
+instruction, which, of course, is no complete education." Mr. Gladstone
+does not confound Secular instruction with education, but is of the
+way of thinking of Miltou, who says: "I call a complete and generous
+education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and
+magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and
+war." Secular instruction touches no doctrine, menaces no creed, raises
+no scepticism in the mind. But an average of belief introduces the
+aggressive hand of heresy into every school, tampering with tenets
+rooted in the conscience, wantonly alarming religious convictions, and
+substituting for a clear, frank, and manly issue a disastrous, blind,
+and timid policy, wriggling along like a serpent instead of walking with
+self-dependent erectness. This manly erect-ness would be the rule
+were the formula of the great preacher accepted who has said: "Secular
+education by the State, and Christian education by the Christian Church
+is my motto."* Uniformity of truth is desirable, and it will come, not
+by contrivance, but by conviction.
+
+     * The Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D.
+
+Some one quoted lately in the _Daily News_ (September 19, 1895) the
+following sentences I wrote in 1870:
+
+"With secular instruction only in the day school, religion will acquire
+freshness and new force. The clergyman and the minister will exercise
+a new influence, because their ministrations will have dignity and
+definiteness. They will no longer delegate things declared by them to
+be sacred to be taught second-hand by the harassed, overworked, and
+oft-reluctant schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who must contradict
+the gentleness of religion by the peremptoriness of the pedagogue, and
+efface the precept that 'God is love' by an incontinent application of
+the birch.... It is not secular instruction which breeds irreverence,
+but this ill-timed familiarity with the reputed things of God which robs
+divinity of its divineness."
+
+The Bible in the school-room will not always be to the advantage of
+clericalism, as it is thought to be now.
+
+Mr. Forster's Education Act created what Mr. Disraeli contemptuously
+described as a new "sacerdotal caste,"--a body of second-hand preachers,
+who are to be paid by the money of the State to do the work which
+the minister and the clergyman avow they are called by heaven to
+perform,--namely, to save the souls of the people. According to this
+Act, the clergy are really no longer necessary; their work can be done
+by a commoner and cheaper order of artificer. Mr. Forster insisted
+that the Bible be introduced into the school-room, which gives great
+advantage to the Freethinker, as it makes a critical agitation against
+its character and pretensions a matter of self-defence for every family.
+Another eminent preacher, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, wrote, not openly in
+the _Times_ as Dr. Parker did, but in _The Sword and Trowel_ thus: "We
+should like to see established a system of universal application,
+which would give a sound Secular education to children, and leave
+the religious training to the home and the agencies of the Church of
+Christ." It is worthy of the radiant common sense of the famous orator
+of the Tabernacle that he should have said this anywhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. SELF-DEFENSIVE FOR THE PEOPLE
+
+     "What suits the gods above
+     Only the gods can know;
+     What we want is
+     This World's sense
+     How to live below."
+
+BY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once
+drew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the
+children should be taught the tenets of the Christian, Catholic, Moslem,
+Jewish, and the leading theological systems of the world, as well as
+Secularistic and atheistic forms of thought; so that when the pupil
+came to years of discretion he might be able, intelligently, to choose
+a faith for himself. Less than this would be a fraud upon the
+understanding of a man. In matters which concern himself alone, he must
+be free to choose for himself, and know what he is choosing from.
+That form of belief which has misgivings as to whether it can stand by
+itself, is to be distrusted.
+
+It is the scandal of Christianity that, for twenty-five years, it has
+paralysed School Board instruction by its discord of opinion as to
+the religious tenets to be imparted; while in Secularity there is no
+disunity. Everybody is agreed upon the rules of arithmetic. The laws
+of grammar command general assent. There are no rival schools upon the
+interpretation of geometrical problems. It is only in divinity that
+irreconcilable diversity exists. When Secular instruction is conceded,
+denominational differences will be respected, as aspects of the
+integrity of conscience, which no longer obstruct the intellectual
+progress of the people.
+
+But there are graver issues than the pride and preference of the
+preacher; namely, the welfare of the children of the people. What the
+working classes want is an industrial education. Poverty is a battle,
+and the poor are always in a conflict--a conflict in which the most
+ignorant ever go to the wall. The accepted policy of the State leaves
+the increase of population to chance. It suffers none to be killed; it
+compels people to be kept alive, and abandons their subsistence to the
+accident of capitalists requiring to hire their services. Thus our great
+towns are crowded with families, impelled there by the wild forces of
+hunger and of passion. From the workingman thus situated, the governing
+class exacts four duties:
+
+1. That he shall give the parish no disquietude by asking it to maintain
+his family.
+
+2. That he shall pay whatever taxes are levied upon him.
+
+3. That he shall give no trouble to the police.
+
+4. That he shall fight generally whomsoever the Government may see fit
+to involve the nation in war with.
+
+Whatever knowledge is necessary to enable the future workman to do these
+things, is his right, and should be given to him in his youth in the
+speediest manner; and any other inculcation which shall delay this
+knowledge on its way, or confuse the learner in acquiring it, is a
+cruelty to him and a peril to the community which permits it; and the
+State, were it discerning and just, would forbid it.
+
+In April, 1870, in a letter which appeared in the _Spectator_; I wrote
+as follows:
+
+"In the speech of the Bishop of Peterborough, delivered at the
+Educational Conference at Leicester, and published in a separate form by
+the National Education Union, his Lordship quotes from a recent letter
+of mine to the _Daily News_ some words in which I explained that
+'unsectarian education amounts to a new species of parliamentary piety.'
+It is a satisfaction to find that the Bishop of Peterborough is able
+to 'entirely endorse these words.' The Bishop asks: 'Whose words do you
+suppose they are? They are the words of that reactionary maintainer of
+creeds and dogmas--Mr. Holyoake.' So far from being a 'reactionary'
+in this matter, I have always maintained that every form of sincere
+opinion, religious or secular, should have free play and fair play. I
+have never varied in advocating the right of free utterance and free
+action of all earnest conviction. The State requires a self-supporting
+and tax-paying population. But the State cannot insure this, except by
+imparting _productive_ knowledge to the people. It is necessary for the
+people to receive, it is the interest of the State to give, _productive_
+instruction in national schools."
+
+If people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed,
+they would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending
+sects. Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. A
+knowledge of soils, of cattle, of climate, and crops, and how to nail
+up a wigwam and grow pork and corn, is what they need. For want of such
+knowledge Clerkenwell watchmakers, Northampton shoemakers, Lancashire
+weavers, and Durham miners perish as emigrants, and their bones
+bleach the prairies. Yet all orthodox teaching turns out its pupils
+uninstructed, for, as Tillottson has said, "He that does not know
+those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an
+ignorant man, whatever he may know beside." To know this world, and the
+Secular conditions of prosperity in it, is indispensable to the people.
+
+Christianity is entirely futile in industry. If a workman cannot pay
+his taxes, the most devout Chancellor of the Exchequer will not abate
+sixpence in consideration of the defaulter's piety. The poor man may
+believe in the Thirty-nine Articles, be able to recite all the Collects;
+he may spend his Sundays at church, and his evenings at prayer-meeting;
+but the reverend magistrate, who has confirmed him and preached to him,
+will send him to gaol if he does not pay. The sooner workmen understand
+that Christianity has no commercial value, the better for them.
+
+Why should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when
+purely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human
+experience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a
+clergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of
+common remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of
+parents in other professions.
+
+We want no whining or puling population. The elements of science and
+morality will give children the use of their minds, and minds to
+use, and teach justice and kindness, self-direction, self-reliance,
+fortitude, and truth. There is piety in this instruction,--piety to
+mankind,--exactly that sort of piety for the want of which society
+suffers.
+
+The principles for which during two centuries Nonconformity in England
+has contended are, that the State should forbid no religion, impose no
+religion, teach no religion, pay no religion. In 1870, the year in which
+Mr. Forster's Act came into operation, I was the only person who
+issued a public address to the "School Board Electors" in favor of free
+compulsory, and Secular instruction. Two of the proposals, the least
+likely to be favorably received, have since been adopted. The turn of
+the third must be near, unless fools are always at the polls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. REJECTED TENETS REPLACED BY BETTER
+
+     "False ideas can be confuted by argument, but it is only by
+     true ideas they can be expelled."
+
+     --Cardinal Newman.
+
+ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error,
+if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be
+otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has
+established:
+
+1. That God is unknown.
+
+2. That a future life is unprovable.
+
+3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.
+
+4. That Providence sleeps.
+
+5. That prayer is futile.
+
+6. That original sin is untrue.
+
+7. That eternal perdition is unreal.
+
+What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however
+untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these
+doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do
+it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men
+that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest
+their attention if we can point out the right road to take.
+
+No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that
+it has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow,
+cramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is
+suspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is
+eating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment,
+he must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you
+cannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles,
+they should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth
+should tread close upon the heels of theological error.
+
+1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism substitutes
+the study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman
+admitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.
+
+2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as
+he who fails in this "duty nearest hand" has no moral fitness for any
+other.
+
+3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation,
+and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth
+for authority.
+
+4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the
+providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings
+deliverance when peril comes.
+
+5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the
+resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the
+waggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the
+wheel.
+
+6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort
+for personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those
+conditions, so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it
+shall be "impossible for a man to be depraved or poor." The aim
+of Secularism is to promote the moralisation of this world, which
+Christianity has proved ineffectual to accomplish.
+
+7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism
+substitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the
+violation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth--penalties
+inexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to
+the individual no farther than this life, they are without the
+terrible element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and
+inevitable--following the offender close as the shadow of the
+offence--are more deterrent than future punishment, which "faith" may
+evade without merit.
+
+The aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of
+man. It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection,
+and from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and
+was indifferent whether an error--which no longer harmed him--prevailed
+or not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for
+the sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his
+day, who said (1824): "I believe in the right of religion and the
+_duty_ of free inquiry." He is a very exceptional person--as we know
+in political as well as in questions of mental freedom--who cares for a
+right he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have
+seen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he
+does not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think
+that a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the
+right. Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is
+morally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest
+numbers. The service of others is the practical form of duty. "He,"
+says Buddha, "who was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest,
+lights up the world like the moon escaped from a cloud."
+
+Constructiveness is an education which attains success but slowly. Some
+men have no distinctive notion whatever of truth. It seems never to have
+occurred to them that there is anything intrinsic in it, and they only
+fall into it by accident. Others have a wholesome idea that truth is
+essential, and that, as a rule, you ought to tell it, and some do it.
+This is a small conception of truth, but it is good as far as it goes,
+and ought to be valued, as it is scarce. If any one asks such a person
+whether what he says is what he _thinks_, or what he _knows_, to be
+true, he is perplexed. The difference between the two things has not
+occurred to him. He has been under the impression that what he believes
+is the same thing as what he knows, and when he finds the two things are
+very different, his idea of truth is doubled and is twice as large as it
+was before.
+
+There is yet a larger view, to which many never attain. To them all
+truth is truth of equal value. All geese are geese, but all are not
+equally tender. Though all horses are horses, all are not equally swift.
+Yet many never observe that all facts are not equally succulent or
+swift, nor all truth of equal value or usefulness.
+
+Social truth has three marks,--it must be explicit, relevant to the
+question in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires
+some intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY
+
+     "Religion, as dealing with the confessedly incomprehensible,
+     is not the basis for human union, in social, or industrial,
+     or political circles, but only that portion of old religion
+     which is now called moral."
+
+     --Professor Francis William Newman.
+
+BISHOP ELLICOTT was the first prelate whom I heard admit (in a sermon to
+the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science)
+that men might be moral from other motives than those furnished by
+Christianity. Renan says that Justin Martyr "in his _Apology_, never
+attacks the principle of the empire. He wants the empire to examine the
+Christian doctrines." A Secularist would have attacked the principle,
+regarding freedom as of more consequence to progress than any doctrine
+without it. Those who seek to guide life by reason are not without a
+standard of appeal. "Secularism accepts no authority but that of nature,
+adopts no methods but those of science and philosophy, and respects in
+practice no rule but that of the conscience, illustrated by the common
+sense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past, and looks to
+tradition as presenting a storehouse of raw materials for thought, and
+in many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it
+utterly disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether miracles
+and supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its side. No sacred
+Scripture or ancient Church can be made a basis of belief, for the
+obvious reason that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot
+without absurdity be assumed. The association leaves to its individual
+members to yield whatever respects their own good sense judges to be due
+to the opinions of great men, living or dead, spoken or written; as also
+to the practice of ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical. But
+it disowns all appeal to such authorities as final tests of truth."*
+
+     *  I owe the expression of this passage, whose
+     comprehensiveness and felicity of phrase exceed the reach of
+     my pen, to Professor Francis William Newman.
+
+Morality can be inspired and confirmed by perception of the
+consequences of conduct. Theology regards free will as the foundation of
+responsibility. But free will saves no man from material consequences,
+and diverts attention from material causes of evil and good. Under the
+free will doctrine the wonder is that any morality is left in the world.
+It is a doctrine which gives scoundrels the same chance as a saint. When
+a man is assured that he can be saved when he believes, and that, having
+free will, he can believe when he pleases, he, as a rule, never does
+please until he has had his fill of vice, or is about to die,--either of
+disease or by the hangman. If by the hangman, he is told that, provided
+he repents before eight o'clock in the morning, he may find himself
+nestling in Abraham's bosom before nine. Free will is the doctrine of
+rascalism. It is time morality had other foundation than theology. The
+relations of life can be made as impressive as ideas of supernaturalism.
+But in this Christians not only lend no help, they disparage the attempt
+to control life by reason. When Secularism was first talked of, the
+President of the Congregational Union, the Rev. Dr. Harris, commended to
+the Union the words of Bishop Lavington of a century earlier (1750): "My
+brethren, I beg you will rise up with me against mere moral preaching."*
+A writer of distinction, R. H. Hutton, writing on "Secularism" in the
+_Expositor_ so late as 1881, argues strenuously that moral government is
+impossible without supernatural convictions. The egotism of Christianity
+is as conspicuous as that of politics. No ethic is genuine unless it
+bears the hall-mark of the Church. Secularism does not deny the efficacy
+of other theories of life upon those who accept them, and only claims
+to be of use as commending morality on considerations purely human,
+to those who reject theories purely spiritual. Any one familiar with
+controversy knows that Christianity is advertised like a patent medicine
+which will cure all the maladies of mankind. Everybody who tries
+reasoned morality is encouraged to condemn it, and is denounced if he
+commends it.
+
+     * British Banner, October 27, 1852.
+
+It is a maxim of Secularism that, wherever there is a rightful object at
+which men should aim, there is a Secular path to it.
+
+Nearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical
+improvability, which improvability can be indefinitely advanced by
+supplying proper material conditions.
+
+Since it is not capable of demonstration whether the inequalities of
+human condition will be compensated for in another life, it is the
+business of intelligence to rectify them in this world. The speculative
+worship of superior beings, who cannot need it, seems a lesser duty
+than the patient service of known inferior natures and the mitigation
+of harsh destiny, so that the ignorant may be enlightened and the low
+elevated.
+
+Christians often promote projects beneficial to men; but are they not
+mainly incited thereto by the hope of inclining the hearts of those they
+aid to their cause? Is not their motive proselytism? Is it not a higher
+morality to do good for its own sake, careless whether those benefited
+become adherents or not?
+
+Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will illustrate
+the principle of Secularism. One man will go on this errand from pure
+sympathy with the unfortunate; this is goodness. Another goes because
+the priest bids him; this is obedience. Another goes because the
+twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will
+pass to the right hand of the Father; this is calculation. Another goes
+because he believes God commands him; this is theological piety. Another
+goes because he is aware that the neglect of suffering will not answer;
+this is utilitarianism. But another goes on the errand of mercy
+because it is an immediate service to humanity, knowing that material
+deliverance is piety and better than spiritual consolation; this is
+Secularism.
+
+One whose reputation for spirituality is in all the Churches says:
+"Properly speaking, all true work is religion, and whatsoever religion
+is not work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, the Antinomians,
+Spinning Dervishes, or where it will. Admirable was that maxim of the
+old monks, _Laborare est orare_ (Work is worship)".* In his article on
+Auguste Comte, Mr. J. S. Mill says he "uses religion in its modern sense
+as signifying that which binds the convictions, whether to deity or to
+duty,--deity in the theological sense, or duty in the moral sense." This
+is the only sense in which a Secularist would employ the term. Religious
+moralism is a term I might use, since it binds a man to humanity, which
+religion does not. "Without God," said Mazzini to the Italian workingmen
+forty years ago,--"without God you may compel, but not persuade. You may
+become tyrants in your turn; you cannot be educators or apostles."
+One night, when Mazzini was speaking in this way, in the hearing of
+Garibaldi, arguing that there was no ground of duty unless based on the
+idea of God, the General turned round and said: "I am an Atheist. Am I
+deficient in the sense of duty?" "Ah," replied Mazzini, "you imbibed it
+with your mother's milk." All around smiled at the quick-witted evasion.
+
+     * Carlyle, Past and Present.
+
+In one sense Mazzini was as atheistic in mind as orthodox Christians. He
+disbelieved that truth, duty, or humanity could have any vitality unless
+derived from belief in God. Devout as few men are, in the Church or out
+of it, yet Mazzini believed alone in God. Dogmas of the Churches were
+to him as though they were not; yet there were times when he seemed to
+admit that other motives than the one which inspired him might operate
+for good in other minds. In a letter he once addressed to me there
+occurred this splendid passage:--
+
+"We pursue the same end,--progressive improvement, association,
+transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, the
+overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We
+both want man to be, not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric
+unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another;
+bending to power which he hates and despises; carrying empty popish
+or Thirty-nine Article formulas on his brow, and none within; but
+a fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to
+collective humanity,--the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle,
+mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that
+is just and heroic,--the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet."
+
+Mazzini saw in the conception of God the great "Indicator" of duty, and
+that the one figure, "the most deeply inspired of God, men have seen on
+the earth was Jesus." Mazzini's impassioned protest against unbelief was
+itself a form of unbelief. He believed only in one God, not in three.
+If Jesus was inspired of God, he was not God, or he would have been
+self-inspired. But, apart from this repellent heresy, if Theism and
+Christianism are essential to those who would serve humanity, all
+propaganda of freedom must be delayed until converts are made to this
+new faith.
+
+The question will be put, Has independent morality ever been seen in
+action?
+
+Voltaire, at the peril of his liberty and life, rescued a friendless
+family from the fire and the wheel the priests had prepared for them.
+Paine inspired the independence of America, and Lloyd Garrison
+gave liberty to the slaves whose bondage the clergy defended. The
+Christianity of three nations produced no three men in their day who
+did anything comparable to the achievement of these three sceptics,
+who wrought this splendid good, not only without Christianity, but in
+opposition to it. Save for Christian obstruction, they had accomplished
+still greater good without the peril they had to brave.
+
+None of the earlier critics of Secularism, as has been said (and
+not many in the later years), realised that it was addressed, not
+to Christians, but to those who rejected Christianity, or who were
+indifferent to it, and were outside it. Christians cannot do anything
+to inspire _them_ with ethical principles, since they do not believe in
+morality unless based on their supernatural tenets. They have to convert
+men to Theism, to miracles, prophecy, inspiration of the Scriptures, the
+Trinity, and other soul-wearying doctrines, before they can inculcate
+morality they can trust. We do not rush in where they fear to tread.
+Secularism moves where they do not tread at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. ETHICAL CERTITUDE
+
+     "You can tell more about a man's character by trading horses
+     with him once than you can by hearing him talk for a year in
+     prayer meeting."
+
+     --American Maxim.
+
+A FORM of thought which has no certitude can command no intelligent
+trust. Unless capable of verification, no opinion can claim attention,
+nor retain attention, if it obtains it.
+
+If a sum in arithmetic be wrong, it can be discovered by a new way of
+working; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is manifest in the
+health; if a political law is wrong, it is sooner or later apparent in
+the mischief it produces; if a theorem in navigation is erroneous, delay
+or disaster warns the mariner of his mistake; if an insane moralist
+teaches that adherence to truth is wrong, men can try the effects
+of lying, when distrust and disgrace soon undeceive them. But if a
+theological belief is wrong, we must die to find it out. Secularism,
+therefore, is safer. It is best to follow the double lights of reason
+and experience than the dark lantern of faith. "In all but religion,"
+exclaims a famous preacher,* "men know their true interests and use
+their own understanding. Nobody takes anything on trust at market, nor
+would anybody do so at church if there were but a hundredth part the
+care for truth which there is for money."
+
+     * W. J. Fox.
+
+Mr. Rathbone Greg has shown, in a memorable passage, that "the lot of
+man--not perhaps altogether of the individual, but certainly of the
+race--is in his own hands, from his being surrounded by _fixed laws_, on
+knowledge of which, and conformity to which, his well-being depends. The
+study of these and obedience to them form, therefore, the great aim of
+public instruction. Men must be taught:
+
+"1. The physical laws on which health depends.
+
+"2. The moral laws on which happiness depends.
+
+"3. The intellectual laws on which knowledge depends.
+
+"4. The social and political laws on which national prosperity and
+advancement depend.
+
+"5. The economic laws on which wealth depends."
+
+Mr. Spurgeon had flashes of Secularistic inspiration, as when engaging
+a servant, who professed to have taken religion, he asked "whether she
+swept under the mats." It was judging piety by a material test.
+
+There is no trust surer than the conclusions of reason and science. What
+is incapable of proof is usually decided by desire, and is without the
+conditions of uniformity or certitude.
+
+Duty consists in doing the right because it is just to others, and
+because we must set the example of doing right to others, or we have no
+claim that others shall do right to us. Certitude is best obtained by
+the employment of material means, because we can better calculate them,
+and because they are less likely to evade us, or betray us, than any
+other means available to us.
+
+Orthodox religions are pale in the face now. They still keep the word
+of material promise to the ear, and break it to the heart; and a great
+number of people now know it, and many of the clergy know that they know
+it. The poor need material aid, and prayer is the way not to get
+it; while science, more provident than faith, has brought the people
+generous gifts, and inspired them with just expectations. What men need
+is a guide which stands on a business footing. The Churches administer
+a system of foreign affairs in a very loose way, quite inconsistent with
+sound commercial principles. For instance, a firm giving checks on
+a bank in some distant country--not to be found in any gazetteer of
+ascertained places, nor laid down in any chart, and from which
+no persons who ever set out in search of it were ever known to
+return--would do very little business among prudent men. Yet this is
+precisely the nature of the business engaged in by orthodox firms.
+
+On the other hand, Secularism proposes to transact the business of
+life on purely mercantile principles. It engages only in that class of
+transactions the issue of which can be tested by the experience of this
+life. Its checks, if I may so speak, are drawn upon duty, good sense,
+and material effort, and are to be cashed from proceeds arising in our
+midst--under our own eyes--subject to ordinary commercial tests. Nature
+is the banker who pays all notes held by those who observe its laws. To
+use the words of Macbeth, it is here, "on this bank and shoal of time"
+upon which we are cast, that nature pays its checks, and not elsewhere;
+which are honored now, and not in an unknown world, in some unknown
+time, and in an entirely unknown way. By lack of judgment, or sense, the
+Secularist may transact bad business; but he gives good security. His
+surety is experience. His references are to the facts of the present
+time. He puts all who have dealings with him on their guard. Secularism
+tells men that they must look out for themselves, act for themselves,
+within the limits of neither injuring nor harming others. Secularism
+does not profess to be infallible, but it acts on honest principles. It
+seeks to put progress on the business footing of good faith.* Adherents
+who accept the theory of this life for this life dwell in a land of
+their own--the land of certitude. Science and utilitarian morality are
+kings in that country, and rule there by right of conquest over error
+and superstition. In the kingdom of Thought there is no conquest
+over men, but over foolishness only. Outside the world of science and
+morality lies the great Debatable Ground of the existence of Deity and
+a Future State. The Ruler of the Debatable Ground is named Probability,
+and his two ministers are Curiosity and Speculation. Over that mighty
+plain, which is as wide as the universe and as old as time, no voice of
+the gods has ever been heard, and no footsteps of theirs have ever been
+traced. Philosophers have explored the field with telescopes of a longer
+range than the eyes of a thousand saints, and have recognised nothing
+save the silent and distant horizon. Priests have denounced them for
+not perceiving what was invisible. Sectaries have clamored, and the
+most ignorant have howled--as the most ignorant always do--that there
+is something there, because they want to see it. All the while the white
+mystery is still unpenetrated in this life.
+
+     * See Secularism a Religion which Gives Heaven no Trouble.
+
+But a future being undisclosed is no proof that there is no future.
+Those who reason through their desires will believe there is; those who
+reason through their understanding may yet hope that there is. In the
+meantime, all stand before the portals of the untrodden world in equal
+unknowingness. If faith can be piety, work is more so. To bring new
+beauty out of common life--is not that piety? To change blank stupidity
+into intelligent admiration of any work of nature--is not that piety? If
+our towns and streets be made to give gladness and cheerfulness to all
+who live or walk therein--is not that piety? If the prayer of innocence
+ascend to heaven through a pure atmosphere, instead of through the
+noisome and polluted air of uncleanness common in the purlieus of towns
+and of churches, and even cathedrals--is not that piety? Can we, in
+these days, conceive of religious persons being ignorant and dirty?
+Yet they abound. If, therefore, we send to heaven clean, intelligent,
+bright-minded saints--is not that piety? It is no bad religion--as
+religions go--to believe in the good God of knowledge and cleanliness
+and cheerfulness and beauty, and offer at his altar the daily sacrifice
+of intelligent sincerity and material service.
+
+We leave to others their own way of faith and worship. We ask only
+leave to take our own. Carlyle has told us that only two men are to be
+honored, and no third--the mechanic and the thinker: he who works with
+honest hand, making the world habitable; and he who works with his
+brain, making thought artistic and true. "All the rest," he adds with
+noble scorn, "are chaff, which the wind may blow whither it list-eth."
+The certainty of heaven is for the useful alone. Mere belief is the
+easiest, the poorest, the shabbiest device by which conscientious men
+ever attempted to scale the walls of Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE ETHICAL METHOD OF CONTROVERSY
+
+     "It was one of the secrets of my craft in the old days, when
+     I wanted to weld iron or work steel to a fine purpose, to
+     begin gently. If I began, as all learners do, to strike my
+     heaviest blows at the start, the iron would crumble instead
+     of welding, or the steel would suffer under my hammer, so
+     that when it came to be tempered it would 'fly,' as we used
+     to say, and rob the thing I had made of its finest quality."
+
+     --Robert Coliyer, D. D.
+
+"THEY who believe that they have truth ask no favor, save that of being
+heard; they dare the judgment of mankind; refused co-operation, they
+invoke opposition, for opposition is their opportunity." This was the
+maxim I wrote at the beginning of the Secularistic movement, to show
+that we were willing to accept ourselves the controversy, which we
+contended was the sole means of establishing truth. No proposition, as
+Samuel Bailey showed, is to be trusted until it has been tested by very
+wide discussion. We soon found that the free and open field of Milton
+was not sufficient. It needed a "fair" as well as a "free and open
+encounter." Disputants require to be equally matched in debate as in
+arms.
+
+The Secularist policy is to accept the purely moral teaching of
+the Bible, and to controvert its theology, in such respects as it
+contradicts and discourages ethical effort. Yet theological questions
+are always sought to be forced upon us. The Rev. Henry Townley followed
+me to the _Leader_ office (1853-1854) to induce me to discuss the
+question of the "existence of God." I never had done so, and objected
+that it would give the impression that Secularism was atheistic. He was
+so insistent and importunate that I consented to discuss the question
+with him. Never after did I do so with any one. The Rev. Brewin Grant
+endeavored to get my acceptance of propositions which pledged me to a
+wild opposition to Christianity. Mr. Samuel Morley, honorable in all
+things, admitted I had objected to it, but in the end I assented to
+it, that the discussion might not be broken off. Thomas Cooper was
+persistent that I should discuss with him the authenticity of the
+Scriptures. What I proposed was the proposition that the authenticity of
+the Scripture, its miracles, and prophecies are quite apart from moral
+truth.
+
+The discussion took place in the city of York, lasting five nights.
+Canon Robinson and Canon Hey presided alternately. Mr. Cooper was an
+able man in dealing with the stock propositions of Christianity; but
+their relevance as tests of morality was an entirely new subject to him.
+He protested rather than reasoned, and declared he would never discuss
+the question of the ethical test of the truth of Scriptures; nor have I
+ever found any responsible minister willing to do so down to this
+day. Thus Christians should condemn with reservation the tendency in
+Secularists to debate theology, seeing how reluctant they are to do
+otherwise themselves. Christians seem incapable of understanding how
+much the objection to their cause arises in the revolt of the moral
+sense against it.
+
+On first meeting Richard Carlile in 1842, some years before Secularism
+took a distinctive form, he invited me to hear him lecture upon the
+principles of the _Christian Warrior_,* of which he was editor, and to
+give my opinion thereon. In doing so I explained the ideas from which
+I have never departed; namely, that no theologic, astronomic, or
+miraculous mode of proving Scriptural doctrine could ever be made even
+intelligible, except to students of very considerable research.
+Such theories, I contended, must rest, more or less, on critical and
+conjectural interpretation, and could never enable a workingman to dare
+the understanding of others in argument. Scientific interpretation laid
+entirely outside Christian requirements, and seemed to Christians
+as disingenuous evasion of what they took to be obvious truths. My
+contention was that the people have no historic or critical knowledge
+enabling them to determine the divine origin of Christianity.
+
+     * The last periodical Mr. Carlile edited.
+
+On the platform he who has most knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
+will always be able to silence any dissentient who has not equal
+information. If by accident a controversialist happen to possess this
+knowledge, it goes for nothing unless he has credit for classical
+competency. In controversy of this nature it is not enough for a man
+to know; he must be known to know before his conclusions can command
+attention. To myself it was not of moment whether the Scriptures were
+authentic or inspired. My sole inquiry was, Did they contain clear moral
+guidance? If they did, I accepted that guidance with gratitude. If I
+found maxims obviously useful and true, judged by human experience, I
+adopted them, whether given by inspiration or not. If precepts did not
+answer to this test, they were not acceptable, though all the apostles
+in session had signed them. To miracles I did not object, nor did I see
+any sense in endeavoring to explain them away. We all have reason to
+regret that no one performs them now. It was our misfortune that the
+power, delegated with so much pomp of promise to the saints, had not
+descended to these days. If any preacher or deacon could, in our day,
+feed five thousand men on a few loaves and a few small fishes, and leave
+as many baskets of fragments as would run a workhouse for a month, the
+Poor Law Commissioners would make a king of that saint. But if a precept
+enjoined me to believe what was not true, it would be a base precept,
+and all the miracles in the Scriptures could not alter its character;
+while, if a precept be honest and just, no miracle is wanted to attest
+it; indeed, a miracle to allure credence in it would only cast suspicion
+on its genuineness. The moral test of the Scriptures was sufficient,
+since it had the commanding advantage of appealing to the common sense
+of all sorts and conditions of men, of Christian or of Pagan persuasion.
+Ethical criticism has this further merit, that on the platform of
+discussion the miner, the weaver, or farm-laborer is on the same level
+as the priest. A man goes to heaven upon his own judgment; whereas,
+if his belief is based on the learning of others, he goes to heaven
+second-hand.
+
+When Mr. J. A. Froude wrote for John Henry Newman the Life of St.
+Belletin, he ended with the words: "And this is all that is known, _and
+more than all_, of the life of a servant of God." In the Bible there
+appears to be a great deal more than was ever known. This does not
+concern the Secularist, though it does the scholar. If there be moral
+maxims in the Scripture, what does it matter how they got there?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. ITS DISCRIMINATION
+
+     "There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight"
+
+     --Goethe.
+
+IN 1847 I commenced in the _Reasoner_ what I entitled "The Moral Remains
+of the Bible,"--a selection of some splendid moral stories, incidents,
+and sentences having ethical characteristics such as I doubted not would
+"remain" when the Bible came to be regarded as a human book. I wrote
+a "Logic of Life."* My _Trial of Theism_ was only "as accused of
+obstructing Secular life," as stated on the title-page. The object was
+to show how much useful criticism could be entered upon without touching
+the questions of authenticity, or miracles, or the existence of deity.
+Thus it was left to opponents to declare that things morally incredible
+were inspired by God. In this case it was not I, but _they_, who
+blasphemed.
+
+     * Companion to the "Logic of Death," both contained in The
+     Trial of Theism.
+
+Take the case of Samson's famous engagement with the Philistines at
+Ramath,--Lehi surrounded by a band of warlike Philistines (though,
+as the text implies, 3,000 of his own armed countrymen were at hand).
+Samson, who had no weapon, was not given one by them, but had to look
+about for a "new jawbone of an ass." With this singular instrument he
+killed, one after the other, a thousand Philistine soldiers, who were
+big, strong men, and, unless every blow was fatal, it must have taken
+several blows to kill some of them.
+
+Are there three places in the human body where a single blow will be
+sure to kill a man? Did Samson know those places? And was he always
+able to direct his blow with unerring precision to one or other of those
+particular spots? If the thousand Philistines "surrounded" him, how did
+he keep the others off while he struggled with the one he was killing?
+It is not conceivable that the Philistines stood there to be killed, and
+meekly submitted to ignoble blows, death, and degradation. The jawbone
+must have been of strange texture to have crashed through armor,
+and have turned aside spears and swords of stalwart warriors without
+chipping, splitting, or breaking in two. What time it must have taken
+Samson to pursue each man, beat off his comrades, drag him from their
+midst, give him the asinine _coup de grâce_, drag and cast his dead body
+upon the "heaps" of slain he was piling up! What struggling, scuffling,
+and turmoil of blood and blows Samson must have gone through! Spurted
+all over with blood, Barnum would have bought him for a Dime Museum
+as the deepest-colored Red Indian known. No Deerfoot could have been
+nimbler than Samson must have been on this mighty day. When this
+Herculean fight was over, which, with the utmost expedition, must have
+occupied Samson six days,--which would give 166 killed single-handed per
+day,--the only effect produced upon Samson appears to have been that he
+was "sore athirst." Even after this extraordinary use of the jawbone it
+was in such good condition that, a hollow place being "clave" in it, a
+fount of water gushed forth for refreshing this remarkable warrior. Were
+it not recorded in the Bible, it would be said that the writer intended
+to imply that the jawbone of the ass is to be found only in the mouth of
+the reader.
+
+Can it need miracle or prophecy, authenticity, or inspiration, to attest
+this story of the Jewish Jack-the-Giant-killer? What moral good can
+arise from a narration which it is reverence to reject? By leaving it to
+the Christian to say it is given by "inspiration" of God, it is he
+who blasphemes. But if the question of authenticity were raised, the
+character of the narrative would be lost sight of, and would not
+come into question; while the test of moral probability decides the
+invalidity of the story within the compass of the knowledge of an
+ordinary audience.
+
+In the same manner, keeping to the policy of affirmation, he who
+maintains the self-existence, the self-action, and eternity of the
+universe can be met only by those who defame nature as a second-hand
+tool of God. Such are atheists towards nature, the author of their
+existence, and God must so regard them.
+
+A single precept of Christ's, "Take no thought for the morrow," has
+bred swarms of mendicants in every age since this day; but a far more
+dangerous precept is "Resist not evil," which has made Christianity
+welcome to so many tyrants. Christ, whatever other sentiments he had,
+had a slave heart. Every friend of freedom knows that "resistance is the
+backbone of the world." The patriot poet* exclaims:
+
+     "Land of our Fathers--in their hour of need
+     God help them, guarded by the passive creed."
+
+     * Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+No miracle could make these precepts true, and he who proved their
+authenticity would be the enemy of mankind.
+
+Whether Christ existed or not affects in no way what excellence and
+inimitableness there was in his delineated character. His offer of
+palpable materialistic evidence to Thomas showed that he recognised the
+right of scepticism to relevant satisfaction. His concession of proof in
+this case needed no supernatural testimony to render it admirable.
+
+The reader will now see what the policy of Secularist advocacy
+is,--mainly to test theology by its ethical import. To many all policy
+is restraint; they cry down policy, and erect blundering into a virtue.
+
+Whereas policy is guidance to a chosen end. Mathematics is but the
+policy of measurement; grammar but the policy of speech; logic but the
+policy of reason; arithmetic but the policy of calculation; temperance
+but the policy of health; trigonometry but the policy of navigation;
+roads but the policy of transit; music but the policy of controlling
+sound; art but the policy of beauty; law but the policy of protection;
+discipline but the policy of strength; love but the policy of affection.
+An enemy may object to an adversary having a policy, because he is
+futile without one. The policy adopted may be bad, but no policy at all
+is idiocy, and commits a cause to the providence of Bedlam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. APART FROM CHRISTIANISM
+
+     "What is written by Moses can only be read by God."
+
+     --Bikar Proverb.
+
+SECULARISM differs from Christianism in so far as it accepts only the
+teachings which pertain to man, and which are consonant with reason and
+experience.
+
+Parts of the Bible have moral splendor in them, but no Christian will
+allow any one to take the parts he deems true, and reject as untrue
+those he deems false. He who ventured to be thus eclectic would be
+defamed as Paine was. Thus Christians compel those who would stand by
+reason to stand apart from them.
+
+To accept a part, and put that forward as the whole--to pretend or even
+to assume it to be the whole--is dishonest. To retain a portion, and
+reject what you leave, and not say so, is deceiving. To contend that
+what you accept as the spirit of Christianity is in accordance with
+all that contradicts it, is to spend your days in harmonising opposite
+statements--a pursuit demoralising to the understanding. The Secularist
+has, therefore, to choose between dishonesty, the deception of
+others and deception of himself, or ethical principles independent of
+Christianity--and this is what he does:
+
+The Bible being a bundle of Hebrew tracts on tribal life and tribal
+spite, its assumed infallibility is a burden, contradicting and
+misleading to all who accept it as a divine handbook of duty.
+
+In papers issued by religious societies upon the Bible it is declared to
+be "so complete a system that nothing can be added to it, or taken from
+it," and that "it contains everything needful to be known or done." This
+is so false that no one, perceiving it, could be honest and not protest
+against it in the interest of others. Recently the Bishop of Worcester
+said: "It was of no use resisting the Higher Criticism. God had not been
+pleased to give us what might be called a perfect Bible."* Then it is
+prudence to seek a more trustworthy guide.
+
+     * Midland Evening News, 1893.
+
+If money were bequeathed to maintain the eclectic criticism of the
+Scripture, it would be confiscated by Christian law. So to stand apart
+is indispensable self-defence. Individual Christians, as I well know,
+devote themselves with a noble earnestness to the service of man, as
+they understand his interests; but so long as Christianity retains the
+power of fraud, and uses it, Christianism as a system, or as a cause,
+remains outside the pale of respect. Prayer, in which the oppressed and
+poor are taught to trust, is of no avail for protection or food, and the
+poor ought to know it. The Bishop of Manchester declared, in my hearing,
+that the Lord's Prayer will not bring us "daily bread," but that "it
+is an exercise of faith to ask for what we shall not receive." But if
+prayer will not bring "daily bread," it is a dangerous deception to keep
+up the belief that it will. The eyes of forethought are closed by trust
+in such aid, thrift is an affront to the generosity of heaven, and
+labor is foolishness. But, alas! aid does not come by supplication. The
+prayer-maker dies in mendicancy. It is not reverence 'to pour into
+the ears of God praise for protection never accorded. Dean Stanley,
+admirable as a man as well as a saint, was killed in the Deanery,
+Westminster, by a bad drain, in spite of all his Collects. Dean Farrar
+has been driven from St. Margaret's Rectory, in Dean's Yard, by another
+drain, which poisons in spite of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Canon
+Eyton refuses to take up his residence until the sanitary engineers have
+overhauled* the place, which, notwithstanding the invocations of
+the Church, Providence does not see to. To keep silence on the
+non-intervention of Providence would be to connive at the fate of those
+who come to destruction by such dependence.
+
+     "O mother, praying God will save
+     Thy sailor!
+     While thy head is bowed,
+     His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
+     Drops in his vast and wandering grave!"
+
+     * See Westminister Gazette London Letter, November 19, 1895.
+
+True respect would treat God as though at the least he is a gentlemen.
+Christianity does not do this. No gentleman would accept thanks for
+benefits he had not conferred, nor would he exact thanks daily and
+hourly for gifts he had really made, nor have the vanity to covet
+perpetual thanksgivings. He who would respect God, or respect himself,
+must seek a faith apart from such Christianity.
+
+A divine, who excelled in good sense, said: "Dangerous it were for the
+feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High. Our
+soundest knowledge is, to know that we know him not; _and our safest
+eloquence concerning Him is our silence_; therefore it be-hoveth our
+words to be wary and few."*
+
+Mrs. Barbauld may have borrowed from Richard Hooker her fine line:
+
+     "Silence is our least injurious praise."**
+
+     * Ecclesiastical Polity, book I., | 2.
+
+     ** Charles Lamb was of this opinion when he remarked: "Had I
+     to say grace, I would rather say it over a good book than
+     over a mutton chop." Christians say grace over an
+     indigestible meal. But perhaps they are right, since they
+     need supernatural aid to assimilate it.
+
+An earnest Christian, not a religious man (for all Christians are not
+religious), assuming the professional familiarity with the mind of God,
+said to me: "Should the Lord call you to-day, are you prepared to meet
+Him?" I answered: Certainly; for the service of man in some form is
+seldom absent from my thoughts, and must be consonant with his will.
+Were I to pray, I should pray God to spare me from the presumption of
+expecting to meet him, and from the vanity and conceit of thinking that
+the God of the universe will take an opportunity of meeting me.
+
+Who can have moral longing for a religion which represents God as
+hanging over York Castle to receive the soul of Dove, the debauchee, who
+slowly poisoned his wife, and whose final spiritual progress was posted
+day by day on the Castle gates until the hour of the hangman came?
+Dove's confession was as appalling as instructive. It ran thus:
+
+     "I know that the Eternal One,
+     Upon His throne divine,
+     Gorged with the blood of His own Son,
+     No longer thirsts for mine.
+
+     "Many a man has passed his life
+     In doing naught but good,
+     Who has not half the confidence I have
+     In Jesus Christ, His blood."*
+
+     * From a volume of verse privately circulated in Liverpool
+     at the time, by W. H. Rathbone.
+
+By quoting these lines, which Burns might have written, the writer is
+sorry to portray, in their naked form, principles which so many cherish.
+But the anatomy of creeds can no more be explained, with the garments
+of tradition and sentiment upon them, than a surgeon can demonstrate
+the structure of the body with the clothes on. Divine perdition is an
+ethical impossibility.
+
+Christianism is too often but a sour influence on life. It tolerates
+nature, but does not enjoy it. Instead of giving men two Sundays, as it
+might,--one for recreation and one for contemplation,--it converts the
+only day of the poor into a penal infliction. It is always more or less
+against art, parks, clubs, sanitation, equity to labor, freedom, and
+many other things. If any Christians eventually accept these material
+ideas, they mostly dislike them. Art takes attention from the Gospel.
+In parks many delight to walk, when they might be at chapel or
+church. Clubs teach men toleration, and toleration is thought to
+beget indifference. Sanitation is a form of blasphemy. Every Christian
+sings:--
+
+     "Diseases are Thy servants, Lord;
+     They come at Thy command."
+
+But sanitation assassinates these "servants of the Lord." In every
+hospital they are tried, condemned, and executed as the enemies of
+mankind. If labor had justice, it would be independent, and no longer
+hopeless, as the poor always are. Freedom renders men defiant of
+subjection, which all priests are prone to exercise. Secularism has
+none of this distrust and fear. It elects to be on the side of human
+progress, and takes that side, withstand it who may. Thus, those who
+care for the improvement of mankind must act on principles dissociated
+from doctrines repellent to humanity and deterrent of ameliorative
+enterprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. SECULARISM CREATES A NEW RESPONSIBILITY
+
+     "Mankind is an ass, who kicks those who endeavor to take off
+     his panniers."
+
+     --Spanish Proverb.
+
+NO ONE need go to Spain to meet with animals who kick you if you serve
+them. Spanish asses are to be found in every land. Could we see the legs
+of truth, we should find them black and blue with the kicks received in
+unloosening the panniers of error, strapped by priests on the backs of
+the people. Even philosophers kick as well as the ignorant, when new
+ideas are brought before them. No improvement would ever be attempted if
+friends of truth were afraid of the asses' hoofs in the air.
+
+He who maintains that mankind can be largely improved by material means,
+imposes on himself the responsibility of employing such means, and
+of promoting their use as far as he can, and trusting to their
+efficacy,--not being discouraged because he is but one, and mankind are
+many. No man can read all the books, or do all the work, of the world.
+It is enough that each reads what he needs, and, in matter of moral
+action, does all he can. He who does less, fails in his duty to himself
+and to others.
+
+Christian doctrine has none of the responsibility which Secularism
+imposes. If there be vice or rapine, oppression or murder, the purely
+Christian conscience is absolved. It is the Lord's world, and nothing
+could occur unless he permitted it. If any Christian heart is moved to
+compassion, it commonly exudes in prayer. He "puts the matter before the
+Lord and leaves it in His hands." The Secularist takes it into his own.
+What are his hands for? The Christian can sit still and see children
+grow up with rickets in their body and rickets in their soul. He will
+see them die in a foul atmosphere, where no angel could come to receive
+their spirit without first stopping his nose with his handkerchief, as
+I have seen Lord Palmerston do on entering Harrow on Speech Day. The
+Christian can make money out of unrequited labor. When he dies, he makes
+no reparation to those who earned his wealth, but leaves it to build a
+church, as though he thought God was blind, not knowing (if Christ spake
+truly) that the Devil is sitting in the fender in his room, ready to
+carry his soul up the chimney to bear Dives company. Why should he be
+anxious to mitigate inequality of human condition? It is the Lord's
+will, or it would not be. When it was seen that I was ceasing to believe
+this, Christians in the church to which I belonged knelt around me, and
+prayed that I might be influenced not to go out into the world to see
+if these things could be improved. It was no light duty I imposed on
+myself.
+
+A Secularist is mindful of Carlyle's saying, "No man is a saint in his
+sleep." Indeed, if any one takes upon himself the responsibility of
+bettering by reason the state of things, he will be kept pretty well
+awake with his understanding.
+
+Many persons think their own superiority sufficient for mankind, and do
+not wish their exclusiveness to be encroached upon. Their plea is that
+they distrust the effect of setting the multitude free from mental
+tyranny, and they distrust democracy, which would sooner or later end
+political tyranny.
+
+These men of dainty distrust have a crowd of imitators, in whom nobody
+recognises any superiority to justify their misgivings as to others. The
+distrust of independence in the hands of the people arises mainly from
+the dislike of the trouble it takes to educate the ignorant in its use
+and limit. The Secularist undertakes this trouble as far as his means
+permit. As an advocate of open thought and the free action of opinion,
+he counts the responsibility of trust in the people as a duty.
+
+It will be asked, What are the deterrent influences upon which
+Secularism relies for rendering vice, of the major or minor kind,
+repellent? It relies upon making it clear that in the order of nature
+retribution treads upon the heels of transgression, and, if tardy in
+doing it, its steps should be hastened.
+
+The mark of error of life is--disease. Science can take the body to
+pieces, and display mischief palpable to the eyes, when the results of
+vice startle, like an apparition, those who discern that:
+
+     "Their acts their angels are,--if good; if ill,
+     Their fatal shadows that walk by them still."
+
+A man is not so ready to break the laws of nature when he sees he will
+break himself in doing it. He may not fear God, but he fears fever
+and consumption. He may have a gay heart, but he will not like the
+occupation of being his own sexton and digging his own grave. When he
+sees that death lurks in the frequent glass, for instance, that spoils
+the flavor of the wine. He takes less pride in the beeswing who sees
+the shroud in the bottle. He may hope that God will forgive him, but he
+knows that death will not. He who holds the scythe is accustomed to cut
+down fools, whether they be peers or sweeps. Death knows the fool at a
+glance. To prevent any mistake, Disease has marked him with her broad
+arrow. The young man who once has his eyes well open to this state
+of the case, will be considerate as to the quality of his pleasures,
+especially when he knows that alluring but unwholesome pleasure is in
+the pay of death. Temperance advocates made more converts by exhibiting
+the biological effects of alcohol than by all their exhortations.
+
+The moral nature of man is as palpable as the physical to those who look
+for its signs. There is a moral squint in the judgment, as plain to be
+seen as a cast in the eyes. The voice is not honest; it has the accent
+of a previous conviction in it. The speech has contortions of meaning in
+it. The sense is limp and flaccid, showing that the mind is flabby.
+Such a one has the backbone of a fish; he does not stand upright. As the
+Americans say, he does not "stand square" to anything. There is no moral
+pulse in his heart. If you could take hold of his soul, it would feel
+like a dead oyster, and would slip through your fingers. Everybody knows
+these people. You don't consult them; you don't trust them. You would
+rather have no business transactions with them. If they are in a
+political movement, you know they will shuffle when the pinch of
+principle comes.
+
+Crime has its consequences, and criminals, little and great, know it.
+When Alaric A. Watts wrote of the last Emperor of the French:--
+
+     "Safe art thou, Louis!--for a time;
+     But tremble!--never yet was crime,
+     Beyond one little space, secure.
+     The coward and the brave alike
+     Can wait and watch, can rush and strike.
+     Which marks thee?   One of them, be rare,--"
+
+few thought the bold prediction true; but it came to pass, and the
+Napoleonic name and race became extinct, to the relief of Europe.
+
+Trouble comes from avowing unpopular ideas. Diderot well saw this when
+he said: "There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than
+in being wise by oneself." One who regards truth as duty will accept
+responsibilities. It is the American idea
+
+     "To make a man and leave him be."
+
+But we must be sure we have made him a man,--self-acting, guided by
+reasoned proof, and one who, as Archbishop Whately said, "believes the
+principles he maintains, and maintains them because he believes them."
+
+A man is not a man while under superstition, nor is he a man when free
+from it, unless his mind is built on principles conducive and incentive
+to the service of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THROUGH OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION
+
+     "So many gods, so many creeds--
+     So many paths that wind and wind,
+     While just the art of being kind
+     Is all the sad world needs."
+
+     --Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
+
+LADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew "Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he
+was always _intending_ something." Any improvement in the method of
+life is "intending something," and society ought to be tolerant of those
+whose badness takes no worse form. The rules Secularism prescribes
+for human conduct are few, and no intelligent preacher would say they
+indicate a dangerous form of "badness." They are:
+
+1. Truth in speech.
+
+2. Honesty in transaction.
+
+3. Industry in business.
+
+4. Equity in according the gain among those whose diligence and
+vigilance help to produce it.
+
+     "Though this world be but a bubble,
+     Two things stand like stone--
+     Kindness in another's trouble,
+     Courage in your own."
+
+Learning and fortune do but illuminate these virtues. They cannot
+supersede them. The germs of these qualities are in every human heart.
+It is only necessary that we cultivate them. Men are like billiard
+balls--they would all go into the right pockets in a few generations, if
+rightly propelled. Yet these principles, simple and unpretending as
+they are, being founded on considerations apart from modes of orthodox
+thought, have had a militant career. The Spanish proverb has been in
+request: "Beware of an ox before, of a mule behind, and of a monk
+on every side." The monk, tonsured and untonsured, is found in every
+religion.
+
+In Glasgow I sometimes delivered lectures on the Sunday in a quaint old
+hall situated up a wynd in Candleriggs. On the Saturday night I gave a
+woman half-a-crown to wash and whiten the stairs leading to the hall,
+and the passage leading to the street and across the causeway, so
+that the entrance to the hall should be clean and sweet. Sermons were
+preached in the same hall when the stairs were repulsively dirty. The
+woman remarked to a neighbor that "Mr. Holyoake's views were wrang, but
+he seemed to have clean principles." He who believes in the influence
+of material conditions will do what he can to have them pure, not
+only where he speaks, but where he frequents and where he resides. The
+theological reader, who by accident or curiosity looks over these pages,
+will find much from which he will dissent; but I hope he will be able
+to regard this book as one of "clean principles," as far as the limited
+light of the author goes. Accepting the "golden rule" of Huxley--"Give
+unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so
+clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted"--causes the Secularist
+to credit less than his neighbors, and that goes against him; being, as
+it were, a reproach of their avidity of belief. One reason for writing
+this book is to explain--to as many of the new generation as may
+happen to read it--the discrimination of Secularism. Newspapers and the
+clerical class, who ought to be well informed, continually speak of mere
+free-thinking as Secularism. How this has been caused has already been
+indicated. Two or three remarkable and conspicuous representatives of
+free thought, who found iconoclasticism easier, less responsible,
+and more popular, have given to many erroneous impressions. When
+Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Foote came into the Secularistic
+movement, which preceded their day, they gave proof that they understood
+its principles, which they afterwards disregarded or postponed. I cite
+their opinions lest the reader should think that this book gives an
+account of a form of thought not previously known. One wrote:
+
+"From very necessity, Secularism is affirmative and constructive; it
+is impossible to thoroughly negate any falsehood without making more or
+less clear the opposing truth."*
+
+     *  "Secularism: What Is It?"   National Secular Society's
+     Tracts--No. 7. By Charles Bradlaugh.
+
+Again:
+
+"Secularism conflicts with theology in this: that the Secularist teaches
+the improvability of humanity by human means; while the theologian
+not only denies this, but rather teaches that the Secular effort is
+blasphemous and unavailing unless preceded and accompanied by reliance
+on divine aid."*
+
+Mrs. Besant said:
+
+"Still we have won a plot of ground--men's and women's hearts. To them
+Secularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to them
+it gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of
+life. Our morality is tested only--be it noted--by utility in this life
+and in this world."**
+
+Mr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying:
+
+"Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time
+and the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares
+to be the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily
+teach the same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding
+it upon the supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its
+being set aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative
+divine injunction."***
+
+     * "Why Are We Secularists?" National Secular Society's
+     Tracts--No. 8. By Charles Bradlaugh.
+
+     ** "Secular Morality." National Secular Society's Tracts--
+     No. 3. By Annie Besant.
+
+     *** Secularism and Its Misrepresentation, by G. W. Foote,
+     who subsequently succeeded Mr. Bradlaugh as President of the
+     National Secular Society.
+
+For several years the _National Reformer_ bore the subtitle of "Secular
+Advocate."
+
+We could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring
+ethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality.
+We accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney--namely, that "Reason cannot
+show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above
+reason." We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not
+half so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an
+atheistical advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The
+Secularistic proposal to consult the instruction of an adversary proved
+less exciting than his destruction. The patience and resource it implies
+to work by reason alone are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is
+easier than a kindness, and less troublesome than explanation. Those who
+have the refutatory passion intense say you must clear the ground before
+you can build upon it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times
+show that a good deal of ground has been cleared. The instinct of
+progress renders the minority, who reflect, more interested in the
+builder than the undertaker. What would be thought of a general who
+delayed occupying a country he had conquered until he had extirpated all
+the inhabitants in it? So, in the kingdom of error, he who will go on
+breaking images, without setting statues up in their place, will give
+superstition a long life. The savage man does not desert his idols
+because you call them ugly. It is only by slow degrees, and under the
+influence of better-carved gods, that his taste is changed and his
+worship improved. The reader will see that Secularism leaves the mystery
+of deity to the chartered imagination of man, and does not attempt
+to close the door of the future, but holds that the desert of another
+existence belongs only to those who engage in the service of man in this
+life. Prof. F. W. Newman says: "The conditions of a future life being
+unknown, there is no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and others
+in it, except by aiming after present goodness."*
+
+Men have a right to look beyond this world, but not to overlook it.
+Men, if they can, may connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot
+disconnect themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. The
+purport of Secularism is not far from the tenor of the famous sermon by
+the Rev. James Caird, of which the Queen said:
+
+"He explained in the most simple manner what real religion is--not a
+thing to drive us from the world, not a perpetual moping over 'good'
+books; but being and doing good."**
+
+     * Prof. P. W. Newman, who is always clear beyond all
+     scholars, and candid beyond all theologians, has published a
+     Palinode retracting former conclusions he had published, and
+     admitting the uncertainty of the evidence in favor of after-
+     existence.
+
+     ** The Queen on the Rev. J. Caird's sermon, Leaves from the
+     Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
+
+This end we reach not by a theological, but by a Secular, path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. SELF-EXTENDING PRINCIPLES
+
+     "Prodigious actions may as well be done
+     By weaver's issue as by prince's son."
+
+     --Dryden.
+
+SO FAR as Secularism is reasonable, it must be self-extending among all
+who think. Adherents of that class are slowly acquired. Accessions begin
+in criticism, though that, as we have seen, is apt to stop there. In
+all movements the most critical persons are the least suggestive of
+improvements. Constructiveness only excites enthusiasm in fertile
+minds. After the Cowper Street Discussion with the Rev. Brewin Grant in
+1853, see Chapter X, page 50, societies, halls, and newspapers adopted
+the Secular name. In 1863 appeared the _Christian Reasoner_, edited by
+the Rev. Dr. Rylance, a really reasoning clergyman, whom I afterwards
+had the pleasure to know in New York. His publication was intended to be
+a substitute for the _Reasoner_, which I had then edited for seventeen
+years. But when the _Reasoner_ commenced, in 1846, Christian believing
+was far more thought of than Christian reasoning. One line in Dr.
+Rylance's _Christian Reasoner_ was remarkable, which charged us with
+"forgetfulness of the necessary incompleteness of Re-velation."
+
+So far from forgetting it, it was one of the grounds on which Secularism
+was founded. However, it is to the credit of Dr. Rylance that he should
+have preceded, by thirty years, the Bishop of Worcester in discerning
+the shortcomings of Revelation, as cited in Chapter XIX, page 101.
+
+In 1869 we obtained the first Act of Secular affirmation, which Mr. J.
+S. Mill said was mainly due to my exertions, and to my example of never
+taking an oath. In obtaining the Act, I had no help from Mr. Bradlaugh,
+he being an ostentatious oath-taker at that time. It was owing to Mr.
+G. W. Hastings (then, or afterwards, M. P.), the founder of the Social
+Science Association, that the Affirmation clause was added to the Act of
+1869. One of the objects we avowed was "to procure a law of affirmation
+for persons who objected to take the oath."*
+
+Another of our aims was stated to be: "To convert churches and chapels
+into temples of instruction for the people.... to solicit priests to
+be teachers of useful knowledge."** We strove to promote these ends
+by holding in honor all who gave effect to such human precepts as were
+contained in Christianity. This fairness and justice has led many to
+suppose that I accepted the theological as well as the ethical passages
+in the Scriptures. But how can a Christian preacher be inclined to risk
+the suspicion of the narrower-minded members of his congregation, if no
+one gives him credit for doing right when he does it?
+
+     * Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, p. 13;
+     1854. Fifteen years before the first Act was passed.
+
+     ** Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, by G.
+     J. Holyoake, p. 12; 1854.
+
+With our limited means and newness of doctrine, we could not hope to
+rival an opulent hierarchy and occupy its temples; but we knew that the
+truth, if we had it, and could diffuse it in a reasonable manner, would
+make its way and gradually change the convictions of a theological
+caste. The very nature of Free-thought makes it impossible for a long
+time yet, that we should have many wealthy or well-placed supporters.
+Where the platform is open to every subject likely to be of public
+service--subjects suppressed everywhere else, and open to the discussion
+of the wise or foolish present who may arise to speak, outrages of good
+taste will occur. Persons who forget that abuse does not destroy use,
+and that freedom is more precious than propriety, cease to support a
+free-speaking Society. The advocacy of slave emancipation was once an
+outrage in America. It is now regarded as the glory of the nation. In
+an eloquent passage it has been pointed out what society owes to the
+unfriended efforts of those who established and have maintained the
+right of free speech.
+
+"Theology of the old stamp, so far from encouraging us to love nature,
+teaches us that it is under a curse. It teaches us to look upon the
+animal creation with shuddering disgust; upon the whole race of man,
+outside our narrow sect, as delivered over to the Devil; and upon the
+laws of nature at large as a temporary mechanism, in which we have been
+caught, but from which we are to anticipate a joyful deliverance. It is
+science, not theology, which has changed all this; it is the atheists,
+infidels, and rationalists, as they are kindly called, who have taught
+us to take fresh interest in our poor fellow denizens of the world, and
+not to despise them because Almighty Benevolence could not be expected
+to admit them to Heaven. To the same teaching we owe the recognition
+of the noble aspirations embodied in every form of religion, and the
+destruction of the ancient monopoly of divine influences."*
+
+     * Leslie Stephens's Freetkinking and Plain Speaking.
+
+Those who, in storm and stress, bring truth into the world may not be
+able to complete its triumph, but it makes its own way, and finally
+conquers the understanding of mankind.
+
+Priestley, without fortune, with only the slender income of a Unitarian
+minister, created and kept up a chemical laboratory. There alone he
+discovered oxygen. Few regarded him, few applauded him; only a few
+Parisian philosophers thanked him. He had no disciples to spread his new
+truth. He was not even tolerated in the town which he endowed with
+the fame of his priceless discovery. His house was burnt by a
+Church-and-King mob; his instruments, books, and manuscripts destroyed;
+and he had to seek his fortune in a foreign land.
+
+Yet what has come out of his discovery? It has become part of the
+civilisation of the world, and mankind owe more to him than they yet
+understand.
+
+When a young man, he forsook the Calvinism in which he was reared. "I
+came," he said, "to embrace what is called heterodox views on every
+question."* He cared for this world as well as for another, and hence
+was distrusted by all "true believers." Though he had "spiritual hopes,"
+he agreed that he should be called a materialist.
+
+We have now had (1895) a London Reform Sunday, more than two hundred and
+fifty (one list gave four hundred) preachers of all denominations
+taking for their unprecedented text, "The Duties and Responsibilities
+of Citizenship,"--a thing the most sanguine deemed incredible when
+suggested by me in 1854.** Within twenty years Dr. Felix Adler has
+founded noble Ethical Societies. Dr. Stanton Coit is extending them
+in Great Britain. They are Secularist societies in their nature. South
+Place Chapel now has taken the name of Ethical Society. Since the days
+of W. J. Fox, who first made it famous, it has been the only successor
+in London of the Moral Church opened by Thomas Holcroft.
+
+     * See Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1888); article: Priestley.
+
+     ** We have now a Museum Sunday. Even twenty years ago those
+     who advocated the Sunday opening of museums were counted
+     irreverent and beyond the pale of grace.   Their opening is
+     now legalised (1896).
+
+Though modern Secular societies, to which these pages relate, have
+been anti-theological mainly, the Secular Society of Leicester is a
+distinguished exception. It has long had a noble hall of its own, and
+from the earliest inception of Secularism it has been consistent and
+persistent in its principles. As stated elsewhere,* the "Principles of
+Secularism" were submitted to John Stuart Mill in 1854, and his approval
+was of importance in the eyes of their advocates. In the first issue of
+_Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ a special article appeared upon these views,
+and in the later issue of that work in 1888 a new article was written
+on Secularism. In the Rev. Dr. Molesworth's _History of England_ a very
+clear account was given of the rise of Secularist opinions. This will be
+sufficient information for readers unacquainted with the subject.
+
+     * Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, Chap. CX.
+
+The cause of reason has had more to confront than the cause of
+Christianity, which has always been on the side of power since the days
+of Christ. The two most influential ideas which, in every age since
+Christianity arose, have given it currency among the ignorant and the
+credulous, have been the ideas of Hell and prayer. Hell has been the
+terror, and prayer the bribe, which have won the allegiance of the
+timid and the needy. These two master passions of alarm and despair have
+brought the unfortunate portions of mankind to the foot of the Cross.
+
+The cause of reason has no advantages of this nature, and only the
+intelligent have confidence in its progress. If we have expected to do
+more than we have, we are not the only party who have been prematurely
+sanguine. The Rev. David Bogue, preaching in Whitfield's Tabernacle,
+Tottenham-Court Road, at the foundation of the Foreign Missionary
+Society (1790) of the Congregational denomination, exclaimed amid almost
+unequalled enthusiasm: "We are called together this evening to the
+funeral of bigotry." Judging from what has happened since, bigotry
+was not dead when its funeral was prepared, or it was not effectually
+buried, as it has been seen much about since that day.
+
+Bigotry, like Charles II., takes an unconscionable time in dying.
+Down to Sir Charles Lyell's days, so harmless a study as geology was
+distrusted, and Lyell, like Priestley, had to seek auditors in America.
+While he lectured at Boston to 1,500 persons, 2,000 more were unable to
+obtain tickets, which were bought at a guinea each extra. At our
+great ancient seat of learning, Oxford, Buckland lectured on the same
+interesting subject to an audience of three.
+
+Secularism keeps the lamp of free thought burning by aiding and honoring
+all who would infuse an ethical passion into those who lead the growing
+army of independent thinkers. Our lamp is not yet a large one, and its
+supply of oil is limited by Christian law; but, like the fire in the
+Temple of Montezuma, we keep it burning. In all the centuries since the
+torch of free thought was first lighted, though often threatened, often
+assailed, often dimned, it has never been extinguished. We could not
+hope to captivate society by splendid edifices, nor many cultivated
+advocates; but truth of principle will penetrate where those who
+maintain it will never be seen and never heard. The day cometh when
+other torches will be lighted at the obscure fire, which, borne aloft by
+other and stronger hands, will shed lasting illumination where otherwise
+darkness would permanently prevail. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning has
+said: "Truth is like sacramental bread,--we must pass it on."
+
+
+
+
+SECULARIST CEREMONIES.
+
+     "Death is the decisive test of the value of the education
+     and morality of society; Secular funerals are the symbol of
+     the social renovation."
+
+     --J. P. Proudhon.
+
+CERTAIN ceremonies are common to all human society, and should be
+consistent with the opinions of those in whose name the ceremonies take
+place. The marriage service of the Church contains things no bride could
+hear without a blush, if she understood them; and the Burial Service
+includes statements the minister ought to know to be untrue, and by
+which the sadness of death is desecrated. The Secularist naturally seeks
+other forms of speech. It being a principle of Secularism to endeavor to
+replace what it deems bad by something better--or more consistent with
+its profession--the following addresses are given. Other hands may
+supply happier examples; but, in the meantime, these which follow may
+meet with the needs of those who have no one at hand to speak for them,
+and are not accustomed to speak for themselves.
+
+
+
+
+ON MARRIAGE.
+
+Marriage involves several things of which few persons think beforehand,
+and which it is useful to call their attention to at this time. The
+bridegroom, by the act of marriage, professes that he has chosen out
+of all the women of the world, known to him, the one to whom he will
+be faithful while life shall last. He declares the bride to be his
+preference, and, whoever he may see hereafter, or like, or love, the
+door of association shall be shut upon them in his heart for ever. The
+bride, on her part, declares and promises the same things. The belief
+in each other's perfection is the most beautiful illusion of love.
+Sometimes the illusion happily continues during life. It may happen--it
+does happen sometimes--that each discovers that the other is not
+perfect. The Quaker's advice was: "Open your eyes wide before marriage,
+but shut them afterwards." Those who have neglected the first part of
+this counsel will still profit by observing the second. Let those who
+will look about, and put tormenting constructions on innocent acts:
+beware of jealousy, which kills more happiness than ever Love created.
+
+The result of marriage is usually offspring, when society will have
+imposed upon it an addition to its number. It is necessary for the
+credit of the parents, as well as for the welfare of the children, that
+they should be born healthy, reared healthy, and be well educated; so
+that they may be strong and intelligent when the time comes for them to
+encounter, for themselves, the vicissitudes of life. Those who marry
+are considered to foreknow and to foresee these duties, and to pledge
+themselves to do the best in their power to discharge them.
+
+In the meantime, and ever afterwards, let love reign between you.
+And remember the minister of Love is deference towards each other.
+Ceremonial manners are conducive to affection. Love is not a business,
+but the permanence of love is a business.
+
+Unless there are good humor, patience, pleasantness, discretion, and
+forbearance, love will cease. Those who expect perfection will lose
+happiness. A wise tolerance is the sunshine of love, and they who
+maintain the sentiment will come to count their marriage the beginning
+of the brightness of life.
+
+
+
+
+NAMING CHILDREN.
+
+In naming children it is well to avoid names whose associations pledge
+the child, without its consent, to some line of action it may have no
+mind to, or capacity for, when grown up. A child called "Brutus" would
+be expected to stab Cæsar--and the Cæsars are always about. The name
+"Washington" destroyed a politician of promise who bore it. He could
+never live up to it. A name should be a pleasant mark to be known by,
+not a badge to be borne.
+
+In formally naming a child it is the parents alone to whom useful words
+can be addressed.
+
+Heredity, which means qualities derived from parentage, is a prophecy of
+life. Therefore let parents render themselves as perfect in health, as
+wise in mind, and as self-respecting in manners as they can; for their
+qualities in some degree will appear in their offspring. One advantage
+of children is that they contribute unconsciously to the education
+of parents. No parents of sense can fail to see that children are as
+imitative as monkeys, and have better memories. Not only do they imitate
+actions, but repeat forms of expression, and will remember them ever
+after. The manners of parents become more or less part of the manners
+and mind of the child. Sensible parents, seeing this, will put a guard
+upon their conduct and speech, so that their example in act and word may
+be a store-house of manners and taste from which their children may draw
+wisdom in conduct and speech. The minds of children are as photographic
+plates on which parents are always printing something which will
+be indelibly visible in future days. Therefore the society, the
+surroundings, the teachers of the child, so far as the parents can
+control them, should be well chosen, in order that the name borne by the
+young shall command respect when their time comes to play a part in the
+drama of life. To this end a child should be taught to take care what he
+promises, and that when he has given his promise he has to keep it, for
+he whose word is not to be trusted is always suspected, and his opinion
+is not sought by others, or is disregarded when uttered. A child should
+early learn that debt is dependence, and the habit of it is the meanness
+of living upon loans. There can be no independence, no reliance upon the
+character of any one, who will buy without the means of payment, or who
+lives beyond his income. Such persons intend to live on the income of
+some one else, and do it whether they intend it or not. He alone can be
+independent who trusts to himself for advancement. No one ought to be
+helped forward who does not possess this quality, or will not put his
+hand to any honest work open to him. Beware of the child who has too
+much pride to do what he can for his own support, but has not too much
+pride to live upon his parents, or upon friends. Such pride is idleness,
+or thoughtlessness, or both, unless illness causes the inability.
+
+Since offspring have to be trained in health and educated in the
+understanding, there must not be many in the family unless the parents
+have property. The poor cannot afford to have many children if they
+intend to do their duty by them. It is immoral in the rich to have
+many because the example is bad, and because they are sooner or later
+quartered upon the people to keep them; or, if they are provided for
+by their parents, they are under no obligation to do anything for
+themselves, which is neither good for them nor good for the community,
+to which they contribute nothing.
+
+Believing this child will be trained by its parents to be an honor to
+them, and a welcome addition to the family of humanity, it is publicly
+named with pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+OVER THE DEAD.
+
+I.----READING AT A GRAVE.
+
+Esdras and Uriel,
+
+[An argument in which the Prophet speaks as a Secularist.]
+
+And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, said:--I am
+sent to show thee three ways, and to set forth three similitudes before
+thee: whereof, if thou canst declare me one, I will show thee also the
+way that thou desirest to see....
+
+And I said, Tell on, my Lord.
+
+Then said he unto me, Go thy way; weigh me the weight of the fire, or
+measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past.
+
+Then answered I and said, What man is able to do that, that thou
+shouldest ask such things of me?
+
+And he said unto me, If I should ask thee how great dwellings are in the
+midst of the sea, or how many springs are in the beginning of the deep,
+or how many springs are above the firmament, or which are the outgoings
+of Paradise, peradventure thou wouldst say unto me, I never went down
+into the deep, nor as yet into Hell, neither did I ever climb up into
+Heaven.
+
+Nevertheless, now have I asked thee but only of the fire, and wind, and
+of the day wherethrough thou hast passed, and of things from which thou
+canst not be separated, and yet canst thou give me no answer of them.
+
+He said, moreover, unto me, Thine own things, and such as are grown up
+with thee, canst thou not know? How should thy vessel, then, be able to
+comprehend the way of the Highest?....
+
+Then said I unto him, It were better that we were not at all than
+that we should live still in wickedness and to suffer, and not to know
+wherefor.
+
+He answered me and said, I went into a forest, into a plain, and the
+trees took counsel, and said, Come, let us go and make war against the
+sea, that it may depart away before us, and that we may make us more
+woods.
+
+The floods of the sea also in like manner took counsel, and said, Come,
+let us go up and subdue the woods of the plain: that there also we may
+make us another country.
+
+The thought of the wood was in vain, for the fire came and consumed it.
+The thought of the floods of the sea came likewise to nought, for the
+sand stood up and stopped them.
+
+If thou wert judge now betwixt these two, whom wouldest thou begin to
+justify? or whom wouldest thou condemn?
+
+I answered, and said, Verily it is a foolish thought that they both have
+devised; for the ground is given unto the wood, and the sea also hath
+his place to bear his floods.
+
+Then answered he me and said, Thou hast given a right judgment; but why
+judgest thou not thyself also? For like as the ground is given unto the
+woods, and the sea to his floods, even so they that dwell upon the earth
+may understand nothing but that which is upon the earth: and he that
+dwelleth upon the heavens may only understand the things that are above
+the height of the heavens.
+
+Then answered I and said, I beseech thee, O Lord, let me have
+understanding.
+
+For it was not my mind to be curious of the high things y but of such as
+pass by us daily.
+
+Harriet Martineau's Hymn.*
+
+     * Which may be sung where it can be so arranged.
+
+[The only hymn known to me in which a Supreme Cause is implied without
+being asserted or denied, or the reader committed to belief in it.]
+
+     Beneath this starry arch
+     Nought resteth or is still,
+     But all things hold their march
+     As if by one great will:
+     Moves one, move all:
+     Hark to the footfall!
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     Yon sheaves were once but seed;
+     Will ripens into deed.
+     As eave-drops swell the streams,
+     Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams;
+     And sorrow tracketh wrong,
+     As echo follows song,
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     By night, like stars on high,
+     The hours reveal their train;
+     They whisper and go by;
+     I never watch in vain:
+     Moves one, move all:
+     Hark to the footfall!
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     They pass the cradle-head,
+     And there a promise shed;
+     They pass the moist new grave,
+     And bid bright verdure wave;
+     They bear through every clime,
+     The harvests of all time,
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+II.--AT THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.
+
+The death of a child is alone its parents' sorrow. Too young to know,
+too innocent to fear, its life is a smile and its death a sleep. As the
+sun goes down before our eyes, so a mother's love vanishes from the
+gaze of infancy, and death, like evening, comes to it with quietness,
+gentleness, and rest. We measure the loss of a child by the grief we
+feel. When its love is gone, its promise over, and its prattle silent,
+its fate excites the parents' tears; but we forget that infancy, like
+the rose, is unconscious of the sweetness it sheds, and it parts without
+pain from the pleasure it was too young to comprehend, though engaging
+enough to give to others. The death of a child is like the death of a
+day, of which George Herbert sings:
+
+     "Sweet day, so clear, so calm, so bright
+     Bridal of the earth and sky;
+     The dew shall weep thy fall to-night--
+     For thou must die."
+
+It is no consolation to say, "When a child dies it is taken from the
+sorrows of life." Yes! it is taken from the sorrows of life, and from
+its joys also. When the young die they are taken away from the evil, and
+from good as well. What parents' love does not include the happiness of
+its offspring? No! we will not cheat ourselves. Death is a real loss to
+those who mourn, and the world is never the same again to those who have
+wept by the grave of a child. Argument does not, in that hour, reach the
+heart. It is human to weep, and sympathy is the only medicine of great
+grief. The sight of the empty shoe in the corner will efface the most
+relevant logic. Not all the preaching since Adam has made death other
+than death. Yet, though sorrow cannot be checked at once by reason, it
+may be chastened by it. Wisdom teaches that all human passions must
+be subordinate to the higher purposes of life. We must no more abandon
+ourselves to grief than to vice. The condition of life is the liability
+to vicissitude, and, while it is human to feel, it is duty to endure.
+The flowers fade, and the stars go down, and youth and loveliness vanish
+in the eternal change. Though we cannot but regret a vital loss, it is
+wisdom to love all that is good for its own sake; to enjoy its presence
+fully, but not to build on its continuance, doing what we can to insure
+its continuance, and bearing with fortitude its loss when it comes. If
+the death of infancy teaches us this lesson, the past may be a charmed
+memory, with courage and dignity in it.
+
+III.--MEN OR WOMEN.
+
+The science of life teaches us that while there is pain there is life.
+It would seem, therefore, that death, with silent and courteous step,
+never comes save to the unconscious. A niece of Franklin's, known for
+her wit and consideration for others, arrived at her last hour at the
+age of ninety-eight. In her composure a friend gently touched her. "Ah,"
+murmured the old lady, "I was dying so beautifully when you brought
+me back! But never mind, my dear; I shall try it again." This bright
+resignation, worthy of the niece of a philosopher, is making its way in
+popular affection.
+
+Lord Tennyson, when death came near to him, wrote:
+
+     "Sunset and evening star,
+     And one clear call for me!
+     And may there be no moaning of the bar
+     When I put out to sea.
+
+     "Twilight and evening bell,
+     And after that the dark,
+     And may there be no sadness of farewell
+     When I embark."
+
+There is just a touch of superstition in these genial lines. He writes:
+"After death the dark." How did he know that? What evidence is there
+that the unknown land is "dark"? Why not light? The unknown has no
+determinate or ascertained color.
+
+Where we know nothing, neither priest nor poet has any right to speak
+as though he had knowledge. Improbability does not imply impossibility.
+That which invests death with romantic interest is, that it may be a
+venture on untried existence. If a future state be true, it will befall
+those who do not expect it as well as those who do. Another world, if
+such there be, will come most benefitingly and most agreeably to those who
+have qualified themselves for it, by having made the best use in their
+power of this. By best use is meant the service of man. Desert consists
+alone in the service of others. Kindness and cheerfulness are the two
+virtues which most brighten human life.
+
+Wide-eyed philanthropy is not merely money-giving goodness, but the
+wider kindness which aids the ascendancy of the right and minimises
+misery everywhere.
+
+Death teaches, as nothing else does, one useful lesson. Whatever
+affection or friendship we may have shown to one we have lost,
+Death brings to our memory countless acts of tenderness which we had
+neglected. Conscience makes us sensible of these omissions now it is too
+late to repair them. But we can pay to the living what we think we owe
+to the dead; whereby we transmute the dead we honor into benefactors of
+those they leave behind. This is a useful form of consolation, of which
+all survivors may avail themselves.
+
+Mrs. Ernestine Rose--a brave advocate of unfriended right--when age and
+infirmity brought her near to death, recalled the perils and triumphs
+in which she had shared, the slave she had helped to set free from the
+bondage of ownership, and the slave minds she had set free from the
+bondage of authority; she was cheered, and exclaimed: "But I have
+lived."
+
+The day will come when all around this grave shall meet death; but it
+will be a proud hour if, looking back upon a useful and generous past,
+we each can say: "I have _lived_."
+
+IV.----ON A CAREER OF PUBLIC USEFULNESS.
+
+In reasoning upon death no one has surpassed the argument of Socrates,
+who said: "Death is one of two things: either the dead may be nothing
+and have no feeling--well, then, if there be no feeling, but it be like
+sleep, when the sleeper has no dream, surely death would be a marvellous
+gain, for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.
+If, on the other hand, death be a removal hence to another place, and
+what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing
+can there be than this?"
+
+Sir Edwin Arnold, in his _Secret of Death_, writes:
+
+     "Nay, but as when one layeth
+     His worn-out robes away,
+     And, taking new ones, sayeth,
+     'These will I wear to-day!'
+
+     So putteth by the spirit
+     Lightly its garb of flesh,
+     And passeth to inherit
+     A residence afresh."
+
+This may be true, and there is no objection to it if it is. But the pity
+is, nobody seems to be sure about it. At death we may mourn, but duty
+ceaseth not. If we desist in endeavors for the right because a combatant
+falls at our side, no battle will ever be won. "Life," Mazzini used
+to say, "is a battle and a march." Those who serve others at their own
+peril are always in
+
+"battle." Let us honor them as they pass. Some of them have believed:
+
+     "Though love repine and reason chafe,
+     There came a voice without reply--
+     'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
+     When for the truth he ought to die.'"
+
+They are of those who, as another poet has said, "are not to be mourned,
+but to be imitated."* The mystery of death is no greater than
+the mystery of life. All that precedes our existence was unseen,
+unimaginable, and unknown to us. What may succeed in the future is
+unprovable by philosopher or priest:
+
+     "A flower above and the mould below:
+     And this is all that the mourners know."**
+
+The ideal of life which gives calmness and confidence in death is
+the same in the mind of the wise Christian as in the mind of the
+philosopher. Sydney Smith says: "Add to the power of discovering truth
+the desire of using it for the promotion of human happiness, and
+you have the great end and object of our existence."*** Putting just
+intention into action, a man fulfils the supreme duty of life, which
+casts out all fear of the future.
+
+     * W. J. Linton.
+
+     ** Barry Cornwall.
+
+     ***  Moral Philosophy.
+
+A poet who thought to reconcile to their loss those whose lines have not
+fallen to them in pleasant places wrote:
+
+     "A little rule, a little sway,
+     A sunbeam on a winter's day,
+     Is all the proud and mighty have
+     Between the cradle and the grave."
+
+This is not true; the proud and mighty have rest at choice, and play at
+will. The "sunbeam" is on them all their days. Between the cradle and
+the grave is the whole existence of man. The splendid inheritance of
+the "proud and mighty" ought to be shared by all whose labor creates and
+makes possible the good fortune of those who "toil not, neither do they
+spin"*, and whoever has sought to endow the industrious with liberty and
+intelligence, with competence and leisure, we may commit to the earth in
+the sure and certain hope that they deserve well, and will fare well, in
+any "land of the leal" to which mankind may go.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Secularism
+       A Confession Of Belief
+
+Author: George Jacob Holyoake
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38104]
+Last Updated: January 25, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH SECULARISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      ENGLISH SECULARISM
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      A CONFESSION OF BELIEF
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By George Jacob Holyoake
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      1896
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE OPEN COURT, in which the series of articles constituting this work
+      originally appeared, has given account of many forms of faith,
+      supplementary or confirmatory of its own, and sometimes of forms of
+      opinions dissimilar where there appeared to be instruction in them. It
+      will be an advantage to the reader should its editor state objections, or
+      make comments, as he may deem necessary and useful. English Secularism is
+      as little known in America as American and Canadian Secularisation is
+      understood in Great Britain. The new form of free thought known as English
+      Secularism does not include either Theism or Atheism. Whether Monism,
+      which I can conceive as a nobler and scientific form of Theism, might be a
+      logical addition to the theory of Secularism, as set forth in the
+      following pages, the editor of The Open Court may be able to show. If this
+      be so, every open-minded reader will better see the truth by comparison.
+      Contrast is the incandescent light of argument.
+    </p>
+    <h5>
+      George Jacob Holyoake.<br /> Eastern Lodge,<br /> Brighton, England,
+      February, 1896.
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OPEN
+        THOUGHT THE FIRST STEP TO INTELLIGENCE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002">
+        CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE QUESTION STATED <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FIRST STAGE OF
+        FREE THOUGHT: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATION <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE SECOND STAGE OF
+        FREE THOUGHT: ENTERPRISE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONQUESTS OF INVESTIGATION <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;STATIONARINESS OF
+        CRITICISM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THIRD
+        STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT&mdash;SECULARISM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THREE PRINCIPLES VINDICATED <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW SECULARISM AROSE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW
+        SECULARISM WAS DIFFUSED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SECULAR INSTRUCTION DISTINCT FROM SECULARISM <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        DISTINCTIVENESS MADE FURTHER EVIDENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013">
+        CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SELF-DEFENSIVE FOR THE PEOPLE <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REJECTED TENETS
+        REPLACED BY BETTER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MORALITY
+        INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ETHICAL CERTITUDE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017">
+        CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE ETHICAL METHOD OF CONTROVERSY <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII.&nbsp; </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ITS
+        DISCRIMINATION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;APART
+        FROM CHRISTIANISM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SECULARISM
+        CREATES A NEW RESPONSIBILITY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER
+        XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THROUGH OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SELF-EXTENDING
+        PRINCIPLES <br /><br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> SECULARIST CEREMONIES. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc2">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> ON MARRIAGE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc2">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> NAMING CHILDREN. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc2">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> OVER THE DEAD. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      AMONG the representative freethinkers of the world Mr. George J. Holyoake
+      takes a most prominent position. He is a leader of leaders, he is the
+      brain of the Secularist party in England, he is a hero and a martyr of
+      their cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Judged as a man, Mr. Holyoake is of sterling character; he was not afraid
+      of prison, nor of unpopularity and ostracism, nor of persecution of any
+      kind. If he ever feared anything, it was being not true to himself and
+      committing himself to something that was not right. He was an agitator all
+      his life, and as an agitator he was&mdash;whether or not we agree with his
+      views&mdash;an ideal man. He is the originator of the Secularist movement
+      that was started in England; he invented the name Secularism, and he was
+      the backbone of the Secularist propaganda ever since it began. Mr.
+      Holyoake left his mark in the history of thought, and the influence which
+      he exercised will for good or evil remain an indelible heirloom of the
+      future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism is not the cause which The Open Court Publishing Co. upholds,
+      but it is a movement which on account of its importance ought not to be
+      overlooked. Whatever our religious views may be, we must reckon with the
+      conditions that exist, and Secularism is powerful enough to deserve
+      general attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is Secularism?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism espouses the cause of the world versus theology; of the secular
+      and temporal versus the sacred and ecclesiastical. Secularism claims that
+      religion ought never to be anything but a private affair; it denies the
+      right of any kind of church to be associated with the public life of a
+      nation, and proposes to supersede the official influence which religious
+      institutions still exercise in both hemispheres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rather than abolish religion or paralyse its influence, The Open Court
+      Publishing Co. would advocate on the one hand to let the religious spirit
+      pervade the whole body politic, together with all public institutions, and
+      also the private life of every single individual; and on the other hand to
+      carry all secular interests into the church, which would make the church
+      subservient to the real needs of mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith, which is y an
+      exposition of Secularism, not because we are Secularists, which we are
+      not, but because we believe that Mr. Holyoake is entitled to a hearing.
+      Mr. Holyoake is a man of unusually great common sense, of keen reasoning
+      faculty, and of indubitable sincerity. What he says he means, and what he
+      believes he lives up to, what he recognises to be right he will do, even
+      though the whole world would stand up against him. In a word, he is a man
+      who according to our conception of religion proves by his love of truth
+      that, however he himself may disclaim it, he is actually a deeply
+      religious man. His religious earnestness is rare, and our churches would
+      be a good deal better off if all the pulpits were filled with men of his
+      stamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith not for Secularists only,
+      but also and especially for the benefit of religious people, of his
+      adversaries, of his antagonists; for they ought to know him and understand
+      him; they ought to appreciate his motives for dissenting from church
+      views; and ought to learn why so many earnest and honest people are
+      leaving the church and will have nothing to do with church institutions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why is it that Christianity is losing its bold on mankind? Is it because
+      the Christian doctrines have become antiquated, and does the church no
+      longer adapt herself to the requirements of the present age? Is it that
+      the representative Christian thinkers are lacking in intellectuality and
+      moral strength? Or is it that the world at large has outgrown religion and
+      refuses to be guided by the spiritual counsel of popes and pastors?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever the reason may be, the fact itself cannot be doubted, and the
+      question is only, What will become of religion in the future? Will the
+      future of mankind be irreligious (as for instance Mr. Lecky and M. Guyau
+      prophesy); or will religion regain its former importance and become again
+      the leading power in life, dominating both public and private affairs?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first condition of a reconciliation between religion and the masses of
+      mankind would be for religious men patiently to listen to the complaints
+      that are made by the adversaries of Christianity, and to understand the
+      position which honest and sensible freethinkers, such as Mr. Holyoake,
+      take. Religious leaders are too little acquainted with the world at large;
+      they avoid their antagonists like outcasts, and rarely, if ever, try to
+      comprehend their arguments. In the same way, freethinkers as a rule
+      despise clergymen as hypocrites who for the sake of a living sell their
+      souls and preach doctrines which they cannot honestly believe. In order to
+      arrive at a mutual understanding, it would be necessary first of all that
+      both parties should discontinue ostracising one another and become
+      mutually acquainted. They should lay aside for a while the weapons with
+      which they are wont to combat one another in the public press and in tract
+      literature; they should cease scolding and ridiculing one another and
+      simply present their own case in terse terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Mr. Holyoake has done. His Confession of Faith is as concise as any
+      book of the kind can be; and he, being the originator of Secularism and
+      its standard-bearer, is the man who speaks with authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the sake of religion, therefore, and for promoting the mutual
+      understanding of men of a different turn of mind, we present his book to
+      the public and recommend its careful perusal especially to the clergy, who
+      will learn from this book some of the most important reasons why
+      Christianity has become unacceptable to a large class of truth-loving men,
+      who alone for the sake of truth find it best to stay out of the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The preface of a book is as a rule not deemed the right place to criticise
+      an author, but such is the frankness and impartiality of Mr. Holyoake that
+      he has kindly permitted the manager of The Open Court Publishing Co. to
+      criticise his book freely and to state the disagreements that might obtain
+      between publishers and author in the very preface of the book. There is no
+      need of making an extensive use of this permission, as a few remarks will
+      be sufficient to render clear the difference between Secularism and the
+      views of The Open Court Publishing Co., which we briefly characterise as
+      "the Religion of Science."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism divides life into what is secular and what is religious, and
+      would consign all matters of religion to the sphere of private interests.
+      The Religion of Science would not divide life into a secular and a
+      religious part, but would have both the secular and the religious united.
+      It would carry religion into all secular affairs so as to sanctify and
+      transfigure them; and for this purpose it would make religion practical,
+      so as to be suited to the various needs of life; it would make religion
+      scientifically sound, so as to be in agreement with the best and most
+      scientific thought of the age; it would reform church doctrines and raise
+      them from their dogmatic arbitrariness upon the higher plain of objective
+      truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In emphasising our differences we should, however, not fail to recognise
+      the one main point of agreement, which is our belief in science. Mr.
+      Holyoake would settle all questions of doubt by the usual method of
+      scientific investigation. But there is a difference even here, which is a
+      different conception of science. While science to Mr. Holyoake is secular,
+      we insist on the holiness and religious significance of science. If there
+      is any revelation of God, it is truth; and what is science but truth
+      ascertained? Therefore we would advise all preachers and all those to
+      whose charge souls of men are committed, to take off their shoes when
+      science speaks to them, for science is the voice of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The statement is sometimes made by those who belittle science in the vain
+      hope of exalting religion, that the science of yesterday has been upset by
+      the science of to-day, and that the science of today may again be upset by
+      the science of to-morrow. Nothing can be more untrue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, science must not be identified with the opinion of scientists.
+      Science is the systematic statement of facts, and not the theories which
+      are tentatively proposed to fill out the gaps of our knowledge. What has
+      once been proved to be a fact has never been overthrown, and the actual
+      stock of science has grown slowly but surely. The discovery of new facts
+      or the proposition of a new and reliable hypothesis has often shown the
+      old facts of science in a new light, but it has never upset or disproved
+      them. There are fashions in the opinions of scientists, but science itself
+      is above fashion, above change, above human opinion. Science partakes of
+      that stern immutability, it is endowed with that eternality and that
+      omnipresent universality which have since olden times been regarded as the
+      main attribute of Godhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There appears in all religions, at a certain stage of the religious
+      development, a party of dogmatists. They are people who, in their zeal,
+      insist on the exclusiveness of their own religion, as if truth were a
+      commodity which, if possessed by one, cannot be possessed by anybody else.
+      They know little of the spirit that quickens, but believe blindly in the
+      letter of the dogma. It is not faith in their opinion that saves, but the
+      blindness of faith. They interpret Christ's words and declare that he who
+      has another interpretation must be condemned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dogmatic phase in the development of religion is as natural as boyhood
+      in a human life and as immaturity in the growth of fruit; it is natural
+      and necessary, but it is a phase only which will pass as inevitably by as
+      boyhood changes into manhood, and as the prescientific stage in the
+      evolution of civilisation gives way to a better and deeper knowledge of
+      nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dogmatist is in the habit of identifying his dogmatism with religion;
+      and that is the reason why his definitions of religion and morality will
+      unfailingly come in conflict with the common sense of the people. The
+      dogmatist makes religion exclusive. In the attempt of exalting religion he
+      relegates it to supernatural spheres, thus excluding it from the world and
+      creating a contrast between the sacred and the profane, between the divine
+      and the secular, between religion and life. Thus it happens that religion
+      becomes something beyond, something extraneous, something foreign to man's
+      sphere of being. And yet religion has developed for the sake of
+      sanctifying the daily walks of man, of making the secular sacred, of
+      filling life with meaning and consecrating even the most trivial duties of
+      existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism is the reaction against dogmatism, but secularism still accepts
+      the views of the dogmatist on religion; for it is upon the dogmatist's
+      valuations and definitions that the secularist rejects religion as
+      worthless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The religious movement, of which The Open Court Publishing Co. is an
+      exponent, represents one further step in the evolution of religious
+      aspirations. As alchemy develops into chemistry, and astrology into
+      astronomy, as blind faith changes into seeing face to face, as belief
+      changes into knowledge, so the religion of miracles, the religion of a
+      salvation by magic, the religion of the dogmatist, ripens into the
+      religion of pure and ascertainable truth. The old dogmas, which in their
+      literal acceptance appear as nonsensical errors, are now recognised as
+      allegories which symbolise deeper truths, and the old ideals are preserved
+      not with less, but with more, significance than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God is not smaller but greater since we know more about Him, as to what He
+      is and what He is not, just as the universe is not smaller but larger
+      since Copernicus and Kepler opened our eyes and showed us what the
+      relation of our earth in the solar system is and what it is not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism is one of the signs of the times. It represents the unbelief in
+      a religious alchemy; but its antagonism to the religion of dogmatism does
+      not bode destruction but advance. It represents the transition to a purer
+      conception of religion. It has not the power to abolish the church, but
+      only indicates the need of its reformation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is this reformation of religion and of religious institutions which is
+      the sole aim of all the publications of The Open Court Publishing Co., and
+      we see in Secularism one of those agencies that are at work preparing the
+      way for a higher and nobler comprehension of the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Holyoake's aspirations, in our opinion, go beyond the aims which he
+      himself points out, and thus his Confession of Faith, although nominally
+      purely secular, will finally, even by churchmen, be recognised in its
+      religious importance. It will help to purify the confession of faith of
+      the dogmatist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In offering Mr. Holyoake's best and maturest thoughts to the public, we
+      hope that both the secularists and the believers in religion will by and
+      by learn to understand that Secularism as much as dogmatism is a phase&mdash;both
+      are natural and necessary phases&mdash;in the religious evolution of
+      mankind. There is no use in scolding either the dogmatist or the
+      secularist, or in denouncing the one on account of his credulity and
+      superstition, and the other on account of his dissent; but there is a use
+      in&mdash;nay, there is need of&mdash;understanding the aspirations of
+      both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a need of mutual exchange of thought on the basis of mutual
+      esteem and good-will. Above all, there is a need of opening the church
+      doors to the secularist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church, if it has any right of existence at all, is for the world, and
+      not for believers alone. Church members can learn from the secularist many
+      things which many believers seem to have forgotten, and, on the other
+      hand, they can teach the unbeliever what he has overlooked in his sincere
+      attempts at finding the truth, May Mr. Holyoake's confession of faith be
+      received in the spirit in which the author wrote it, which is a candid
+      love of truth, and also in the spirit in which the publishers undertook
+      its publication, with the irenic endeavor of letting every honest
+      aspiration be rightly understood and rightly valued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul Carus, Manager of The Open Court Publishing Co.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. OPEN THOUGHT THE FIRST STEP TO INTELLIGENCE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "It is not prudent to be in the right too soon, nor to be in
+     the right against everybody else. And yet it sometimes
+     happens that after a certain lapse of time, greater or
+     lesser, you will find that one of those truths which you had
+     kept to yourself as premature, but which has got abroad in
+     spite of your teeth, has become the most commonplace thing
+     imaginable."
+
+     &mdash;Alphonse Karr.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      ONE purpose of these chapters is to explain how unfounded are the
+      objections of many excellent Christians to Secular instruction in State,
+      public, or board schools. The Secular is distinct from theology, which it
+      neither ignores, assails, nor denies. Things Secular are as separate from
+      the Church as land from the ocean. And what nobody seems to discern is
+      that things Secular are in themselves quite distinct from Secularism. The
+      Secular is a mode of instruction; Secularism is a code of conduct.
+      Secularism does conflict with theology; Secularist teaching would, but
+      Secular instruction does not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persuaded as I am that lack of consideration for the convictions of the
+      reader creates an impediment in the way of his agreement with the writer,
+      and even disinclines him to examine what is put before him; yet some of
+      these pages may be open to this objection. If so, it is owing to want of
+      thought or want of art in statement, and is no part of the intention of
+      the author.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have diffidence in expressing, as he does in these pages, his
+      dissent from the opinions of many Christian advocates&mdash;for whose
+      character and convictions he has great respect, and for some even
+      affection&mdash;did he not perceive that few have any diffidence or
+      reservation (save in one or two exalted instances)* in maintaining their
+      views and dissenting from his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Open thought, which in this chapter is brought under the reader's notice
+      is sometimes called "self-thought," or "free thought," or "original
+      thought"&mdash;the opposite of conventional second-hand thought&mdash;which
+      is all that the custom-ridden mass of mankind is addicted to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Open thought has three stages:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first stage is that in which the right to think independently is
+      insisted on; and the free action of opinion&mdash;so formed&mdash;is
+      maintained. Conscious power thus acquired satisfies the pride of some;
+      others limit its exercise from prudence. Interests, which would be
+      jeopardised by applying independent thought to received opinion, keep more
+      persons silent, and thus many never pass from this stage.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Of whom the greatest is Mr. Gladstone.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The second stage is that in which the right of self-thought is applied to
+      the criticism of theology, with a view to clear the way for life according
+      to reason. This is not the work of a day or year, but is so prolonged that
+      clearing the way becomes as it were a profession, and is at length pursued
+      as an end instead of a means. Disputation becomes a passion and the higher
+      state of life, of which criticism is the necessary precursor, is lost
+      sight of, and many remain at this stage when it is reached and go no
+      further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third stage is that where ethical motives of conduct apart from
+      Christianity are vindicated for the guidance of those who are indifferent
+      about theology, or who reject it altogether. Supplying to such persons
+      Secular reasons for duty is Secularism, the range of which is illimitable.
+      It begins where free thought usually ends, and constitutes a new form of
+      constructive thought, the principles and policy of which are quite
+      different from those acted upon in the preceding stages. Controversy
+      concerns itself with what is; Secularism with what ought to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is pertinent here to say that Christianity does not permit eclecticism&mdash;that
+      is, it does not tolerate others selecting portions of Christian Scriptures
+      possessing the mark of intrinsic truth, to which many could cheerfully
+      conform in their lives. This rule compels all who cannot accept the entire
+      Scriptures to deal with its teachings as they find them expressed, and for
+      which Christianity makes itself responsible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the while it is quite evident that Christians do permit eclecticism
+      among themselves. The great Congress of the Free Churches, recently held
+      in Nottingham, representing the personal and vital form of Christianity,
+      had a humanness and tolerance un manifested by Christianity before,
+      showing that humanity is stronger than historical integrity. If any one,
+      therefore, should draw up, as might be done, a theory of Christianity
+      solely from such doctrines as are represented in the elliptical preaching,
+      practice, and social life of Christians of to-day, a very different
+      estimate of the Christian system would have to be given from that with
+      which the author deals in the subsequent chapters. In them Christianity is
+      represented as Free-thought has found it, and as it exists in the
+      Scriptures, in the law, in the pulpit, and in the school, which constitute
+      its total force in the respects in which it represses and discourages
+      independent thought. Science, truth, and criticism have engrafted
+      themselves on historic Christianity. It has now new articles of belief.
+      When it avows them it will win larger concurrence and respect than it can
+      now command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE QUESTION STATED
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Look forward&mdash;not backward; Look up&mdash;not down; Look around;
+     Lend a hand."*
+
+     &mdash;Edward Everett Hale, D. D.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Where a monarchy is master, inquiry is apt to be a disturbing element; and
+      though exercised in the interest of the commonwealth it is none the less
+      resented. Where the priest is master inquiry is sharply prohibited. The
+      priest represents a spiritual monarchy in which the tenets of belief are
+      fixed, assumed to be infallible, and to be prescribed by deity. Thus the
+      priest regards inquiry as proceeding from an impertinent distrust, to
+      which he is not reconciled on being assured that it is undertaken in the
+      interest of truth. Thus the king denounces inquiry as sedition, and the
+      priest as sin. In the end the inquirer finds himself an alien in State and
+      Church, and laws are made against his life, his liberty, property, and
+      veracity.**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Dr. Hale did not popularise these energetic maxims of
+     earnestness in the connexion in which they are here used;
+     but their wisdom is of general application.
+
+     **When martyrdoms and imprisonments ceased, disabling laws
+     remained which imposed the Christian oath on all who
+     appealed to the courts, and any who had the pride of
+     veracity and declined to to swear, were denied protection
+     for property, or credence of their word.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thus from the time when monarch and priest first set up their pretensions
+      in the world, the inquiring mind has had small encouragement. When
+      Protestantism came it merely conceded inquiry <i>under direction</i>, and
+      only so far as it tended to confirm its own anti-papal tenets. But when
+      inquiry claimed to be independent, unfettered, uncontrolled,&mdash;in fact
+      to be <i>free</i> inquiry,&mdash;then Papist, Lutheran, and Dissenter,
+      alike regarded it as dangerous, and stigmatised it by every term
+      calculated to deter or dissuade people from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though this combined defamation of inquiry set many against it, it did
+      not intimidate men entirely. There arose independent thinkers who held
+      that unfettered investigation was the discoverer of truth and dangerous to
+      error only, and that the freer it was the more effective it must be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still timorous-minded persons remained suspicious of <i>free</i> thought.
+      At its best they found it involved conflict with false opinion, and
+      conflict, to those without aspiration or conscience, is disquieting; and
+      where impartial investigation interfered with personal interests it was
+      opposed. No one could enter on the search for truth without finding his
+      path obstructed by theological errors and interdictions. Having taken the
+      side of truth, all who were loyal to it, were bound like Bunyan's
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pilgrim to withstand the Apollyons who opposed it, and a combat began
+      which lasted for centuries, and is not yet ended. But though theology was
+      always in power, men of courage at length established the right of free
+      inquiry, and established also a free press for the publication of the
+      results arrived at. These rights were so indispensable for progress and
+      were so long resisted, that generations fought for them as ends in
+      themselves. Thus there grew up, as in military affairs, a class whose
+      profession was destruction, and free thinkers came to be regarded as
+      negationists. When I came into the field the combat was raging. Richard
+      Carlile had not long been liberated from successive imprisonments of more
+      than nine years duration in all. Charles Southwell was in Bristol gaol.
+      Before his sentence had half expired I was in Gloucester gaol. George
+      Adams was there; Mrs. Harriet Adams was committed for trial from
+      Cheltenham. Matilda Roalfe, Thomas Finlay, Thomas Paterson, and others
+      were incarcerated in Scotland. Robert Buchanan and Lloyd Jones, two social
+      missionaries&mdash;colleagues of my own&mdash;only escaped imprisonment by
+      swearing they believed what they did not believe,&mdash;an act I refused
+      to imitate, and no mean inconvenience has resulted to me from it. I took
+      part in the vindication of the free publicity of opinion until it was
+      practically conceded. At the time when I was arrested in 1842, the
+      Cheltenham magistrates who were angered at defiant remarks I made, had the
+      power (and used it) of committing me to the Quarter Sessions as a "felon,"
+      where the same justices could resent, by penalties, what I had said to
+      them. On representations I made to Parliament&mdash;through my friend John
+      Arthur Roebuck and others&mdash;Sir James Graham caused a Bill to be
+      passed which removed trials for opinion to the Assizes. I was the first
+      person tried under this act. Thus for the first time heresy was ensured a
+      dispassionate trial and was no longer subject to the jurisdiction of local
+      prejudice and personal magisterial resentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When overt acts of outrage were no longer possible against the adherents
+      of free thought, Christians, some from fairness, and others from
+      necessity, began to reason with them and asked: "Now you have established
+      your claim to be heard. What have you to say?" The reply I proposed was:
+      "Secularism&mdash;a form of opinion relating to the duty of this life
+      which substituted the piety of useful men for the usefulness of piety."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE FIRST STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATION
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "He who cannot reason is defenceless; he who fears to reason
+     has a coward mind; he who will not reason is willing to be
+     deceived and will deceive all who listen to him."
+
+     &mdash;Maxim of Free Thought.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FREE THOUGHT is founded upon reason. It is the exercise of reason, without
+      which free thought is free foolishness. Free thought being the precursor
+      of Secularism, it is necessary first to describe its principles and their
+      limitation. Free thought means independent self-thinking. Some say all
+      thought is free since a man can think what he pleases and no one can
+      prevent him, which is not true. Unfortunately thinking can be prevented by
+      subtle spiritual intimidation, in earlier and even in later life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a police agent found young Mazzini in the fields of Genoa, apparently
+      meditating, his father's attention was called to the youth. His father was
+      told that the Austrian Government did not permit thinking. The Inquisition
+      intimidated nations from thinking. The priests by preventing instruction
+      and prohibiting books, limited thinking. Archbishop Whately shows that no
+      one can reason without words, and since speech can be, and is, disallowed
+      and made penal, the highway of thought can be closed. No one can think to
+      any purpose without inquiry concerning his subject, and inquiry can be
+      made impossible. It is of little use that any one thinks who cannot verify
+      his ideas by comparison with those of his compeers. To prevent this is to
+      discourage thought. In fact thousands are prevented thinking by denying
+      them the means and the facilities of thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal
+      penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does not
+      alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not authority
+      for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he is under no
+      dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law, nor custom, nor
+      pulpits, nor society&mdash;whose opinion appals so many. He who has the
+      manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save the fear of
+      error.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fearlessness is the essential condition of effective thought. If Satan
+      sits at the top of the Bible with perdition open underneath it, into which
+      its readers will be pushed who may doubt what they find in its pages, the
+      right of private judgment is a snare. A man is a fool who inquires at this
+      risk. He had better accept at once the superstition of the first priest he
+      meets. It is not conceivable how a Christian can be a <i>free</i> thinker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who is afraid to know both sides of a question cannot think upon it.
+      Christians do not, as a rule, want to know what can be said against their
+      views, and they keep out of libraries all books which would inform others.
+      Thus such Christians cannot think freely, and are against others doing it.
+      Doubt comes of thinking; the Christian commonly regards doubt as sin. How
+      can he be a free thinker who thinks thinking is a sin?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Free thought implies three things as conditions of truth:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. Free inquiry, which is the pathway to truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Free publicity to the ideas acquired, in order to learn whether they
+      are useful&mdash;which is the encouragement of truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. The free discussion of convictions without which it is not possible to
+      know whether they are true or false, which is the verification of truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man is not a man unless he is a thinker; he is a fool having no ideas of
+      his own. If he happens to live among men who do think, he browses like an
+      animal on their ideas. He is a sort of kept man being supported by the
+      thoughts of others. He is what in England is called a pauper, who subsists
+      upon "outdoor relief," allowed him by men of intellect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without the right of publicity, individual thought, however praiseworthy
+      and however perfect, would be barren to the community. Algernon Sidney
+      said: "The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech and the
+      example of using it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergy of every denomination are unfriendly to its use. The soldiers
+      of the cross do not fight adversaries in the open. Mr. Gladstone alone
+      among eminent men of piety has insisted upon the duty of the Church to
+      prove its claims in discussion. In his Introduction to his address at the
+      Liverpool College (1872 or 1873) he said: "I wish to place on record my
+      conviction that belief cannot now be defended by reticence any more than
+      by railing, or by any privileges or assumption." Since the day of Milton
+      there has been no greater authority on the religious wisdom of debate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thought, even theological, is often useless, ill-informed, foolish,
+      mischievous, or even wicked; and he alone who submits it to free criticism
+      gives guarantees that he means well, and is self-convinced. By criticism
+      alone comes exposure, correction, or confirmation. The right of criticism
+      is the sole protection of the community against error of custom,
+      ignorance, prejudice, or incompetence. It is not until a proposition has
+      been generally accepted after open and fair examination, that it can be
+      considered as established and can safely be made a ground of action or
+      belief.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See Formation of Opinions, by Samuel Bailey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These are the implementary rights of thought. They are what grammar is to
+      the writer, which teaches him how to express himself, but not what to say.
+      These rights are as the rules of navigation to the mariner. They teach him
+      how to steer a ship but do not instruct him where to steer to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The full exercise of these rights of mental freedom is what training in
+      the principles of jurisprudence is to the pleader, but it does not provide
+      him with a brief. It is conceivable that a man may come to be a master of
+      independent thinking and never put his powers to use; just as a man may
+      know every rule of grammar and yet never write a book. In the same way a
+      man may pass an examination in the art of navigation and never take
+      command of a vessel; or he may qualify for a Barrister, be called to the
+      Bar and never plead in any court. We know from experience that many
+      persons join in the combat for the right of intellectual freedom for its
+      own sake, without intending or caring to use the right when won. Some are
+      generous enough to claim and contend for these rights from the belief that
+      they may be useful to others. This is the first stage of free thought,
+      and, as has been said, many never pass beyond it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Independent thinking is concerned primarily with removing obstacles to its
+      own action, and in contests for liberty of speech by tongue and pen. The
+      free mind fights mainly for its own freedom. It may begin in curiosity and
+      may end in intellectual pride&mdash;unless conscience takes care of it.
+      Its nature is iconoclastic and it may exist without ideas of
+      reconstruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though a man goes no further, he is a better man than he who never went as
+      far. He has acquired a new power, and is sure of his own mind. Just as one
+      who has learned to fence, or to shoot, has a confidence in encountering an
+      adversary, which is seldom felt by one who never had a sword in hand, or
+      practised at a target. The sea is an element of recreation to one who has
+      learned to swim; it is an element of death to one ignorant of the art.
+      Besides, the thinker has attained a courage and confidence unknown to the
+      man of orthodox mind. Since God (we are assured) is the God of truth, the
+      honest searcher after truth has God on his side, and has no dread of the
+      King of Perdition&mdash;the terror of all Christian people&mdash;since the
+      business of Satan is with those who are content with false ideas; not with
+      those who seek the true. If it be a duty to seek the truth and to live the
+      truth, honest discussion, which discerns it, identifies it, clears it, and
+      establishes it, is a form of worship of real honor to God and of true
+      service to man. If the clergyman's speech on behalf of God is rendered
+      exact by criticism, the criticism is a tribute, and no mean tribute to
+      heaven. Thus the free exercise of the rights of thought involve no risk
+      hereafter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, so far as a man thinks he gains. Thought implies enterprise and
+      exertion of mind, and the result is wealth of understanding, to be
+      acquired in no other way. This intellectual property like other property,
+      has its rights and duties. The thinker's right is to be left in
+      undisturbed possession of what he has earned; and his duty is to share his
+      discoveries of truth with mankind, to whom he owes his opportunities of
+      acquiring it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Free expression involves consideration for others, on principle. Democracy
+      without personal deference becomes a nuisance; so free speech without
+      courtesy is repulsive, as free publicity would be, if not mainly limited
+      to reasoned truth. Otherwise every blatant impulse would have the same
+      right of utterance as verified ideas. Even truth can only claim priority
+      of utterance, when its utility is manifest. As the number and length of
+      hairs on a man's head is less important to know, than the number and
+      quality of the ideas in his brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True free thought requires special qualities to insure itself acceptance.
+      It must be owned that the thinker is a disturber. He is a truth-hunter,
+      and there is no telling what he will find. Truth is an exile which has
+      been kept out of her kingdom, and Error is a usurper in possession of it;
+      and the moment Truth comes into her right, Error has to give up its
+      occupancy of her territory; and as everybody consciously, or unconsciously
+      harbors some of the emissaries of the usurper, they do not like owning the
+      fact, and they dispute the warrant of truth to search their premises,
+      though to be relieved of such deceitful and costly inmates would be an
+      advantage to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An inalienable attribute of free thought, which no theology possesses, is
+      absolute toleration of all ideas put forward in the interests of public
+      truth, and submitted to public discussion. The true free thinker is in
+      favor of the free action of all opinion which injures no one else, and of
+      putting the best construction he can on the acts of others, not only
+      because he has thereby less to tolerate, but from perceiving that he who
+      lacks tolerance towards the ideas of others has no claim for the tolerance
+      of his own. The defender of toleration must himself be tolerant.
+      Condemning the coercion of ideas, he is pledged to combat error only by
+      reason. Vindictiveness towards the erring is not only inconsistency, it is
+      persecution. Thus free thought is not only self-defence against error but,
+      by the toleration it imposes, is itself security for respectfulness in
+      controversy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ENTERPRISE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Better wild ideas than no ideas at all."
+
+     &mdash;Professor Nichol at Horsham.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      THE emancipation of the understanding from intimidation and penal
+      restraint soon incited thinkers of enterprise to put their new powers to
+      use. Theology being especially a forbidden subject and the greatest
+      repressive force, inquiry into its pretensions first attracted critical
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In every century forlorn hopes of truth had set out to storm one or other
+      of the ramparts of theology. Forces had been marshalled by great leaders
+      and battle often given in the open field; and unforeseen victories are
+      recorded, in the annals of the wars of infantine rationalism, against the
+      full-grown powers of superstition and darkness. In every age valiant
+      thinkers, scholars, philosophers, and critics, even priests in defiance of
+      power, ecclesiastical and civil, have, at their own peril, explored the
+      regions of forbidden truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Great Britain it was the courage of insurgent thinkers among the
+      working class&mdash;whom no imprisonment could intimidate&mdash;who caused
+      the right of free speech and free publicity to be finally conceded. Thus
+      rulers came round to the conclusion of Caballero, that "tolerance is as
+      necessary in ideas as in social relations."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as opinion was known to be emancipated, men began to think who
+      never thought before. The thinker no longer had to obtain a "Ticket of
+      Leave" from the Churches before he could inquire; he was free to
+      investigate where he would and what he would. Power is, as a rule, never
+      imparted nor acquired in vain, and honest men felt they owed it to those
+      who had won freedom for them, that they should extend it. Thus it came to
+      pass that independence was an inspiration to action in men of intrepid
+      minds. Professor Tyndall in the last words he wrote for publication said,
+      "I choose the nobler part of Emerson when, after various disenchantments,
+      he exclaims, 'I covet truth!'" On printing these words the <i>Westminster
+      Gazette</i> added: "The gladness of true heroism visits the heart of him
+      who is really competent to say this." The energies of intellectual
+      intrepidity had doubtless been devoted to science and social progress; but
+      as philosophers have found, down to Huxley's day, all exploration was
+      impossible in that direction. Murchison, Brewster, Buckland, and other
+      pioneers of science were intimidated. Lyell held back his book, on the
+      Antiquity of Man, twenty years. Tyndall, Huxley, and Spencer were waiting
+      to be heard. As Huxley has justly said: "there was no Thoroughfare into
+      the Kingdom of Nature&mdash;By Order&mdash;Moses." Hence, to examine
+      theology, to discover whether its authority was absolute, became a
+      necessity. It was soon seen that there was ground for scepticism. The
+      priests resented criticism by representing the sceptic of their
+      pretensions, as being sceptical of everything, whereas they were only
+      sceptics of clerical infallibility. They indeed did aver that branches of
+      human knowledge, received as well established, were really open to
+      question, in order to show that if men could not be confident of things of
+      which they had experience, how could the Churches be confident of things
+      of which no man had experience&mdash;and which contradicted experience? So
+      far from disbelieving everything, scepticism went everywhere in search of
+      truth and certainty. Since the Church could not be absolutely certain of
+      the truth of its tenets, its duty was to be tolerant. But being intolerant
+      it became as Julian Hibbert put it&mdash;"well-understood self-defence" to
+      assail it. The Church fought for power, the thinker fought for truth. Free
+      thought among the people may be likened to a good ship manned by
+      adventurous mariners, who, cruising about in the ocean of theology came
+      upon sirens, as other mariners had done before&mdash;dangerous to be
+      followed by navigators bound to ports of progress. Many were thereby
+      decoyed to their own destruction. The sirens of the Churches sang alluring
+      songs whose refrains were:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The Bible the guide of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. The origin of the universe disclosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. The care of Providence assured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. Deliverance from peril by prayer dependable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. Original sin effaceable by grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. Perdition avoidable by faith in crucifixion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. Future life revealed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These propositions were subjects of resonant hymns, sermons, and tracts,
+      and were not, and are not, disowned, but still defended in discussion by
+      orthodox and clerical advocates. Save salvation by the blood of Christ (a
+      painful idea to entertain), the other ideas might well fascinate the
+      uninquiring. They had enchanted many believers, but the explorers of whom
+      we speak had acquired the questioning spirit, and had learned prudently to
+      look at both sides of familiar subjects and soon discovered that the
+      fair-seeming propositions which had formerly imposed on their imagination
+      were unsound, unsightly, and unsafe. The Syracusans of old kept a school
+      in which slaves were taught the ways of bondage. Christianity has kept
+      such a school in which subjection of the understanding was inculcated, and
+      the pupils, now free to investigate, resolved to see whether such things
+      were true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then began the reign of refutation of theological error, by some from
+      indignation at having been imposed upon, by others from zeal that
+      misconception should end; by more from enthusiasm for facts; by the bolder
+      sort from resentment at the intimidation and cruelty with which inquiry
+      had been suppressed so long; and by not a few from the love of disputation
+      which has for some the delight men have for chess or cricket, or other
+      pursuit which has conflict and conquest in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Self-determined thought is a condition of the progress of nations. Where
+      would science be but for open thought, the nursing mother of enterprise,
+      of discovery, of invention, of new conditions of human betterment?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A modern Hindu writer* tells us that: "The Hindu is sorely handicapped by
+      customs which are prescribed by his religious books. Hedged in by minute
+      rules and restrictions the various classes forming the Hindu community
+      have had but little room for expansion and progress. The result has been
+      stagnation. Caste has prevented the Hindus from sinking, but it has also
+      preventing them from rising."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Pramatha Nath Bose.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The old miracle-bubbles which the Jews blew into the air of wonder two
+      thousand years ago, delight churches still in their childhood. The sea of
+      theology would have been stagnant centuries ago, had not insurgent
+      thinkers, at the peril of their lives, created commotion in it. Morals
+      would have been poisoned on the shores of theology had not free thought
+      purified the waters by putting the salt of reason into that sea,
+      freshening it year by year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. CONQUESTS OF INVESTIGATION
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The secret of Genius is to suffer no fiction to live."
+
+     &mdash;Goethe.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      THEOLOGIANS had so choked the human mind with a dense undergrowth of
+      dogmas that it was like cutting through an African forest, such as Stanley
+      encountered, to find the paths of truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that path, when found, many things unforeseen before, became plain. The
+      siren songs of orthodoxy were discovered to have strange discords of sense
+      in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The Guide of God seemed to be very human&mdash;not authentic, not
+      consistent&mdash;containing things not readable nor explainable in the
+      family; pagan fictions, such as the Incarnation reluctantly believable as
+      the device of a moral deity. Men of genius and of noble ethical sympathy
+      do however deem it defensible. In any human book the paternal exaction of
+      such suffering as fell to Christ, would be regarded with alarm and
+      repugnance. Wonder was felt that Scripture, purporting to contain the will
+      of deity, should not be expressed so unmistakably that ignorance could not
+      misunderstand it, nor perversity misconstrue it. The gods know how to
+      write.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. The origin of all things has excited and disappointed the curiosity of
+      the greatest exploring minds of every age. That the secret of the universe
+      is undisclosed, is manifest from the different and differing conjectures
+      concerning it. The origin of the universe remains unknowable. What awe
+      fills or rather takes possession of the mind which comprehends this! Why
+      existence exists is the cardinal wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. Pleasant and free from anxiety, life would be were it true, that
+      Providence is a present help in the day of need. Alas, to the poor it is
+      evident that Providence does not interfere, either to befriend the good in
+      their distress, or arrest the bad in the act of crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. The power of prayer has been the hope of the helpless and the oppressed
+      in every age. Every man wishes it was true that help could be had that
+      way. Then every just man could protect himself at will against his
+      adversaries. But experience shows that all entreaty is futile to induce
+      Providence to change its universal habit of non-intervention. Prayer
+      beguiles the poor but provides no dinner. Mr. Spurgeon said at the
+      Tabernacle that prayer filled his meal barrel when empty. I asked that he
+      should publish the recipe in the interests of the hungry. But he made no
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. There is reason to think that original sin is not anything more than
+      original ignorance. The belief in natural depravity discourages all
+      efforts of progress. The primal imperfection of human nature is only
+      effaceable by knowledge and persistent endeavor. Even in things lawful to
+      do, excess is sin, judged by human standards. There may be error without
+      depravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. Eternal perdition for conscientious belief, whether erroneous or not,
+      is humanly incredible. The devisors of this doctrine must have been
+      unaware that belief is an affair of ignorance, prejudice, custom,
+      education, or evidence. The liability of the human race to eternal
+      punishment is the foundation on which all Christianity (except
+      Unitarianism) rests. This awful belief, if acted upon with the sincerity
+      that Christianity declares it should be, would terminate all enjoyment,
+      and all enterprise would cease in the world. None would ever marry. No
+      persons, with any humanity in their hearts would take upon themselves the
+      awful responsibility of increasing the number of the damned. The registrar
+      of births would be the most fiendish clerk conceivable. He would be
+      practically the secretary of hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The theory that all the world was lost through a curious and enterprising
+      lady, eating an apricot or an apple, and that three thousand or more years
+      after, mankind had to be redeemed by the murder of an innocent Jew, is of
+      a nature to make men afraid to believe in a deity accused of contriving so
+      dreadful a scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though this reasoning will seem to many an argument against the existence
+      of God whereas it is merely against the attributes of deity, as ascribed
+      to him by Christianity. If God be not moral, in the human sense of the
+      term, he may as well be not moral at all. It is only he whose principles
+      of justice, men can understand, that men can trust. Prof. T. H. Huxley,
+      conspicuous for his clearness of view and dispassionateness of judgment,
+      was of this opinion, and said: "The suggestion arises, if God is the cause
+      of all things he is responsible for evil as well as for good, and it
+      appears utterly irreconcilable with our notions of justice that he should
+      punish another for that which he has in fact done himself." The poet
+      concurs with the philosopher when he exclaims:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The loving worm within its clod,
+     Were diviner than a loveless God Amid his worlds."*
+
+     * Browning.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Christianity indeed speaks of the <i>love</i> of God in sending his son to
+      die for the security of others. But not less is the heart of the
+      intelligent and humane believer torn with fear, as he thinks what must be
+      the character of that God who could only be thus appeased. The example of
+      self-sacrifice is noble&mdash;but is it noble in any one who deliberately
+      creates the necessity for it? The better side of Christianity seems
+      overshadowed by the worse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. Future life is uncertain, being unprovable and seemingly improbable,
+      judging from the dependence of life on material conditions. Christians
+      themselves do not seem confident of another existence. If they were <i>sure</i>
+      of it, who of them would linger here when those they love and honor have
+      gone before? Ere we reach the middle of our days, the joy of every heart
+      lies in some tomb. If the Christian actually believed that the future was
+      real, would he hang black plumes over the hearse, and speak of death as
+      darkness? No! the cemeteries would be hung with joyful lights, the grave
+      would be the gate of Paradise. Every one would find justifiable excuse for
+      leaving this for the happier world. All tenets which are contradicted by
+      reason had better not be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many preachers now disown, in controversy, these doctrines, but until they
+      carry the professions of the platform into the statute book, the rubric,
+      and the pulpit, such doctrines remain operative, and the Churches remain
+      answerable for them. Nonconformists do not protest against a State Church
+      on account of its doctrines herein enumerated. When the doctrines which
+      conflict with reason and humanity are disowned by authority,
+      ecclesiastical and legal, in all denominations, the duty of controverting
+      them as impediments to progress will cease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be said in reply to what is here set forth as tenets of Christian
+      Scripture, that the writer follows the letter and not the spirit of the
+      word. Yes, that is what he does. He is well aware of the new practice of
+      seeking refuge in the "spirit," of "expanding" the letter and taking a
+      "new range of view." He however holds that to drop the "letter" is to drop
+      the doctrine. To "expand" the "letter" is to change it. New "range of
+      view" is the term under which desertion of the text is disguised. But "new
+      range" means new thought, which in this insidious way is put forward to
+      supersede the old. The frank way is to say so, and admit that the "letter"
+      is obsolete&mdash;is gone, is disproved, and that new views which are
+      truer constitute the new letter of progress. The best thing to do with the
+      "dead hand" is to bury it. To try to expand dissolution is but galvanising
+      the corpse and tying the dead to the living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. STATIONARINESS OF CRITICISM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the
+     dark."
+
+     &mdash;John Newton.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CRITICISM in theology, as in literature, is with many an intoxication.
+      Zest in showing what is wrong is apt to blunt the taste for what is right,
+      which it is the true end of criticism to discover. Lord Byron said critics
+      disliked Pope because he afforded them so few chances of objection. They
+      found fault with him because he had no faults. The criticism of theology
+      begets complacency in many. There is a natural satisfaction in being free
+      from the superstition of the vulgar, in the Church as well as out of it.
+      No wonder many find abiding pleasure in the intellectual refutation of the
+      errors of supernaturalism and in putting its priests to confusion.
+      Absorbed in the antagonism of theology, many lose sight of ultimate
+      utility, and regard error, not as a misfortune to be alleviated, so much
+      as a fault to be exposed. Like the theologian whose color they take, they
+      do not much consider whether their method causes men to dislike the truth
+      through its manner of being offered to them. Their ambition is to make
+      those in error look foolish. Free thinkers of zeal are apt to become
+      intense, and like Jules Ferry (a late French premier), care less for
+      power, than for conflict, and the lover of conflict is not easily induced
+      to regard the disproof of theology as a means to an end* higher than
+      itself. It is difficult to impart to uncalculating zealots a sense of
+      proportion. They dash along the warpath by their own momentum. Railway
+      engineers find that it takes twice as much power to stop an express train
+      as it does to start it.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Buckle truly says, "Liberty is not a means, it is an end
+     in itself," But the uses of liberty are means to ends
+     Else why do we want liberty?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When I first knew free thought societies they were engaged in
+      Church-fighting&mdash;which is still popular among them, and which has led
+      the public to confuse criticism with Secularism, an entirely different
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Insurgent thought exclusively directed, breeds, as is said elsewhere, a
+      distinguished class of men&mdash;among scholars as well as among the
+      uninformed&mdash;who have a passion for disputation, which like other
+      passions "grows by what it feeds upon." Yet a limited number of such
+      paladins of investigation are not without uses in the economy of
+      civilisations. They resemble the mighty hunters of old, they extirpate
+      beasts of prey which roam the theological forests, and thus they render
+      life more safe to dwellers in cities, open to the voracious incursions of
+      supernaturalism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without the class of combatants described, in whom discussion is
+      irrepressible, and whose courage neither odium nor danger abates, many
+      castles of superstition would never be stormed. But mere intellectual-ism
+      generates a different and less useful species of thinkers, who neither
+      hunt in the jungles of theology nor storm strongholds. We all know
+      hundreds in every great town who have freed themselves, or have been freed
+      by others, from ecclesiastical error, who remain supine. Content with
+      their own superiority (which they owe to the pioneers who went before them
+      more generous than they) they speak no word, and lend no aid towards
+      conferring the same advantages upon such as are still enslaved. They
+      affect to despise the ignorance they ought to be foremost to dissipate.
+      They exclaim in the words of Goethe's Coptic song:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Fools from their folly 'tis hopeless to stay,
+     Mules will be mules by the laws of their mulishness,
+     Then be advised and leave fools to their foolishness,
+     What from an ass can be got but a bray."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These Coptic philosophers overlook that they would have been "asses" also,
+      had those who vindicated freedom before their day, and raised it to a
+      power, been as indifferent and as contemptuous as believers in the
+      fool-theory are. Coptic thinkers forget that every man is a fool in
+      respect of any question on which he gives an opinion without having
+      thought independently upon it. With patience you can make a thinker out of
+      a fool; and the first step from the fool stage is accomplished by a little
+      thinking. It is well to remember the exclamation of Thackeray: "If thou
+      hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, however, but justice to some who join the stationariness, to own
+      that they have fared badly on the warpath against error, and are entitled
+      to the sympathy we extend to the battered soldier who falls out of the
+      ranks on the march. Grote indicates what the severity of the service is,
+      in the following passage from his <i>Mischiefs of Natural Religion</i>:&mdash;"Of
+      all human antipathies that which the believer in a God bears to the
+      unbeliever, is the fullest, the most unqualified, and the most universal.
+      The mere circumstance of dissent involves a tacit imputation of error and
+      incapacity on the part of the priest, who discerns that his persuasive
+      power is not rated so highly by others as it is by himself. This
+      invariably begets dislike towards his antagonist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless it is a reproach to those whom militant thought has made
+      free, if they remain unmindful of the fate of their inferiors. Yet
+      Christian churches, with all self-complacent superiority to which many of
+      them are prone, are not free from the sins of indifference and
+      superfineness. This was conspicuously shown by Southey in a letter to Sir
+      Henry Taylor, in which he says:&mdash;"Have you seen the strange book
+      which Anastasius Hope left for publication and which his representatives,
+      in spite of all dissuasion, have published? His notion of immortality and
+      heaven is that at the consummation of all things he, and you, and I, and
+      John Murray, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Lambert the fat man, and the Living
+      Skeleton, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Hottentot, Venus, and Thutell, and
+      Probert, and the Twelve Apostles, and the noble army of martyrs, and
+      Genghis Khan and all his armies, and Noah with all his ancestors and all
+      his posterity,&mdash;yea, all men, and all women, and all children that
+      have ever been, or ever shall be, saints and sinners alike, are all to be
+      put together and made into one great celestial, eternal human being.... I
+      do not like the scheme. I don't like the notion of being mixed up with
+      Hume, and Hunt, and Whittle Harvey, and Philpotts, and Lord Althorp, and
+      the Huns, and the Hottentots, and the Jews, and the Philistines, and the
+      Scotch, and the Irish. God forbid! I hope to be I, myself, in an English
+      heaven, with you yourself,&mdash;you and some others without whom heaven
+      would be no heaven to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most of these persons would have the same dislike to be mixed up with Mr.
+      Southey. Lord Byron would not have been enthusiastic about it. The
+      Comtists have done something to preach a doctrine of humanity, and to put
+      an end to this pitiful contempt of a few men for their fellows,&mdash;fellows
+      who in many respects are often superior to those who despise them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All superiority is apt to be contemptuous of inferiors, unless conscience
+      and generosity takes care of it, and incites it to instruct inferior
+      natures. The prayer of Browning is one of noble discernment:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Make no more giants, God&mdash;
+     But elevate the race at once."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Even free thought, so far as it confines itself to itself, becomes
+      stationary. Like the squirrel in its cage:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Whether it turns by wood or wire,
+     Never gets one hair's breadth higher."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If any doubt whether stationariness of thought is possible, let them think
+      of Protestantism which climbed on to the ledge of private judgment three
+      centuries ago&mdash;and has remained there. Instead of mounting higher and
+      overrunning all the plateaus of error above them, it has done its best to
+      prevent any who would do it, from ascending. There is now, however, a new
+      order of insurgent thought of the excelsior caste which seeks to climb the
+      heights. Distinguished writers against theology in the past have regarded
+      destructive criticism as preparing the way to higher conceptions of life
+      and duty. If so little has been done in this direction among working class
+      thinkers, it is because destructiveness is more easy. It needs only
+      indignation to perfect it, and indignation requires no effort. The faculty
+      of constructiveness is more arduous in exercise, and is later in
+      germination. More men are able to take a state than to make a state. Hence
+      Secularism, though inevitable as the next stage of militant progress, more
+      slowly wins adherents and appreciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THIRD STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT&mdash;SECULARISM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Nothing is destroyed until it has been replaced."
+
+     &mdash;Madame de Staël.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SEEING this wise maxim in a paper by Auguste Comte, I asked my friend Wm.
+      de Fonvielle, who was in communication with Comte, to learn for me the
+      authorship of the phrase. Comte answered that it was the Emperor's
+      (Napoleon III.). It first appeared, as I afterwards found, in the writings
+      of Madame de Staël, and more fully expressed by her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Self-regarding criticism having discovered the insufficiency of theology
+      for the guidance of man, next sought to ascertain what rules human reason
+      may supply for the independent conduct of life, which is the object of
+      Secularism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, the term was taken to be a "mask" concealing sinister features&mdash;a
+      "new name for an old thing"&mdash;or as a substitute term for scepticism
+      or atheism. If impressions were always knowledge, men would be wise
+      without inquiry, and explanations would be unnecessary. The term
+      Secularism was chosen to express the extension of free thought to ethics.
+      Free thinkers commonly go no further than saying, "We search for truth"*;
+      Secularists say we have found it&mdash;at least, so much as replaces the
+      chief errors and uncertainties of theology.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet Martineau, the most intrepid thinker among the women of her day,
+      wrote to Lloyd Garrison a letter (inserted in the <i>Liberator</i>, 1853)
+      approving "the term Secularism as including a large number of persons who
+      are not atheists and uniting them for action, which has Secularism for its
+      object. By the adoption of the new term a vast amount of prejudice is got
+      rid of." At length it was seen that the "new term" designated a new
+      conception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on
+      considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find
+      theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Its essential principles are three:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The improvement of this life by <i>material</i> means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. That science is the available** Providence of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the
+      good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * M. Aurelius Antoninus said, "I seek the truth by which no
+     man was ever injured." It would be true had he said mankind.
+     Men are continually injured by the truth, or how do martyrs
+     come, or why do we honor them?
+
+     **This phrase was a suggestion of my friend the Rev. Dr. H.
+     T. Crosskey about 1854. I afterwards used the word
+     "available" which does not deny, nor challenge, nor affirm
+     the belief in a theological Providence by others, who,
+     therefore, are not incited to assail the effectual
+     proposition that material resources are an available
+     Providence where a spiritual Providence is inactive.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Individual good attained by methods conducive to the good of others, is
+      the highest aim of man, whether regard be had to human welfare in this
+      life or personal fitness for another. Precedence is therefore given to the
+      duties of this life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being asked to send to the International Congress of Liberal Thinkers,
+      (1886), an account of the tenets of the English party known as
+      Secularists, I gave the following explanation to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Secular is that, the issues of which can be tested by the experience
+      of this life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The ground common to all self-determined thinkers is that of independency
+      of opinion, known as free thought, which though but an impulse of
+      intellectual courage in the search for truth, or an impulse of aggression
+      against hurtful or irritating error, or the caprice of a restless mind, is
+      to be encouraged. It is necessary to promote independent thought&mdash;whatever
+      its manner of manifestation&mdash;since there can be no progress without
+      it. A Secularist is intended to be a reasoner, that is as Coleridge
+      defined him, one who inquires what a thing is, and not only what it is,
+      but <i>why</i> it is what it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One of two great forces of opinion created in this age, is what is known
+      as atheism,* which deprives superstition of its standing-ground and
+      compels theism to reason for its existence. The other force is materialism
+      which shows the physical consequences of error, supplying, as it were,
+      beacon lights to morality.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Huxley's term agnosticism implies a different thing&mdash;
+     unknowingness without denial.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "Though respecting the right of the atheist and theist to their theories
+      of the origin of nature, the Secularist regards them as belonging to the
+      debatable ground of speculation. Secularism neither asks nor gives any
+      opinion upon them, confining itself to the entirely independent field of
+      study&mdash;the order of the universe. Neither asserting nor denying
+      theism or a future life, having no sufficient reason to give if called
+      upon; the fact remains that material influences exist, vast and available
+      for good, as men have the will and wit to employ them. Whatever may be the
+      value of metaphysical or theological theories of morals, utility in
+      conduct is a daily test of common sense, and is capable of deciding
+      intelligently more questions of practical duty than any other rule.
+      Considerations which pertain to the general welfare, operate without the
+      machinery of theological creeds, and over masses of men in every land to
+      whom Christian incentives are alien, or disregarded."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THREE PRINCIPLES VINDICATED
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise."
+
+     &mdash;Francis Quarles.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FIRST PRINCIPLE: <i>Of material means as conditions of welfare in this
+      world</i>.&mdash;Theology works by "spiritual" means, Secularism by <i>material</i>
+      means. Christians and Secularists both intend raising the character of the
+      people, but their methods are very different. Christians are now beginning
+      to employ material agencies for the elevation of life, which science, and
+      not theology, has brought under their notice. But the Christian does not
+      trust these agencies; the Secularist does, and in his mind the Secular is
+      sacred. Spiritual means can never be depended upon for food, raiment, art,
+      or national defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Archbishop of York (Dr. Magee), a clearheaded and candid prelate,
+      surprised his contemporaries (at the Diocesan Conference, Leicester,
+      October 19, 1889) by declaring that "Christianity made no claim to
+      rearrange the economic relations of man in the State, or in society. He
+      hoped he would be understood when he said plainly that it was his firm
+      belief that any Christian State, carrying out in all its relations, the
+      Sermon on the Mount, could not exist for a week. It was perfectly clear
+      that a State could not continue to exist upon what were commonly called
+      Christian principles."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the first, Secularism had based its claims to be regarded on the fact
+      that only the rich could afford to be Christians, and the poor must look
+      to other principles for deliverance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Material means are those which are calculable, which are under the control
+      and command of man, and can be tested by human experience. No definition
+      of Secularism shows its distinctiveness which omits to specify <i>material</i>
+      means as its method of procedure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the theological blasphemy of nature, representing it as the
+      unintelligent tool of God, the Secular would have ennobled common life
+      long ago. Sir Godfrey Kneller said, "He never looked on a bad picture but
+      he carried away in his mind a dirty tint." Secularism would efface the
+      dirty tints of life which Christianity has prayed over, but not removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Second Principle: <i>Of the providence of science</i>.&mdash;Men are
+      limited in power, and are oft in peril, and those who are taught to trust
+      to supernatural aid are betrayed to their own destruction. We are told we
+      should work as though there were no help in heaven, and pray as though
+      there were no help in ourselves. Since, however, praying saves no ship,
+      arrests no disease, and does not pay the tax-gatherer, it is better to
+      work at once and without the digression of sinking prayer-buckets into
+      empty wells, and spending life in drawing nothing up. The word
+      illuminating secular life is <i>self-help</i>. The Secularist vexes not
+      the ear of heaven by mendicant supplications. His is the only religion
+      that gives heaven no trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Third Principle: <i>Of goodness as fitness for this world or another</i>.&mdash;Goodness
+      is the service of others with a view to their advantage. There is no
+      higher human merit. Human welfare is the sanction of morality. The measure
+      of a good action is its conducive-ness to progress. The utilitarian test
+      of generous rightness in motive may be open to objection,&mdash;there is
+      no test which is not,&mdash;but the utilitarian rule is one comprehensible
+      by every mind. It is the only rule which makes knowledge necessary, and
+      becomes more luminous as knowledge increases. A fool may be a believer,*
+      but not a utilitarian who seeks his ground of action in the largest field
+      of relevant facts his mind is able to survey.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Guardian told as about 1887 that the Bishop of Exeter
+     confirmed five idiots.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Utility in morals is measuring the good of one by its agreement with the
+      good of many. Large ideas are when a man measures the good of his parish
+      by the good of the town, the good of the town by the good of the county,
+      the good of the county by the good of the country, the good of the country
+      by the good of the continent, the good of the continent by the
+      cosmopolitanism of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truth and solicitude for the social welfare of others are the proper
+      concern of a soul worth saving. Only minds with goodness in them have the
+      desert of future existence. Minds without veracity and generosity die. The
+      elements of death are in the selfish already. They could not live in a
+      better world if they were admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a noble passage in his sermon on "Citizenship" the Rev. Stopford Brooks
+      said: "There are thousands of my fellow-citizens, men, and women, and
+      children, who are living in conditions in which they have no true means of
+      becoming healthy in body, trained in mind, or comforted by beauty. Life is
+      as hard for them as it is easy for me. I cannot help them by giving them
+      money, one by one, but I can help them by making the condition of their
+      life easier by a good government of the city in which they live. And even
+      if the charge on my property for this purpose increases for a time, year
+      by year, till the work is done, that charge I will gladly pay. It shall be
+      my ethics, <i>my religion</i>, my patriotism, my citizenship to do it."*
+      The great preacher whose words are here cited, like Theodore Parker, the
+      Jupiter of the pulpit in his day, as Wendell Phillips described him to me,
+      is not a Secularist; but he expresses here the religion of the Secularist,
+      if such a person can be supposed to have a religion.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Preached in reference to the London County Council
+     election, March, 1892.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A theological creed which the base may hold, and usually do, has none of
+      the merit of deeds of service to humanity, which only the good
+      intentionally perform. Conscience is the sense of right with regard to
+      others, it is a sense of duty towards others which tells us that we should
+      do justice to them; and if not able to do it individually, to endeavor to
+      get it done by others. At St. Peter's Gate there can be no passport so
+      safe as this. He was not far wrong who, when asked where heaven lay,
+      answered: "On the other side of a good action."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, as Dr. James Martineau says, "there is a thought of God in the thing
+      that is true, and a will of God in that which is right," Secularism,
+      caring for truth and duty, cannot be far wrong. Thus, it has a reasonable
+      regard for the contingencies of another life should it supervene. Reasoned
+      opinions rely for justification upon intelligent conviction, and a well
+      informed sincerity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Secularist, is without presumption of an infallible creed, is without
+      the timorous indefiniteness of a creedless believer. He does not disown a
+      creed because theologians have promulgated Jew bound, unalterable articles
+      of faith. The Secularist has a creed as definite as science, and as
+      flexible as progress, increasing as the horizon of truth is enlarged. His
+      creed is a confession of his belief. There is more unity of opinion among
+      self-thinkers than is supposed. They all maintain the necessity of
+      independent opinion, for they all exercise it. They all believe in the
+      moral rightfulness of independent thought, or they are guilty for
+      propagating it. They all agree as to the right of publishing
+      well-considered thought, otherwise thinking would be of little use. They
+      all approve of free criticism, for there could be no reliance on thought
+      which did not use, or could not bear that. All agree as to the equal
+      action of opinion, without which opinion would be fruitless and action a
+      monopoly. All agree that truth is the object of free thought, for many
+      have died to gain it. All agree that scrutiny is the pathway to truth, for
+      they have all passed along it. They all attach importance to the good of
+      this life, teaching this as the first service to humanity. All are of one
+      opinion as to the efficacy of material means in promoting human
+      improvement, for they alone are distinguished by vindicating their use.
+      All hold that morals are effectively commended by reason, for all
+      self-thinkers have taught so. All believe that God, if he exists, is the
+      God of the honest, and that he respects conscience more than creeds, for
+      all free thinkers have died in this faith. Independent thinkers from
+      Socrates to Herbert Spencer and Huxley* have all agreed:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See Biographical Dictionary of Free Thinkers of all Ages
+     and Nations, by J. M. Wheeler, and Four Hundred Years of
+     Free Thought from Columbus to Ingersoll, by Samuel Porter
+     Putnam, containing upwards of 1,000 biographies.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the necessity of free thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the rightfulness of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the adequacy of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the considerate publicity of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the fair criticism of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the equal action of conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the recognition of this life, and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the material control of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Secularist, like Karpos the gardener, may say of his creed, "Its
+      points are few and simple. They are: to be a good citizen, a good husband,
+      a good father, and a good workman. I go no further," said Karpos, "but
+      pray God to take it all in good part and have mercy on my soul."*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Dialogue between Karpos the gardener and Bashiew Tucton,
+     by Voltaire.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. HOW SECULARISM AROSE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "We must neither lead nor leave men to mistake falsehood for
+     truth. Not to undeceive is to deceive."
+
+     &mdash;Archbishop Whately.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      BEING one of the social missionaries in the propaganda of Robert Owen, I
+      was, like H. Viewssiew, a writer of those days, a "student of realities."
+      It soon became clear to me, as to others, that men are much influenced for
+      good or evil, by their environments. The word was unused then,
+      "circumstances" was the term employed. Then as now there were numerous
+      persons everywhere to be met with who explained everything on supernatural
+      principles with all the confidence of infinite knowledge. Not having this
+      advantage, I profited as well as I could by such observation as was in my
+      power to make. I could see that material laws counted for something in the
+      world. This led me to the conclusion that the duty of watching the ways of
+      nature was incumbent on all who would find true conditions of human
+      betterment, or new reasons for morality&mdash;both very much needed. To
+      this end the name of Secularism was given to certain principles which had
+      for their object human improvement by material means, regarding science as
+      the providence of man and justifying morality by considerations which
+      pertain to this life alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rise and development (if I may use so fine a term) of these views may
+      be traced in the following records.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. "Materialism will be advanced as the only sound basis of rational
+      thought and practice." (Prospectus of the <i>Movement</i>, 1843, written
+      by me.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Five prizes awarded to me, for lectures to the Manchester Order of
+      Odd-fellows. These Degree Addresses (1846) were written on the principle
+      that morality, apart from theology, could be based on human reason and
+      experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. The <i>Reasoner</i> restricts itself to the known, to the present, and
+      seeks to realise the life that is. (Preface to the <i>Reasoner</i>, 1846.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. A series of papers was commenced in the <i>Reasoner</i> entitled "The
+      Moral Remains of the Bible," one object of which was to show that those
+      who no longer held the Bible as an infallible book, might still value it
+      wherein it was ethically excellent. (<i>Reasoner</i>, Vol. V., No. 106, p.
+      17, 1848.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. "To teach men to see that the sum of all knowledge and duty is <i>Secular</i>
+      and that it pertains to this world alone." (<i>Reasoner</i>, Nov. 19,
+      1851. Article, "Truths to Teach," p. 1.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first time the word "Secular" was applied as a general test
+      of principles of conduct apart from spiritual considerations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. "Giving an account of ourselves in the whole extent of opinion, we
+      should use the word <i>Secularist</i> as best indicating that province of
+      human duty which belongs to this life." (<i>Reasoner</i>, Dec. 3, 1851, p.
+      34.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first time the word "Secularist" appeared in literature as
+      descriptive of a new way of thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. "Mr. Holyoake, editor of the <i>Reasoner</i>, will lay before the
+      meeting [then proposed] the present position of Secularism in the
+      provinces." (<i>Reasoner</i>, Dec. 10, 1851, p. 62.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first time the word "Secularism" appeared in the press.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting above mentioned was held December 29, 1851, at which the
+      statement made might be taken as an epitome of this book. (See <i>Reasoner</i>,
+      No. 294, Vol. 12, p. 129. 1852.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      8. A letter on the "Future of Secularism" appeared in the <i>Reasoner</i>,
+      (<i>Reasoner</i>, Feb. 4, 1852, p. 187.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first time Secularism was written upon as a movement. The
+      term was the heading of a letter by Charles Frederick Nicholls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      9. "One public purpose is to obtain the repeal of all acts of Parliament
+      which interfere with Secular practice." (Article, "Nature of Secular
+      Societies," (Reasoner), No. 325, p. 146, Aug. 18, 1852.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is exactly the attitude Secularism takes with regard to the Bible and
+      to Christianity. It rejects such parts of the Scriptures, or of
+      Christianism, or Acts of Parliament, as conflict with or obstruct ethical
+      truth. We do not seek the repeal of all Acts of Parliament, but only of
+      such as interfere with Secular progress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      10. "The friends of 'Secular Education' [the Manchester Association was
+      then so known] are not Secularists. They do not pretend to be so, they do
+      not even wish to be so regarded, they merely use the word Secular as an
+      adjective, as applied to a mode of instruction. We apply it to the <i>nature</i>
+      of all knowledge." We use the noun Secularism. No one else has done it.
+      With others the term Secular is merely a descriptive; with us the term is
+      used as a subject. With others it is a branch of knowledge; with us it is
+      the primary business of life,&mdash;the name of the province of
+      speculation to which we confine ourselves.* When so used in these pages
+      the word "Secularism" or "Secularist" is employed to mark the distinction.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See article "The Seculars&mdash;the Propriety of Their Name,"
+     by G.J. Holyoake.   Reasoner, p. 177, Sep. 1, 1852.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A Bolton clergyman reported in the <i>Bolton Guardian</i> that Mr.
+      Holyoake had announced as the first subject of his Lectures, "Why do the
+      Clergy Avoid Discussion and the Secularists Seek it?" (<i>Reasoner</i>,
+      No. 328, p. 294, Vol. 12, 1852.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These citations from my own writings are sufficient to show the origin and
+      nature of Secularism. Such views were widely accepted by liberal thinkers
+      of the day, as an improvement and extension of free thought advocacy.
+      Societies were formed, halls were given a Secular name, and conferences
+      were held to organise adherents of the new opinion. The first was held in
+      the Secular Institute, Manchester (Oct. 3, 1852). Delegates were sent from
+      Societies in Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Blackburn, Bradford, Burnley,
+      Bury, Glasgow, Keighley, Leigh, London, Manchester, Miles Platting,
+      Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oldham, Over Darwen, Owen's Journal, Paisley, Preston,
+      Rochdale, Stafford, Sheffield, Stockport, Todmorden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the delegates were many well known, long known, and some still known&mdash;James
+      Charlton (now the famous manager of the Chicago and Alton Railway), Abram
+      Greenwood (now the cashier of the Cooperative Wholesale Bank of
+      Manchester), William Mallalieu of Todmorden (familiarly known as the
+      "Millionaire" of the original Rochdale Pioneers), Dr. Hiram Uttley of
+      Burnley, John Crank of Stockport, Thomas Hayes, then of Miles Platting,
+      now manager of the Crumpsall Biscuit Works of the Cooperative Wholesale
+      Society, Joseph Place of Nottingham, James Motherwell of Paisley, Dr.
+      Henry Travis (socialist writer on Owen's system), Samuel Ingham of
+      Manchester, J. R. Cooper of Manchester, and the present writer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. HOW SECULARISM WAS DIFFUSED
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Only by varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced on
+     reluctant minds."
+
+     &mdash;Herbert Spencer.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      IN 1853 the Six-Night Discussion took place in Cowper Street School Rooms,
+      London, with the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published by
+      Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6d, of which 45,900 were sold, which widely
+      diffused a knowledge of Secularistic views.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our adversary had been appointed with clerical ceremony, on a "Three
+      years' mission" against us. He had wit, readiness, and an electric
+      velocity of speech, boasting that he could speak three times faster than
+      any one else. But he proved to be of use to us without intending it,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                  "His acrid words
+     Turned the sweet milk of kindness into curds."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      whereby he set many against the cause he represented. He had the
+      cleverness to see that there ought to be a "Christian Secularism," which
+      raised Secularism to the level of Christian curiosity. In Glasgow, in
+      1854, I met Mr. Grant again during several nights' discussion in the City
+      Hall. This debate also was published, as was one of three nights with the
+      Rev. J. H. Rutherford (afterwards Dr. Rutherford) in Newcastle on Tyne,
+      who aimed to prove that Christianity contained the better Secularism. Thus
+      that new form of free thought came to have public recognition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lease of a house, 147 Fleet Street, was bought (1852), where was
+      established a Secular Institute, connected with printing, book-selling,
+      and liberal publishing. Further conferences were held in July, 1854, one
+      at Stockport. At an adjourned conference Mr. Joseph Barker (whom we had
+      converted) presided.* We had a London Secular Society which met at the
+      Hall of Science, City Road, and held its Council meetings in Mr. Le
+      Blond's handsome house in London Wall. This work, and much more, was done
+      before and while Mr. Bradlaugh (who afterwards was conspicuously
+      identified with the movement) was in the army.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Reasoner, No. 428, Vol. XVII.. p. 87.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was in 1854 that I published the first pamphlet on <i>Secularism the
+      Practical Philosophy of the People</i>. It commenced by showing the
+      necessity of independent, self-helping, self-extricating opinions. Its
+      opening passage was as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In a state of society in which every inch of land, every blade of grass,
+      every spray of water, every bird and flower has an owner, what has the
+      poor man to do with orthodox religion which begins by proclaiming him a
+      miserable sinner, and ends by leaving him a miserable slave, as far as
+      unrequited toil goes?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The poor man finds himself in an <i>armed</i> world where might is God,
+      and poverty is fettered. Abroad the hired soldier blocks up the path of
+      freedom, and the priest the path of progress. Every penniless man, woman,
+      and child is virtually the property of the capitalist, no less in England
+      than is the slave in New Orleans.* Society blockades poverty, leaving it
+      scarce escape. The artisan is engaged in an imminent struggle against
+      wrong and injustice; then what has he the struggler, to do with doctrines
+      which brand him with inherited guilt, which paralyse him by an arbitrary
+      faith, which deny saving power to good works, which menace him with
+      eternal perdition?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two first works of importance, controverting Secularist principles,
+      were by the Rev. Joseph Parker and Dr. J. A. Langford; Dr. Parker was
+      ingenious, Dr. Langford eloquent. I had discussed with Dr. Parker in
+      Banbury. In his <i>Six Chapters on Secularism</i>** which was the title of
+      his book, he makes pleasant references to that debate. The <i>Christian
+      Weekly News</i> of that day said: "These Six Chapters have been written by
+      a young provincial minister of great power and promise, of whom the world
+      has not yet heard, but of whom it will hear pleasing things some day."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Not entirely so.   The English slave can run away&mdash;at his
+     own peril.
+
+     **  Published by my, then, neighbour, William Freeman, of 69
+     Fleet Street, himself an energetic, pleasant-minded
+     Christian.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This prediction has come true. I had told Mr. Freeman that the "young
+      preacher" had given me that impression in the discussion with him. Dr.
+      Parker said in his first Chapter that, "If the New Testament teachings
+      oppose our own consciousness, violate our moral sense, lead us out of
+      sympathy with humanity, then we shall abandon them." This was exactly the
+      case of Secularism which he undertook to confute. Dr. Langford held a more
+      rational religion than Dr. Parker. His <i>Answer</i>, which reached a
+      second thousand, had passages of courtesy and friendship, yet he contended
+      with graceful vigor against opinions&mdash;three-fourths of which
+      justified his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an address delivered Sept. 29, 1851, I had said that, "There were three
+      classes of persons opposed to Christianity:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "1. The dissolute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "2. The indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "3. The intellectually independent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The dissolute are against Christianity because they regard it as a foe to
+      sensuality. The indifferent reject it through being ignorant of it, or not
+      having time to attend to it, or not caring to attend to it, or not being
+      able to attend to it, through constitutional insensibility to its appeals.
+      The intellectually independent avoid it as opposed to freedom, morality
+      and progress." It was to these classes, and not to Christians, that
+      Secularism was addressed. Neither Dr. Parker nor Dr. Langford took notice
+      that it was intended to furnish ethical guidance where Christianity,
+      whatever might be its quality, or pretensions, or merit, was inoperative.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In 1857 Dr. Joseph Parker published a maturer and more
+     important volume, Helps to Truth Seekers, or, Christianity
+     and Scepticism, containing "The Secularist Theory&mdash;A
+     Critique." At a distance of more than thirty-five years it
+     seems to me an abler book, from the Christian point of view,
+     than I thought it on its appearance.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The new form of free thought under the title of the "Principles of
+      Secularism" was submitted to John Stuart Mill, to whose friendship and
+      criticism I had often been indebted, and he approved the statement as one
+      likely to be useful to those outside the pale of Christianity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A remarkable thing occurred in 1854. A prize of £100 was offered by the
+      Evangelical Alliance for the best book on the "Aspects, Causes, and
+      Agencies" of what they called by the odious apostolic defamatory name of
+      "Infidelity."* The Rev. Thomas Pearson of Eyemouth won the prize by a
+      brilliant book, which I praised for its many relevant quotations, its
+      instruction and fairness, but I represented that its price (10s. 6d.)
+      prevented numerous humble readers from possessing it. The Evangelical
+      Alliance inferred that the "relevancy" was on their side, altogether,
+      whereas I meant relevant to the argument and to those supposed to be
+      confuted by it. They resolved to issue twenty-thousand copies at one
+      shilling a volume. The most eminent Evangelical ministers and
+      congregations of the day subscribed to the project. Four persons put down
+      their names for one thousand copies each, and a strong list of subscribers
+      was sent out. Unfortunately I published another article intending to
+      induce readers of the <i>Reasoner</i> to procure copies, as they would
+      find in its candid pages a wealth of quotations of free-thought opinion
+      with which very few were acquainted. The number of eminent writers,
+      dissentients from Christianity, and the force and felicity of their
+      objections to it, as cited by Mr. Pearson, would astonish and instruct
+      Christians who were quite unfamiliar with the historic literature of
+      heretical thought. This unwise article stopped the project. The "Shilling
+      Edition" never appeared, and the public lost the most useful and informing
+      book written against us in my time. The Rev. Mr. Pearson died not long
+      after; all too soon, for he was a minister who commanded respect. He had
+      research, good faith, candor, and courtesy, qualities rare in his day.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * A term of intentional offence as here used. Infidelity
+     meant treachery to the truth, whereas the heretic has often
+     sacrificed his life from fidelity to it.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. SECULAR INSTRUCTION DISTINCT FROM SECULARISM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A mariner must have his eye on the rock and the sand as
+     well as upon the North Star."
+
+     &mdash;Maxim of the Sea.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      IT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that
+      Secular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier
+      days the term "scientific" was the distressing word in connexion with
+      education, but the trouble of later years is with the word "Secular."
+      Theological critics run on the "rock" there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many persons regard Secular teaching with distrust, thinking it to be the
+      same as Secularism. Secular instruction is known by the sign of
+      separateness. It means knowledge given apart from theology. Secular
+      instruction comprises a set of rules for the guidance of industry,
+      commerce, science, and art. Secular teaching is as distinct from theology
+      as a poem from a sermon. A man may be a mathematician, an architect, a
+      lawyer, a musician, or a surgeon, and be a
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christian all the same; as Faraday was both a chemist and a devout
+      Sandemanian; as Buckland was a geologist as well as a Dean. But if
+      theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be
+      muddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and any
+      learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of Christianity
+      by its being distinctive in his mind. Secular instruction neither assails
+      Christianity nor prejudices the learner against it; any more than
+      sculpture assails jurisprudence, or than geometry prejudices the mind
+      against music. If the Secular instructor made it a point, as he ought to
+      do, to inculcate elementary ideas of morality, he would confine himself to
+      explaining how far truth and duty have sanctions in considerations purely
+      human&mdash;leaving it to teachers of religion to supplement at another
+      time and place, what they believe to be further and higher sanctions.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Edward Baines (afterwards Sir Edward) was the greatest
+     opponent in his day, of national schools and Secular
+     instruction, sent his sou to a Secular school, because he
+     wanted him to be clever as well as Christian. He was both as
+     I well know.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Secular instruction implies that the proper business of the school-teacher
+      is to impart a knowledge of the duties of this world; and the proper
+      business of chapel and church is to explain the duties relevant to another
+      world, which can only be done in a secondhand way by the school-teacher.
+      The wonder is that the pride of the minister does not incite him to keep
+      his own proper work in his own hands, and protest against the
+      school-teacher meddling with it. By doing so he would augment his own
+      dignity and the distinctiveness of his office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By keeping each kind of knowledge apart, a man learns both, more easily
+      and more effectually. Secular training is better for the scholar and safer
+      for the State; and better for the priest if he has a faith that can stand
+      by itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the reader does not distrust it as a paradox, he will assent that the
+      Secular is distinct from Secularism, as distinct as an act is distinct
+      from its motive. Secular teaching comprises a set of rules of instruction
+      in trade, business, and professional knowledge. Secularism furnishes a set
+      of principles for the ethical conduct of life. Secular instruction is far
+      more limited in its range than Secularism which defends secular pursuits
+      against theology, where theology attacks them or obstructs them. But pure
+      Secular knowledge is confined to its own pursuit, and does not come in
+      contact with theology any more than architecture comes in contact with
+      preaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man may be a shareholder in a gas company or a waterworks, a house
+      owner, a landlord, a farmer, or a workman. All these are secular pursuits,
+      and he who follows them may consult only his own interest. But if he be a
+      Secularist, he will consider not only his own interest, but, as far as he
+      can, the welfare of the community or the world, as his action or example
+      may tell for the good of universal society. He will do "his best," not as
+      Mr. Ruskin says, "the best of an ass," but "the best of an intelligent
+      man." In every act he will put his conscience and character with a view so
+      to discharge the duties of this life as to merit another, if there be one.
+      Just as a Christian seeks to serve God, a Secularist seeks to serve man.
+      This it is to be a Secularist. The idea of this service is what Secularism
+      puts into his mind. Professor Clifford exclaimed: "The Kingdom of God has
+      come&mdash;when comes the Kingdom of man?" A Secularist is one who hastens
+      the coming of this kingdom: which must be agreeable to heaven if the
+      people of this world are to occupy the mansions there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE DISTINCTIVENESS MADE FURTHER EVIDENT.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The cry that so-called secular education is Atheistic is
+     hardly worth notice. Cricket is not theological; at the same
+     time, it is not Atheistic."
+
+     &mdash;Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D., Times, October 11, 1894.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      NOR is Secularism atheism. The laws of the universe are quite distinct
+      from the question of the origin of the universe. The study of the laws of
+      nature, which Secularism selects, is quite different from speculation as
+      to the authorship of nature. We may judge and prize the beauty and uses of
+      an ancient edifice, though we may never know the builder. Secularism is a
+      form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions the issues of
+      which can be tested by the experience of this life. It is clear that the
+      existence of deity and the actuality of another life, are questions
+      excluded from Secularism, which exacts no denial of deity or immortality,
+      from members of Secularist societies. During their day only two persons of
+      public distinction&mdash;the Bishop of Peterborough and Charles Bradlaugh&mdash;maintained
+      that the Secular was atheistic. Yet Mr. Bradlaugh never put a profession
+      of atheism as one of the tenets of any Secularist Society. Atheism may be
+      a personal tenet, but it cannot be a Secularist tenet, from which it is
+      wholly disconnected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one would confuse the Secular with the atheistic who understood that
+      the Secular is separate. Mr. Hodgson Pratt, a Christian, writing in <i>Concord</i>
+      (October, 1894), a description of the burial of Angelo Mazzoleni, said
+      "the funeral was entirely Secular," meaning the ceremony was distinct from
+      that of the Church, being based on considerations pertaining to duty in
+      this world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the indefiniteness of colloquial speech we constantly hear the phrase,
+      "School Board education." Yet School Boards cannot give education. It is
+      beyond their reach. Most persons confuse instruction with education.
+      Instruction relates to industrial, commercial, agricultural, and
+      scientific knowledge and like subjects. Education implies the complete
+      training and "drawing out of the whole powers of the mind."* Thus
+      instruction is different from education. Instruction is departmental
+      knowledge. Education includes all the influences of life; instruction
+      gives skill, education forms character.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Henry Drummond gave this definition in the House of
+     Commons, and it was adopted by W. J. Fox and other leaders
+     of opinion in that day.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Rev. Dr. Parker is the first Nonconformist preacher of distinction who
+      has avowed his concurrence with Secular instruction in Board Schools. When
+      Mr. W. E. Forster was framing his Education Act, I besought him to raise
+      English educational policy to the level of the much smoking,
+      much-pondering Dutch. "The system of education in Holland dates from 1857.
+      It is a Secular system, meaning by Secular that the Bible is not allowed
+      to be read in schools, nor is any religious instruction allowed to be
+      given. The use of the school-room is, however, granted to ministers of all
+      denominations for the purpose of teaching religion out of school-hours.
+      The schoolmaster is not allowed to give religious instruction, or even to
+      read the Bible in school at any time."*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Report from the Hague, by Mr. (now Right Hon.) Jesse
+     Collings, M. P., May, 1870.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      No State rears better citizens or better Christians than the Dutch. Mr.
+      Gladstone, with his customary discernment, has said that "Secular
+      instruction does not involve denial of religious teaching, but merely
+      separation in point of time." It seems incredible that Christian
+      ministers, generally, do not see the advantage of this. I should probably
+      have become a Christian preacher myself, had it not been for the
+      incessantness with which religion was obtruded on me in childhood and
+      youth. Even now my mind aches when I think of it. For myself, I respect
+      the individuality of piety. It is always picturesque. Looking at religion
+      from the outside, I can see that concrete sectarianism is a source of
+      religious strength. A man is only master of his own faith when he sees it
+      clearly, distinctly, and separately. Rather than permit Secular
+      instruction and religious education to be imparted separately, Christian
+      ministers permit the great doctrines they profess to maintain to be
+      whittled down to a School Board average, in which, when done honestly
+      towards all opinions, no man can discern Christianity without the aid of a
+      microscope. And this passes, in these days, for good ecclesiastical
+      policy. In a recent letter (November, 1894) Mr. Gladstone has re-affirmed
+      his objection to "an undenominational system of religion framed by, or
+      under the authority of, the State." He says: "It would, I think, be better
+      for the State to limit itself to giving Secular instruction, which, of
+      course, is no complete education." Mr. Gladstone does not confound Secular
+      instruction with education, but is of the way of thinking of Miltou, who
+      says: "I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to
+      perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private
+      and public, of peace and war." Secular instruction touches no doctrine,
+      menaces no creed, raises no scepticism in the mind. But an average of
+      belief introduces the aggressive hand of heresy into every school,
+      tampering with tenets rooted in the conscience, wantonly alarming
+      religious convictions, and substituting for a clear, frank, and manly
+      issue a disastrous, blind, and timid policy, wriggling along like a
+      serpent instead of walking with self-dependent erectness. This manly
+      erect-ness would be the rule were the formula of the great preacher
+      accepted who has said: "Secular education by the State, and Christian
+      education by the Christian Church is my motto."* Uniformity of truth is
+      desirable, and it will come, not by contrivance, but by conviction.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Some one quoted lately in the <i>Daily News</i> (September 19, 1895) the
+      following sentences I wrote in 1870:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With secular instruction only in the day school, religion will acquire
+      freshness and new force. The clergyman and the minister will exercise a
+      new influence, because their ministrations will have dignity and
+      definiteness. They will no longer delegate things declared by them to be
+      sacred to be taught second-hand by the harassed, overworked, and
+      oft-reluctant schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who must contradict the
+      gentleness of religion by the peremptoriness of the pedagogue, and efface
+      the precept that 'God is love' by an incontinent application of the
+      birch.... It is not secular instruction which breeds irreverence, but this
+      ill-timed familiarity with the reputed things of God which robs divinity
+      of its divineness."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bible in the school-room will not always be to the advantage of
+      clericalism, as it is thought to be now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Forster's Education Act created what Mr. Disraeli contemptuously
+      described as a new "sacerdotal caste,"&mdash;a body of second-hand
+      preachers, who are to be paid by the money of the State to do the work
+      which the minister and the clergyman avow they are called by heaven to
+      perform,&mdash;namely, to save the souls of the people. According to this
+      Act, the clergy are really no longer necessary; their work can be done by
+      a commoner and cheaper order of artificer. Mr. Forster insisted that the
+      Bible be introduced into the school-room, which gives great advantage to
+      the Freethinker, as it makes a critical agitation against its character
+      and pretensions a matter of self-defence for every family. Another eminent
+      preacher, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, wrote, not openly in the <i>Times</i> as Dr.
+      Parker did, but in <i>The Sword and Trowel</i> thus: "We should like to
+      see established a system of universal application, which would give a
+      sound Secular education to children, and leave the religious training to
+      the home and the agencies of the Church of Christ." It is worthy of the
+      radiant common sense of the famous orator of the Tabernacle that he should
+      have said this anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. SELF-DEFENSIVE FOR THE PEOPLE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "What suits the gods above
+     Only the gods can know;
+     What we want is
+     This World's sense
+     How to live below."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      BY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once
+      drew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the
+      children should be taught the tenets of the Christian, Catholic, Moslem,
+      Jewish, and the leading theological systems of the world, as well as
+      Secularistic and atheistic forms of thought; so that when the pupil came
+      to years of discretion he might be able, intelligently, to choose a faith
+      for himself. Less than this would be a fraud upon the understanding of a
+      man. In matters which concern himself alone, he must be free to choose for
+      himself, and know what he is choosing from. That form of belief which has
+      misgivings as to whether it can stand by itself, is to be distrusted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the scandal of Christianity that, for twenty-five years, it has
+      paralysed School Board instruction by its discord of opinion as to the
+      religious tenets to be imparted; while in Secularity there is no disunity.
+      Everybody is agreed upon the rules of arithmetic. The laws of grammar
+      command general assent. There are no rival schools upon the interpretation
+      of geometrical problems. It is only in divinity that irreconcilable
+      diversity exists. When Secular instruction is conceded, denominational
+      differences will be respected, as aspects of the integrity of conscience,
+      which no longer obstruct the intellectual progress of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there are graver issues than the pride and preference of the preacher;
+      namely, the welfare of the children of the people. What the working
+      classes want is an industrial education. Poverty is a battle, and the poor
+      are always in a conflict&mdash;a conflict in which the most ignorant ever
+      go to the wall. The accepted policy of the State leaves the increase of
+      population to chance. It suffers none to be killed; it compels people to
+      be kept alive, and abandons their subsistence to the accident of
+      capitalists requiring to hire their services. Thus our great towns are
+      crowded with families, impelled there by the wild forces of hunger and of
+      passion. From the workingman thus situated, the governing class exacts
+      four duties:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. That he shall give the parish no disquietude by asking it to maintain
+      his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. That he shall pay whatever taxes are levied upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. That he shall give no trouble to the police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. That he shall fight generally whomsoever the Government may see fit to
+      involve the nation in war with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever knowledge is necessary to enable the future workman to do these
+      things, is his right, and should be given to him in his youth in the
+      speediest manner; and any other inculcation which shall delay this
+      knowledge on its way, or confuse the learner in acquiring it, is a cruelty
+      to him and a peril to the community which permits it; and the State, were
+      it discerning and just, would forbid it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In April, 1870, in a letter which appeared in the <i>Spectator</i>; I
+      wrote as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the speech of the Bishop of Peterborough, delivered at the Educational
+      Conference at Leicester, and published in a separate form by the National
+      Education Union, his Lordship quotes from a recent letter of mine to the
+      <i>Daily News</i> some words in which I explained that 'unsectarian
+      education amounts to a new species of parliamentary piety.' It is a
+      satisfaction to find that the Bishop of Peterborough is able to 'entirely
+      endorse these words.' The Bishop asks: 'Whose words do you suppose they
+      are? They are the words of that reactionary maintainer of creeds and
+      dogmas&mdash;Mr. Holyoake.' So far from being a 'reactionary' in this
+      matter, I have always maintained that every form of sincere opinion,
+      religious or secular, should have free play and fair play. I have never
+      varied in advocating the right of free utterance and free action of all
+      earnest conviction. The State requires a self-supporting and tax-paying
+      population. But the State cannot insure this, except by imparting <i>productive</i>
+      knowledge to the people. It is necessary for the people to receive, it is
+      the interest of the State to give, <i>productive</i> instruction in
+      national schools."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed, they
+      would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending sects.
+      Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. A knowledge
+      of soils, of cattle, of climate, and crops, and how to nail up a wigwam
+      and grow pork and corn, is what they need. For want of such knowledge
+      Clerkenwell watchmakers, Northampton shoemakers, Lancashire weavers, and
+      Durham miners perish as emigrants, and their bones bleach the prairies.
+      Yet all orthodox teaching turns out its pupils uninstructed, for, as
+      Tillottson has said, "He that does not know those things which are of use
+      and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may
+      know beside." To know this world, and the Secular conditions of prosperity
+      in it, is indispensable to the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christianity is entirely futile in industry. If a workman cannot pay his
+      taxes, the most devout Chancellor of the Exchequer will not abate sixpence
+      in consideration of the defaulter's piety. The poor man may believe in the
+      Thirty-nine Articles, be able to recite all the Collects; he may spend his
+      Sundays at church, and his evenings at prayer-meeting; but the reverend
+      magistrate, who has confirmed him and preached to him, will send him to
+      gaol if he does not pay. The sooner workmen understand that Christianity
+      has no commercial value, the better for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when
+      purely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human
+      experience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a
+      clergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of common
+      remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of parents
+      in other professions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We want no whining or puling population. The elements of science and
+      morality will give children the use of their minds, and minds to use, and
+      teach justice and kindness, self-direction, self-reliance, fortitude, and
+      truth. There is piety in this instruction,&mdash;piety to mankind,&mdash;exactly
+      that sort of piety for the want of which society suffers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principles for which during two centuries Nonconformity in England has
+      contended are, that the State should forbid no religion, impose no
+      religion, teach no religion, pay no religion. In 1870, the year in which
+      Mr. Forster's Act came into operation, I was the only person who issued a
+      public address to the "School Board Electors" in favor of free compulsory,
+      and Secular instruction. Two of the proposals, the least likely to be
+      favorably received, have since been adopted. The turn of the third must be
+      near, unless fools are always at the polls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. REJECTED TENETS REPLACED BY BETTER
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "False ideas can be confuted by argument, but it is only by
+     true ideas they can be expelled."
+
+     &mdash;Cardinal Newman.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error, if
+      expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be
+      otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has
+      established:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. That God is unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. That a future life is unprovable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. That Providence sleeps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. That prayer is futile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. That original sin is untrue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. That eternal perdition is unreal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however
+      untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these
+      doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do
+      it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men
+      that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest their
+      attention if we can point out the right road to take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that it
+      has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow, cramped,
+      vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is suspicious
+      of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is eating
+      injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment, he must
+      go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you cannot
+      reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles, they
+      should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth should
+      tread close upon the heels of theological error.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism substitutes the
+      study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman
+      admitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as he who
+      fails in this "duty nearest hand" has no moral fitness for any other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation,
+      and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for
+      authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the
+      providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings deliverance
+      when peril comes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the
+      resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the waggoner
+      who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort for
+      personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those conditions,
+      so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it shall be
+      "impossible for a man to be depraved or poor." The aim of Secularism is to
+      promote the moralisation of this world, which Christianity has proved
+      ineffectual to accomplish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism
+      substitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the
+      violation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth&mdash;penalties
+      inexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to the
+      individual no farther than this life, they are without the terrible
+      element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and inevitable&mdash;following
+      the offender close as the shadow of the offence&mdash;are more deterrent
+      than future punishment, which "faith" may evade without merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of man.
+      It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection, and
+      from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and was
+      indifferent whether an error&mdash;which no longer harmed him&mdash;prevailed
+      or not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for
+      the sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his
+      day, who said (1824): "I believe in the right of religion and the <i>duty</i>
+      of free inquiry." He is a very exceptional person&mdash;as we know in
+      political as well as in questions of mental freedom&mdash;who cares for a
+      right he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have
+      seen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he
+      does not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think that
+      a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the right.
+      Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is morally
+      expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest numbers. The
+      service of others is the practical form of duty. "He," says Buddha, "who
+      was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest, lights up the world
+      like the moon escaped from a cloud."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Constructiveness is an education which attains success but slowly. Some
+      men have no distinctive notion whatever of truth. It seems never to have
+      occurred to them that there is anything intrinsic in it, and they only
+      fall into it by accident. Others have a wholesome idea that truth is
+      essential, and that, as a rule, you ought to tell it, and some do it. This
+      is a small conception of truth, but it is good as far as it goes, and
+      ought to be valued, as it is scarce. If any one asks such a person whether
+      what he says is what he <i>thinks</i>, or what he <i>knows</i>, to be
+      true, he is perplexed. The difference between the two things has not
+      occurred to him. He has been under the impression that what he believes is
+      the same thing as what he knows, and when he finds the two things are very
+      different, his idea of truth is doubled and is twice as large as it was
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is yet a larger view, to which many never attain. To them all truth
+      is truth of equal value. All geese are geese, but all are not equally
+      tender. Though all horses are horses, all are not equally swift. Yet many
+      never observe that all facts are not equally succulent or swift, nor all
+      truth of equal value or usefulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Social truth has three marks,&mdash;it must be explicit, relevant to the
+      question in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires some
+      intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Religion, as dealing with the confessedly incomprehensible,
+     is not the basis for human union, in social, or industrial,
+     or political circles, but only that portion of old religion
+     which is now called moral."
+
+     &mdash;Professor Francis William Newman.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      BISHOP ELLICOTT was the first prelate whom I heard admit (in a sermon to
+      the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science)
+      that men might be moral from other motives than those furnished by
+      Christianity. Renan says that Justin Martyr "in his <i>Apology</i>, never
+      attacks the principle of the empire. He wants the empire to examine the
+      Christian doctrines." A Secularist would have attacked the principle,
+      regarding freedom as of more consequence to progress than any doctrine
+      without it. Those who seek to guide life by reason are not without a
+      standard of appeal. "Secularism accepts no authority but that of nature,
+      adopts no methods but those of science and philosophy, and respects in
+      practice no rule but that of the conscience, illustrated by the common
+      sense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past, and looks to
+      tradition as presenting a storehouse of raw materials for thought, and in
+      many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it utterly
+      disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether miracles and
+      supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its side. No sacred Scripture
+      or ancient Church can be made a basis of belief, for the obvious reason
+      that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot without absurdity
+      be assumed. The association leaves to its individual members to yield
+      whatever respects their own good sense judges to be due to the opinions of
+      great men, living or dead, spoken or written; as also to the practice of
+      ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical. But it disowns all appeal
+      to such authorities as final tests of truth."*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  I owe the expression of this passage, whose
+     comprehensiveness and felicity of phrase exceed the reach of
+     my pen, to Professor Francis William Newman.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Morality can be inspired and confirmed by perception of the consequences
+      of conduct. Theology regards free will as the foundation of
+      responsibility. But free will saves no man from material consequences, and
+      diverts attention from material causes of evil and good. Under the free
+      will doctrine the wonder is that any morality is left in the world. It is
+      a doctrine which gives scoundrels the same chance as a saint. When a man
+      is assured that he can be saved when he believes, and that, having free
+      will, he can believe when he pleases, he, as a rule, never does please
+      until he has had his fill of vice, or is about to die,&mdash;either of
+      disease or by the hangman. If by the hangman, he is told that, provided he
+      repents before eight o'clock in the morning, he may find himself nestling
+      in Abraham's bosom before nine. Free will is the doctrine of rascalism. It
+      is time morality had other foundation than theology. The relations of life
+      can be made as impressive as ideas of supernaturalism. But in this
+      Christians not only lend no help, they disparage the attempt to control
+      life by reason. When Secularism was first talked of, the President of the
+      Congregational Union, the Rev. Dr. Harris, commended to the Union the
+      words of Bishop Lavington of a century earlier (1750): "My brethren, I beg
+      you will rise up with me against mere moral preaching."* A writer of
+      distinction, R. H. Hutton, writing on "Secularism" in the <i>Expositor</i>
+      so late as 1881, argues strenuously that moral government is impossible
+      without supernatural convictions. The egotism of Christianity is as
+      conspicuous as that of politics. No ethic is genuine unless it bears the
+      hall-mark of the Church. Secularism does not deny the efficacy of other
+      theories of life upon those who accept them, and only claims to be of use
+      as commending morality on considerations purely human, to those who reject
+      theories purely spiritual. Any one familiar with controversy knows that
+      Christianity is advertised like a patent medicine which will cure all the
+      maladies of mankind. Everybody who tries reasoned morality is encouraged
+      to condemn it, and is denounced if he commends it.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * British Banner, October 27, 1852.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is a maxim of Secularism that, wherever there is a rightful object at
+      which men should aim, there is a Secular path to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical
+      improvability, which improvability can be indefinitely advanced by
+      supplying proper material conditions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since it is not capable of demonstration whether the inequalities of human
+      condition will be compensated for in another life, it is the business of
+      intelligence to rectify them in this world. The speculative worship of
+      superior beings, who cannot need it, seems a lesser duty than the patient
+      service of known inferior natures and the mitigation of harsh destiny, so
+      that the ignorant may be enlightened and the low elevated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christians often promote projects beneficial to men; but are they not
+      mainly incited thereto by the hope of inclining the hearts of those they
+      aid to their cause? Is not their motive proselytism? Is it not a higher
+      morality to do good for its own sake, careless whether those benefited
+      become adherents or not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will illustrate
+      the principle of Secularism. One man will go on this errand from pure
+      sympathy with the unfortunate; this is goodness. Another goes because the
+      priest bids him; this is obedience. Another goes because the twenty-fifth
+      chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will pass to the right
+      hand of the Father; this is calculation. Another goes because he believes
+      God commands him; this is theological piety. Another goes because he is
+      aware that the neglect of suffering will not answer; this is
+      utilitarianism. But another goes on the errand of mercy because it is an
+      immediate service to humanity, knowing that material deliverance is piety
+      and better than spiritual consolation; this is Secularism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One whose reputation for spirituality is in all the Churches says:
+      "Properly speaking, all true work is religion, and whatsoever religion is
+      not work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, the Antinomians, Spinning
+      Dervishes, or where it will. Admirable was that maxim of the old monks, <i>Laborare
+      est orare</i> (Work is worship)".* In his article on Auguste Comte, Mr. J.
+      S. Mill says he "uses religion in its modern sense as signifying that
+      which binds the convictions, whether to deity or to duty,&mdash;deity in
+      the theological sense, or duty in the moral sense." This is the only sense
+      in which a Secularist would employ the term. Religious moralism is a term
+      I might use, since it binds a man to humanity, which religion does not.
+      "Without God," said Mazzini to the Italian workingmen forty years ago,&mdash;"without
+      God you may compel, but not persuade. You may become tyrants in your turn;
+      you cannot be educators or apostles." One night, when Mazzini was speaking
+      in this way, in the hearing of Garibaldi, arguing that there was no ground
+      of duty unless based on the idea of God, the General turned round and
+      said: "I am an Atheist. Am I deficient in the sense of duty?" "Ah,"
+      replied Mazzini, "you imbibed it with your mother's milk." All around
+      smiled at the quick-witted evasion.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Carlyle, Past and Present.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In one sense Mazzini was as atheistic in mind as orthodox Christians. He
+      disbelieved that truth, duty, or humanity could have any vitality unless
+      derived from belief in God. Devout as few men are, in the Church or out of
+      it, yet Mazzini believed alone in God. Dogmas of the Churches were to him
+      as though they were not; yet there were times when he seemed to admit that
+      other motives than the one which inspired him might operate for good in
+      other minds. In a letter he once addressed to me there occurred this
+      splendid passage:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We pursue the same end,&mdash;progressive improvement, association,
+      transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, the
+      overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We both
+      want man to be, not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality
+      of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another; bending to
+      power which he hates and despises; carrying empty popish or Thirty-nine
+      Article formulas on his brow, and none within; but a fragment of the
+      living truth, a real individual being linked to collective humanity,&mdash;the
+      bold seeker of things to come; the gentle, mild, loving, yet firm,
+      uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is just and heroic,&mdash;the
+      Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mazzini saw in the conception of God the great "Indicator" of duty, and
+      that the one figure, "the most deeply inspired of God, men have seen on
+      the earth was Jesus." Mazzini's impassioned protest against unbelief was
+      itself a form of unbelief. He believed only in one God, not in three. If
+      Jesus was inspired of God, he was not God, or he would have been
+      self-inspired. But, apart from this repellent heresy, if Theism and
+      Christianism are essential to those who would serve humanity, all
+      propaganda of freedom must be delayed until converts are made to this new
+      faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question will be put, Has independent morality ever been seen in
+      action?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Voltaire, at the peril of his liberty and life, rescued a friendless
+      family from the fire and the wheel the priests had prepared for them.
+      Paine inspired the independence of America, and Lloyd Garrison gave
+      liberty to the slaves whose bondage the clergy defended. The Christianity
+      of three nations produced no three men in their day who did anything
+      comparable to the achievement of these three sceptics, who wrought this
+      splendid good, not only without Christianity, but in opposition to it.
+      Save for Christian obstruction, they had accomplished still greater good
+      without the peril they had to brave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of the earlier critics of Secularism, as has been said (and not many
+      in the later years), realised that it was addressed, not to Christians,
+      but to those who rejected Christianity, or who were indifferent to it, and
+      were outside it. Christians cannot do anything to inspire <i>them</i> with
+      ethical principles, since they do not believe in morality unless based on
+      their supernatural tenets. They have to convert men to Theism, to
+      miracles, prophecy, inspiration of the Scriptures, the Trinity, and other
+      soul-wearying doctrines, before they can inculcate morality they can
+      trust. We do not rush in where they fear to tread. Secularism moves where
+      they do not tread at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. ETHICAL CERTITUDE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "You can tell more about a man's character by trading horses
+     with him once than you can by hearing him talk for a year in
+     prayer meeting."
+
+     &mdash;American Maxim.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A FORM of thought which has no certitude can command no intelligent trust.
+      Unless capable of verification, no opinion can claim attention, nor retain
+      attention, if it obtains it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a sum in arithmetic be wrong, it can be discovered by a new way of
+      working; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is manifest in the
+      health; if a political law is wrong, it is sooner or later apparent in the
+      mischief it produces; if a theorem in navigation is erroneous, delay or
+      disaster warns the mariner of his mistake; if an insane moralist teaches
+      that adherence to truth is wrong, men can try the effects of lying, when
+      distrust and disgrace soon undeceive them. But if a theological belief is
+      wrong, we must die to find it out. Secularism, therefore, is safer. It is
+      best to follow the double lights of reason and experience than the dark
+      lantern of faith. "In all but religion," exclaims a famous preacher,* "men
+      know their true interests and use their own understanding. Nobody takes
+      anything on trust at market, nor would anybody do so at church if there
+      were but a hundredth part the care for truth which there is for money."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * W. J. Fox.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Rathbone Greg has shown, in a memorable passage, that "the lot of man&mdash;not
+      perhaps altogether of the individual, but certainly of the race&mdash;is
+      in his own hands, from his being surrounded by <i>fixed laws</i>, on
+      knowledge of which, and conformity to which, his well-being depends. The
+      study of these and obedience to them form, therefore, the great aim of
+      public instruction. Men must be taught:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "1. The physical laws on which health depends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "2. The moral laws on which happiness depends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "3. The intellectual laws on which knowledge depends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "4. The social and political laws on which national prosperity and
+      advancement depend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "5. The economic laws on which wealth depends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Spurgeon had flashes of Secularistic inspiration, as when engaging a
+      servant, who professed to have taken religion, he asked "whether she swept
+      under the mats." It was judging piety by a material test.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no trust surer than the conclusions of reason and science. What
+      is incapable of proof is usually decided by desire, and is without the
+      conditions of uniformity or certitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Duty consists in doing the right because it is just to others, and because
+      we must set the example of doing right to others, or we have no claim that
+      others shall do right to us. Certitude is best obtained by the employment
+      of material means, because we can better calculate them, and because they
+      are less likely to evade us, or betray us, than any other means available
+      to us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Orthodox religions are pale in the face now. They still keep the word of
+      material promise to the ear, and break it to the heart; and a great number
+      of people now know it, and many of the clergy know that they know it. The
+      poor need material aid, and prayer is the way not to get it; while
+      science, more provident than faith, has brought the people generous gifts,
+      and inspired them with just expectations. What men need is a guide which
+      stands on a business footing. The Churches administer a system of foreign
+      affairs in a very loose way, quite inconsistent with sound commercial
+      principles. For instance, a firm giving checks on a bank in some distant
+      country&mdash;not to be found in any gazetteer of ascertained places, nor
+      laid down in any chart, and from which no persons who ever set out in
+      search of it were ever known to return&mdash;would do very little business
+      among prudent men. Yet this is precisely the nature of the business
+      engaged in by orthodox firms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, Secularism proposes to transact the business of life on
+      purely mercantile principles. It engages only in that class of
+      transactions the issue of which can be tested by the experience of this
+      life. Its checks, if I may so speak, are drawn upon duty, good sense, and
+      material effort, and are to be cashed from proceeds arising in our midst&mdash;under
+      our own eyes&mdash;subject to ordinary commercial tests. Nature is the
+      banker who pays all notes held by those who observe its laws. To use the
+      words of Macbeth, it is here, "on this bank and shoal of time" upon which
+      we are cast, that nature pays its checks, and not elsewhere; which are
+      honored now, and not in an unknown world, in some unknown time, and in an
+      entirely unknown way. By lack of judgment, or sense, the Secularist may
+      transact bad business; but he gives good security. His surety is
+      experience. His references are to the facts of the present time. He puts
+      all who have dealings with him on their guard. Secularism tells men that
+      they must look out for themselves, act for themselves, within the limits
+      of neither injuring nor harming others. Secularism does not profess to be
+      infallible, but it acts on honest principles. It seeks to put progress on
+      the business footing of good faith.* Adherents who accept the theory of
+      this life for this life dwell in a land of their own&mdash;the land of
+      certitude. Science and utilitarian morality are kings in that country, and
+      rule there by right of conquest over error and superstition. In the
+      kingdom of Thought there is no conquest over men, but over foolishness
+      only. Outside the world of science and morality lies the great Debatable
+      Ground of the existence of Deity and a Future State. The Ruler of the
+      Debatable Ground is named Probability, and his two ministers are Curiosity
+      and Speculation. Over that mighty plain, which is as wide as the universe
+      and as old as time, no voice of the gods has ever been heard, and no
+      footsteps of theirs have ever been traced. Philosophers have explored the
+      field with telescopes of a longer range than the eyes of a thousand
+      saints, and have recognised nothing save the silent and distant horizon.
+      Priests have denounced them for not perceiving what was invisible.
+      Sectaries have clamored, and the most ignorant have howled&mdash;as the
+      most ignorant always do&mdash;that there is something there, because they
+      want to see it. All the while the white mystery is still unpenetrated in
+      this life.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See Secularism a Religion which Gives Heaven no Trouble.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But a future being undisclosed is no proof that there is no future. Those
+      who reason through their desires will believe there is; those who reason
+      through their understanding may yet hope that there is. In the meantime,
+      all stand before the portals of the untrodden world in equal
+      unknowingness. If faith can be piety, work is more so. To bring new beauty
+      out of common life&mdash;is not that piety? To change blank stupidity into
+      intelligent admiration of any work of nature&mdash;is not that piety? If
+      our towns and streets be made to give gladness and cheerfulness to all who
+      live or walk therein&mdash;is not that piety? If the prayer of innocence
+      ascend to heaven through a pure atmosphere, instead of through the noisome
+      and polluted air of uncleanness common in the purlieus of towns and of
+      churches, and even cathedrals&mdash;is not that piety? Can we, in these
+      days, conceive of religious persons being ignorant and dirty? Yet they
+      abound. If, therefore, we send to heaven clean, intelligent, bright-minded
+      saints&mdash;is not that piety? It is no bad religion&mdash;as religions
+      go&mdash;to believe in the good God of knowledge and cleanliness and
+      cheerfulness and beauty, and offer at his altar the daily sacrifice of
+      intelligent sincerity and material service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We leave to others their own way of faith and worship. We ask only leave
+      to take our own. Carlyle has told us that only two men are to be honored,
+      and no third&mdash;the mechanic and the thinker: he who works with honest
+      hand, making the world habitable; and he who works with his brain, making
+      thought artistic and true. "All the rest," he adds with noble scorn, "are
+      chaff, which the wind may blow whither it list-eth." The certainty of
+      heaven is for the useful alone. Mere belief is the easiest, the poorest,
+      the shabbiest device by which conscientious men ever attempted to scale
+      the walls of Paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. THE ETHICAL METHOD OF CONTROVERSY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "It was one of the secrets of my craft in the old days, when
+     I wanted to weld iron or work steel to a fine purpose, to
+     begin gently. If I began, as all learners do, to strike my
+     heaviest blows at the start, the iron would crumble instead
+     of welding, or the steel would suffer under my hammer, so
+     that when it came to be tempered it would 'fly,' as we used
+     to say, and rob the thing I had made of its finest quality."
+
+     &mdash;Robert Coliyer, D. D.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "THEY who believe that they have truth ask no favor, save that of being
+      heard; they dare the judgment of mankind; refused co-operation, they
+      invoke opposition, for opposition is their opportunity." This was the
+      maxim I wrote at the beginning of the Secularistic movement, to show that
+      we were willing to accept ourselves the controversy, which we contended
+      was the sole means of establishing truth. No proposition, as Samuel Bailey
+      showed, is to be trusted until it has been tested by very wide discussion.
+      We soon found that the free and open field of Milton was not sufficient.
+      It needed a "fair" as well as a "free and open encounter." Disputants
+      require to be equally matched in debate as in arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Secularist policy is to accept the purely moral teaching of the Bible,
+      and to controvert its theology, in such respects as it contradicts and
+      discourages ethical effort. Yet theological questions are always sought to
+      be forced upon us. The Rev. Henry Townley followed me to the <i>Leader</i>
+      office (1853-1854) to induce me to discuss the question of the "existence
+      of God." I never had done so, and objected that it would give the
+      impression that Secularism was atheistic. He was so insistent and
+      importunate that I consented to discuss the question with him. Never after
+      did I do so with any one. The Rev. Brewin Grant endeavored to get my
+      acceptance of propositions which pledged me to a wild opposition to
+      Christianity. Mr. Samuel Morley, honorable in all things, admitted I had
+      objected to it, but in the end I assented to it, that the discussion might
+      not be broken off. Thomas Cooper was persistent that I should discuss with
+      him the authenticity of the Scriptures. What I proposed was the
+      proposition that the authenticity of the Scripture, its miracles, and
+      prophecies are quite apart from moral truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The discussion took place in the city of York, lasting five nights. Canon
+      Robinson and Canon Hey presided alternately. Mr. Cooper was an able man in
+      dealing with the stock propositions of Christianity; but their relevance
+      as tests of morality was an entirely new subject to him. He protested
+      rather than reasoned, and declared he would never discuss the question of
+      the ethical test of the truth of Scriptures; nor have I ever found any
+      responsible minister willing to do so down to this day. Thus Christians
+      should condemn with reservation the tendency in Secularists to debate
+      theology, seeing how reluctant they are to do otherwise themselves.
+      Christians seem incapable of understanding how much the objection to their
+      cause arises in the revolt of the moral sense against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On first meeting Richard Carlile in 1842, some years before Secularism
+      took a distinctive form, he invited me to hear him lecture upon the
+      principles of the <i>Christian Warrior</i>,* of which he was editor, and
+      to give my opinion thereon. In doing so I explained the ideas from which I
+      have never departed; namely, that no theologic, astronomic, or miraculous
+      mode of proving Scriptural doctrine could ever be made even intelligible,
+      except to students of very considerable research. Such theories, I
+      contended, must rest, more or less, on critical and conjectural
+      interpretation, and could never enable a workingman to dare the
+      understanding of others in argument. Scientific interpretation laid
+      entirely outside Christian requirements, and seemed to Christians as
+      disingenuous evasion of what they took to be obvious truths. My contention
+      was that the people have no historic or critical knowledge enabling them
+      to determine the divine origin of Christianity.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The last periodical Mr. Carlile edited.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the platform he who has most knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin will
+      always be able to silence any dissentient who has not equal information.
+      If by accident a controversialist happen to possess this knowledge, it
+      goes for nothing unless he has credit for classical competency. In
+      controversy of this nature it is not enough for a man to know; he must be
+      known to know before his conclusions can command attention. To myself it
+      was not of moment whether the Scriptures were authentic or inspired. My
+      sole inquiry was, Did they contain clear moral guidance? If they did, I
+      accepted that guidance with gratitude. If I found maxims obviously useful
+      and true, judged by human experience, I adopted them, whether given by
+      inspiration or not. If precepts did not answer to this test, they were not
+      acceptable, though all the apostles in session had signed them. To
+      miracles I did not object, nor did I see any sense in endeavoring to
+      explain them away. We all have reason to regret that no one performs them
+      now. It was our misfortune that the power, delegated with so much pomp of
+      promise to the saints, had not descended to these days. If any preacher or
+      deacon could, in our day, feed five thousand men on a few loaves and a few
+      small fishes, and leave as many baskets of fragments as would run a
+      workhouse for a month, the Poor Law Commissioners would make a king of
+      that saint. But if a precept enjoined me to believe what was not true, it
+      would be a base precept, and all the miracles in the Scriptures could not
+      alter its character; while, if a precept be honest and just, no miracle is
+      wanted to attest it; indeed, a miracle to allure credence in it would only
+      cast suspicion on its genuineness. The moral test of the Scriptures was
+      sufficient, since it had the commanding advantage of appealing to the
+      common sense of all sorts and conditions of men, of Christian or of Pagan
+      persuasion. Ethical criticism has this further merit, that on the platform
+      of discussion the miner, the weaver, or farm-laborer is on the same level
+      as the priest. A man goes to heaven upon his own judgment; whereas, if his
+      belief is based on the learning of others, he goes to heaven second-hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Mr. J. A. Froude wrote for John Henry Newman the Life of St.
+      Belletin, he ended with the words: "And this is all that is known, <i>and
+      more than all</i>, of the life of a servant of God." In the Bible there
+      appears to be a great deal more than was ever known. This does not concern
+      the Secularist, though it does the scholar. If there be moral maxims in
+      the Scripture, what does it matter how they got there?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. ITS DISCRIMINATION
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight"
+
+     &mdash;Goethe.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      IN 1847 I commenced in the <i>Reasoner</i> what I entitled "The Moral
+      Remains of the Bible,"&mdash;a selection of some splendid moral stories,
+      incidents, and sentences having ethical characteristics such as I doubted
+      not would "remain" when the Bible came to be regarded as a human book. I
+      wrote a "Logic of Life."* My <i>Trial of Theism</i> was only "as accused
+      of obstructing Secular life," as stated on the title-page. The object was
+      to show how much useful criticism could be entered upon without touching
+      the questions of authenticity, or miracles, or the existence of deity.
+      Thus it was left to opponents to declare that things morally incredible
+      were inspired by God. In this case it was not I, but <i>they</i>, who
+      blasphemed.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Companion to the "Logic of Death," both contained in The
+     Trial of Theism.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Take the case of Samson's famous engagement with the Philistines at
+      Ramath,&mdash;Lehi surrounded by a band of warlike Philistines (though, as
+      the text implies, 3,000 of his own armed countrymen were at hand). Samson,
+      who had no weapon, was not given one by them, but had to look about for a
+      "new jawbone of an ass." With this singular instrument he killed, one
+      after the other, a thousand Philistine soldiers, who were big, strong men,
+      and, unless every blow was fatal, it must have taken several blows to kill
+      some of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are there three places in the human body where a single blow will be sure
+      to kill a man? Did Samson know those places? And was he always able to
+      direct his blow with unerring precision to one or other of those
+      particular spots? If the thousand Philistines "surrounded" him, how did he
+      keep the others off while he struggled with the one he was killing? It is
+      not conceivable that the Philistines stood there to be killed, and meekly
+      submitted to ignoble blows, death, and degradation. The jawbone must have
+      been of strange texture to have crashed through armor, and have turned
+      aside spears and swords of stalwart warriors without chipping, splitting,
+      or breaking in two. What time it must have taken Samson to pursue each
+      man, beat off his comrades, drag him from their midst, give him the
+      asinine <i>coup de grâce</i>, drag and cast his dead body upon the "heaps"
+      of slain he was piling up! What struggling, scuffling, and turmoil of
+      blood and blows Samson must have gone through! Spurted all over with
+      blood, Barnum would have bought him for a Dime Museum as the
+      deepest-colored Red Indian known. No Deerfoot could have been nimbler than
+      Samson must have been on this mighty day. When this Herculean fight was
+      over, which, with the utmost expedition, must have occupied Samson six
+      days,&mdash;which would give 166 killed single-handed per day,&mdash;the
+      only effect produced upon Samson appears to have been that he was "sore
+      athirst." Even after this extraordinary use of the jawbone it was in such
+      good condition that, a hollow place being "clave" in it, a fount of water
+      gushed forth for refreshing this remarkable warrior. Were it not recorded
+      in the Bible, it would be said that the writer intended to imply that the
+      jawbone of the ass is to be found only in the mouth of the reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Can it need miracle or prophecy, authenticity, or inspiration, to attest
+      this story of the Jewish Jack-the-Giant-killer? What moral good can arise
+      from a narration which it is reverence to reject? By leaving it to the
+      Christian to say it is given by "inspiration" of God, it is he who
+      blasphemes. But if the question of authenticity were raised, the character
+      of the narrative would be lost sight of, and would not come into question;
+      while the test of moral probability decides the invalidity of the story
+      within the compass of the knowledge of an ordinary audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same manner, keeping to the policy of affirmation, he who maintains
+      the self-existence, the self-action, and eternity of the universe can be
+      met only by those who defame nature as a second-hand tool of God. Such are
+      atheists towards nature, the author of their existence, and God must so
+      regard them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A single precept of Christ's, "Take no thought for the morrow," has bred
+      swarms of mendicants in every age since this day; but a far more dangerous
+      precept is "Resist not evil," which has made Christianity welcome to so
+      many tyrants. Christ, whatever other sentiments he had, had a slave heart.
+      Every friend of freedom knows that "resistance is the backbone of the
+      world." The patriot poet* exclaims:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Land of our Fathers&mdash;in their hour of need
+     God help them, guarded by the passive creed."
+
+     * Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      No miracle could make these precepts true, and he who proved their
+      authenticity would be the enemy of mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether Christ existed or not affects in no way what excellence and
+      inimitableness there was in his delineated character. His offer of
+      palpable materialistic evidence to Thomas showed that he recognised the
+      right of scepticism to relevant satisfaction. His concession of proof in
+      this case needed no supernatural testimony to render it admirable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reader will now see what the policy of Secularist advocacy is,&mdash;mainly
+      to test theology by its ethical import. To many all policy is restraint;
+      they cry down policy, and erect blundering into a virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereas policy is guidance to a chosen end. Mathematics is but the policy
+      of measurement; grammar but the policy of speech; logic but the policy of
+      reason; arithmetic but the policy of calculation; temperance but the
+      policy of health; trigonometry but the policy of navigation; roads but the
+      policy of transit; music but the policy of controlling sound; art but the
+      policy of beauty; law but the policy of protection; discipline but the
+      policy of strength; love but the policy of affection. An enemy may object
+      to an adversary having a policy, because he is futile without one. The
+      policy adopted may be bad, but no policy at all is idiocy, and commits a
+      cause to the providence of Bedlam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. APART FROM CHRISTIANISM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "What is written by Moses can only be read by God."
+
+     &mdash;Bikar Proverb.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SECULARISM differs from Christianism in so far as it accepts only the
+      teachings which pertain to man, and which are consonant with reason and
+      experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Parts of the Bible have moral splendor in them, but no Christian will
+      allow any one to take the parts he deems true, and reject as untrue those
+      he deems false. He who ventured to be thus eclectic would be defamed as
+      Paine was. Thus Christians compel those who would stand by reason to stand
+      apart from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To accept a part, and put that forward as the whole&mdash;to pretend or
+      even to assume it to be the whole&mdash;is dishonest. To retain a portion,
+      and reject what you leave, and not say so, is deceiving. To contend that
+      what you accept as the spirit of Christianity is in accordance with all
+      that contradicts it, is to spend your days in harmonising opposite
+      statements&mdash;a pursuit demoralising to the understanding. The
+      Secularist has, therefore, to choose between dishonesty, the deception of
+      others and deception of himself, or ethical principles independent of
+      Christianity&mdash;and this is what he does:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bible being a bundle of Hebrew tracts on tribal life and tribal spite,
+      its assumed infallibility is a burden, contradicting and misleading to all
+      who accept it as a divine handbook of duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In papers issued by religious societies upon the Bible it is declared to
+      be "so complete a system that nothing can be added to it, or taken from
+      it," and that "it contains everything needful to be known or done." This
+      is so false that no one, perceiving it, could be honest and not protest
+      against it in the interest of others. Recently the Bishop of Worcester
+      said: "It was of no use resisting the Higher Criticism. God had not been
+      pleased to give us what might be called a perfect Bible."* Then it is
+      prudence to seek a more trustworthy guide.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Midland Evening News, 1893.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If money were bequeathed to maintain the eclectic criticism of the
+      Scripture, it would be confiscated by Christian law. So to stand apart is
+      indispensable self-defence. Individual Christians, as I well know, devote
+      themselves with a noble earnestness to the service of man, as they
+      understand his interests; but so long as Christianity retains the power of
+      fraud, and uses it, Christianism as a system, or as a cause, remains
+      outside the pale of respect. Prayer, in which the oppressed and poor are
+      taught to trust, is of no avail for protection or food, and the poor ought
+      to know it. The Bishop of Manchester declared, in my hearing, that the
+      Lord's Prayer will not bring us "daily bread," but that "it is an exercise
+      of faith to ask for what we shall not receive." But if prayer will not
+      bring "daily bread," it is a dangerous deception to keep up the belief
+      that it will. The eyes of forethought are closed by trust in such aid,
+      thrift is an affront to the generosity of heaven, and labor is
+      foolishness. But, alas! aid does not come by supplication. The
+      prayer-maker dies in mendicancy. It is not reverence 'to pour into the
+      ears of God praise for protection never accorded. Dean Stanley, admirable
+      as a man as well as a saint, was killed in the Deanery, Westminster, by a
+      bad drain, in spite of all his Collects. Dean Farrar has been driven from
+      St. Margaret's Rectory, in Dean's Yard, by another drain, which poisons in
+      spite of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Canon Eyton refuses to take up his
+      residence until the sanitary engineers have overhauled* the place, which,
+      notwithstanding the invocations of the Church, Providence does not see to.
+      To keep silence on the non-intervention of Providence would be to connive
+      at the fate of those who come to destruction by such dependence.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "O mother, praying God will save
+     Thy sailor!
+     While thy head is bowed,
+     His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
+     Drops in his vast and wandering grave!"
+
+     * See Westminister Gazette London Letter, November 19, 1895.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      True respect would treat God as though at the least he is a gentlemen.
+      Christianity does not do this. No gentleman would accept thanks for
+      benefits he had not conferred, nor would he exact thanks daily and hourly
+      for gifts he had really made, nor have the vanity to covet perpetual
+      thanksgivings. He who would respect God, or respect himself, must seek a
+      faith apart from such Christianity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A divine, who excelled in good sense, said: "Dangerous it were for the
+      feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High. Our
+      soundest knowledge is, to know that we know him not; <i>and our safest
+      eloquence concerning Him is our silence</i>; therefore it be-hoveth our
+      words to be wary and few."*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Barbauld may have borrowed from Richard Hooker her fine line:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Silence is our least injurious praise."**
+
+     * Ecclesiastical Polity, book I., | 2.
+
+     ** Charles Lamb was of this opinion when he remarked: "Had I
+     to say grace, I would rather say it over a good book than
+     over a mutton chop." Christians say grace over an
+     indigestible meal. But perhaps they are right, since they
+     need supernatural aid to assimilate it.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      An earnest Christian, not a religious man (for all Christians are not
+      religious), assuming the professional familiarity with the mind of God,
+      said to me: "Should the Lord call you to-day, are you prepared to meet
+      Him?" I answered: Certainly; for the service of man in some form is seldom
+      absent from my thoughts, and must be consonant with his will. Were I to
+      pray, I should pray God to spare me from the presumption of expecting to
+      meet him, and from the vanity and conceit of thinking that the God of the
+      universe will take an opportunity of meeting me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who can have moral longing for a religion which represents God as hanging
+      over York Castle to receive the soul of Dove, the debauchee, who slowly
+      poisoned his wife, and whose final spiritual progress was posted day by
+      day on the Castle gates until the hour of the hangman came? Dove's
+      confession was as appalling as instructive. It ran thus:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "I know that the Eternal One,
+     Upon His throne divine,
+     Gorged with the blood of His own Son,
+     No longer thirsts for mine.
+
+     "Many a man has passed his life
+     In doing naught but good,
+     Who has not half the confidence I have
+     In Jesus Christ, His blood."*
+
+     * From a volume of verse privately circulated in Liverpool
+     at the time, by W. H. Rathbone.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By quoting these lines, which Burns might have written, the writer is
+      sorry to portray, in their naked form, principles which so many cherish.
+      But the anatomy of creeds can no more be explained, with the garments of
+      tradition and sentiment upon them, than a surgeon can demonstrate the
+      structure of the body with the clothes on. Divine perdition is an ethical
+      impossibility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christianism is too often but a sour influence on life. It tolerates
+      nature, but does not enjoy it. Instead of giving men two Sundays, as it
+      might,&mdash;one for recreation and one for contemplation,&mdash;it
+      converts the only day of the poor into a penal infliction. It is always
+      more or less against art, parks, clubs, sanitation, equity to labor,
+      freedom, and many other things. If any Christians eventually accept these
+      material ideas, they mostly dislike them. Art takes attention from the
+      Gospel. In parks many delight to walk, when they might be at chapel or
+      church. Clubs teach men toleration, and toleration is thought to beget
+      indifference. Sanitation is a form of blasphemy. Every Christian sings:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Diseases are Thy servants, Lord;
+     They come at Thy command."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But sanitation assassinates these "servants of the Lord." In every
+      hospital they are tried, condemned, and executed as the enemies of
+      mankind. If labor had justice, it would be independent, and no longer
+      hopeless, as the poor always are. Freedom renders men defiant of
+      subjection, which all priests are prone to exercise. Secularism has none
+      of this distrust and fear. It elects to be on the side of human progress,
+      and takes that side, withstand it who may. Thus, those who care for the
+      improvement of mankind must act on principles dissociated from doctrines
+      repellent to humanity and deterrent of ameliorative enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. SECULARISM CREATES A NEW RESPONSIBILITY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Mankind is an ass, who kicks those who endeavor to take off
+     his panniers."
+
+     &mdash;Spanish Proverb.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      NO ONE need go to Spain to meet with animals who kick you if you serve
+      them. Spanish asses are to be found in every land. Could we see the legs
+      of truth, we should find them black and blue with the kicks received in
+      unloosening the panniers of error, strapped by priests on the backs of the
+      people. Even philosophers kick as well as the ignorant, when new ideas are
+      brought before them. No improvement would ever be attempted if friends of
+      truth were afraid of the asses' hoofs in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who maintains that mankind can be largely improved by material means,
+      imposes on himself the responsibility of employing such means, and of
+      promoting their use as far as he can, and trusting to their efficacy,&mdash;not
+      being discouraged because he is but one, and mankind are many. No man can
+      read all the books, or do all the work, of the world. It is enough that
+      each reads what he needs, and, in matter of moral action, does all he can.
+      He who does less, fails in his duty to himself and to others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christian doctrine has none of the responsibility which Secularism
+      imposes. If there be vice or rapine, oppression or murder, the purely
+      Christian conscience is absolved. It is the Lord's world, and nothing
+      could occur unless he permitted it. If any Christian heart is moved to
+      compassion, it commonly exudes in prayer. He "puts the matter before the
+      Lord and leaves it in His hands." The Secularist takes it into his own.
+      What are his hands for? The Christian can sit still and see children grow
+      up with rickets in their body and rickets in their soul. He will see them
+      die in a foul atmosphere, where no angel could come to receive their
+      spirit without first stopping his nose with his handkerchief, as I have
+      seen Lord Palmerston do on entering Harrow on Speech Day. The Christian
+      can make money out of unrequited labor. When he dies, he makes no
+      reparation to those who earned his wealth, but leaves it to build a
+      church, as though he thought God was blind, not knowing (if Christ spake
+      truly) that the Devil is sitting in the fender in his room, ready to carry
+      his soul up the chimney to bear Dives company. Why should he be anxious to
+      mitigate inequality of human condition? It is the Lord's will, or it would
+      not be. When it was seen that I was ceasing to believe this, Christians in
+      the church to which I belonged knelt around me, and prayed that I might be
+      influenced not to go out into the world to see if these things could be
+      improved. It was no light duty I imposed on myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Secularist is mindful of Carlyle's saying, "No man is a saint in his
+      sleep." Indeed, if any one takes upon himself the responsibility of
+      bettering by reason the state of things, he will be kept pretty well awake
+      with his understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many persons think their own superiority sufficient for mankind, and do
+      not wish their exclusiveness to be encroached upon. Their plea is that
+      they distrust the effect of setting the multitude free from mental
+      tyranny, and they distrust democracy, which would sooner or later end
+      political tyranny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These men of dainty distrust have a crowd of imitators, in whom nobody
+      recognises any superiority to justify their misgivings as to others. The
+      distrust of independence in the hands of the people arises mainly from the
+      dislike of the trouble it takes to educate the ignorant in its use and
+      limit. The Secularist undertakes this trouble as far as his means permit.
+      As an advocate of open thought and the free action of opinion, he counts
+      the responsibility of trust in the people as a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be asked, What are the deterrent influences upon which Secularism
+      relies for rendering vice, of the major or minor kind, repellent? It
+      relies upon making it clear that in the order of nature retribution treads
+      upon the heels of transgression, and, if tardy in doing it, its steps
+      should be hastened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mark of error of life is&mdash;disease. Science can take the body to
+      pieces, and display mischief palpable to the eyes, when the results of
+      vice startle, like an apparition, those who discern that:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Their acts their angels are,&mdash;if good; if ill,
+     Their fatal shadows that walk by them still."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A man is not so ready to break the laws of nature when he sees he will
+      break himself in doing it. He may not fear God, but he fears fever and
+      consumption. He may have a gay heart, but he will not like the occupation
+      of being his own sexton and digging his own grave. When he sees that death
+      lurks in the frequent glass, for instance, that spoils the flavor of the
+      wine. He takes less pride in the beeswing who sees the shroud in the
+      bottle. He may hope that God will forgive him, but he knows that death
+      will not. He who holds the scythe is accustomed to cut down fools, whether
+      they be peers or sweeps. Death knows the fool at a glance. To prevent any
+      mistake, Disease has marked him with her broad arrow. The young man who
+      once has his eyes well open to this state of the case, will be considerate
+      as to the quality of his pleasures, especially when he knows that alluring
+      but unwholesome pleasure is in the pay of death. Temperance advocates made
+      more converts by exhibiting the biological effects of alcohol than by all
+      their exhortations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moral nature of man is as palpable as the physical to those who look
+      for its signs. There is a moral squint in the judgment, as plain to be
+      seen as a cast in the eyes. The voice is not honest; it has the accent of
+      a previous conviction in it. The speech has contortions of meaning in it.
+      The sense is limp and flaccid, showing that the mind is flabby. Such a one
+      has the backbone of a fish; he does not stand upright. As the Americans
+      say, he does not "stand square" to anything. There is no moral pulse in
+      his heart. If you could take hold of his soul, it would feel like a dead
+      oyster, and would slip through your fingers. Everybody knows these people.
+      You don't consult them; you don't trust them. You would rather have no
+      business transactions with them. If they are in a political movement, you
+      know they will shuffle when the pinch of principle comes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crime has its consequences, and criminals, little and great, know it. When
+      Alaric A. Watts wrote of the last Emperor of the French:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Safe art thou, Louis!&mdash;for a time;
+     But tremble!&mdash;never yet was crime,
+     Beyond one little space, secure.
+     The coward and the brave alike
+     Can wait and watch, can rush and strike.
+     Which marks thee?   One of them, be rare,&mdash;"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      few thought the bold prediction true; but it came to pass, and the
+      Napoleonic name and race became extinct, to the relief of Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trouble comes from avowing unpopular ideas. Diderot well saw this when he
+      said: "There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than in being
+      wise by oneself." One who regards truth as duty will accept
+      responsibilities. It is the American idea
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "To make a man and leave him be."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But we must be sure we have made him a man,&mdash;self-acting, guided by
+      reasoned proof, and one who, as Archbishop Whately said, "believes the
+      principles he maintains, and maintains them because he believes them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man is not a man while under superstition, nor is he a man when free
+      from it, unless his mind is built on principles conducive and incentive to
+      the service of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. THROUGH OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "So many gods, so many creeds&mdash;
+     So many paths that wind and wind,
+     While just the art of being kind
+     Is all the sad world needs."
+
+     &mdash;Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      LADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew "Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he
+      was always <i>intending</i> something." Any improvement in the method of
+      life is "intending something," and society ought to be tolerant of those
+      whose badness takes no worse form. The rules Secularism prescribes for
+      human conduct are few, and no intelligent preacher would say they indicate
+      a dangerous form of "badness." They are:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. Truth in speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Honesty in transaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. Industry in business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. Equity in according the gain among those whose diligence and vigilance
+      help to produce it.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Though this world be but a bubble,
+     Two things stand like stone&mdash;
+     Kindness in another's trouble,
+     Courage in your own."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Learning and fortune do but illuminate these virtues. They cannot
+      supersede them. The germs of these qualities are in every human heart. It
+      is only necessary that we cultivate them. Men are like billiard balls&mdash;they
+      would all go into the right pockets in a few generations, if rightly
+      propelled. Yet these principles, simple and unpretending as they are,
+      being founded on considerations apart from modes of orthodox thought, have
+      had a militant career. The Spanish proverb has been in request: "Beware of
+      an ox before, of a mule behind, and of a monk on every side." The monk,
+      tonsured and untonsured, is found in every religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Glasgow I sometimes delivered lectures on the Sunday in a quaint old
+      hall situated up a wynd in Candleriggs. On the Saturday night I gave a
+      woman half-a-crown to wash and whiten the stairs leading to the hall, and
+      the passage leading to the street and across the causeway, so that the
+      entrance to the hall should be clean and sweet. Sermons were preached in
+      the same hall when the stairs were repulsively dirty. The woman remarked
+      to a neighbor that "Mr. Holyoake's views were wrang, but he seemed to have
+      clean principles." He who believes in the influence of material conditions
+      will do what he can to have them pure, not only where he speaks, but where
+      he frequents and where he resides. The theological reader, who by accident
+      or curiosity looks over these pages, will find much from which he will
+      dissent; but I hope he will be able to regard this book as one of "clean
+      principles," as far as the limited light of the author goes. Accepting the
+      "golden rule" of Huxley&mdash;"Give unqualified assent to no propositions
+      but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be
+      doubted"&mdash;causes the Secularist to credit less than his neighbors,
+      and that goes against him; being, as it were, a reproach of their avidity
+      of belief. One reason for writing this book is to explain&mdash;to as many
+      of the new generation as may happen to read it&mdash;the discrimination of
+      Secularism. Newspapers and the clerical class, who ought to be well
+      informed, continually speak of mere free-thinking as Secularism. How this
+      has been caused has already been indicated. Two or three remarkable and
+      conspicuous representatives of free thought, who found iconoclasticism
+      easier, less responsible, and more popular, have given to many erroneous
+      impressions. When Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Foote came into the
+      Secularistic movement, which preceded their day, they gave proof that they
+      understood its principles, which they afterwards disregarded or postponed.
+      I cite their opinions lest the reader should think that this book gives an
+      account of a form of thought not previously known. One wrote:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From very necessity, Secularism is affirmative and constructive; it is
+      impossible to thoroughly negate any falsehood without making more or less
+      clear the opposing truth."*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  "Secularism: What Is It?"   National Secular Society's
+     Tracts&mdash;No. 7. By Charles Bradlaugh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Secularism conflicts with theology in this: that the Secularist teaches
+      the improvability of humanity by human means; while the theologian not
+      only denies this, but rather teaches that the Secular effort is
+      blasphemous and unavailing unless preceded and accompanied by reliance on
+      divine aid."*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Besant said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Still we have won a plot of ground&mdash;men's and women's hearts. To
+      them Secularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to
+      them it gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of
+      life. Our morality is tested only&mdash;be it noted&mdash;by utility in
+      this life and in this world."**
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time and
+      the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares to be
+      the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily teach the
+      same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding it upon the
+      supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its being set
+      aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative divine
+      injunction."***
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * "Why Are We Secularists?" National Secular Society's
+     Tracts&mdash;No. 8. By Charles Bradlaugh.
+
+     ** "Secular Morality." National Secular Society's Tracts&mdash;
+     No. 3. By Annie Besant.
+
+     *** Secularism and Its Misrepresentation, by G. W. Foote,
+     who subsequently succeeded Mr. Bradlaugh as President of the
+     National Secular Society.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For several years the <i>National Reformer</i> bore the subtitle of
+      "Secular Advocate."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring
+      ethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality. We
+      accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney&mdash;namely, that "Reason cannot
+      show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above
+      reason." We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not half
+      so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an atheistical
+      advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The Secularistic proposal
+      to consult the instruction of an adversary proved less exciting than his
+      destruction. The patience and resource it implies to work by reason alone
+      are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is easier than a kindness,
+      and less troublesome than explanation. Those who have the refutatory
+      passion intense say you must clear the ground before you can build upon
+      it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times show that a good deal of
+      ground has been cleared. The instinct of progress renders the minority,
+      who reflect, more interested in the builder than the undertaker. What
+      would be thought of a general who delayed occupying a country he had
+      conquered until he had extirpated all the inhabitants in it? So, in the
+      kingdom of error, he who will go on breaking images, without setting
+      statues up in their place, will give superstition a long life. The savage
+      man does not desert his idols because you call them ugly. It is only by
+      slow degrees, and under the influence of better-carved gods, that his
+      taste is changed and his worship improved. The reader will see that
+      Secularism leaves the mystery of deity to the chartered imagination of
+      man, and does not attempt to close the door of the future, but holds that
+      the desert of another existence belongs only to those who engage in the
+      service of man in this life. Prof. F. W. Newman says: "The conditions of a
+      future life being unknown, there is no imaginable means of benefiting
+      ourselves and others in it, except by aiming after present goodness."*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men have a right to look beyond this world, but not to overlook it. Men,
+      if they can, may connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot
+      disconnect themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. The purport
+      of Secularism is not far from the tenor of the famous sermon by the Rev.
+      James Caird, of which the Queen said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He explained in the most simple manner what real religion is&mdash;not a
+      thing to drive us from the world, not a perpetual moping over 'good'
+      books; but being and doing good."**
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Prof. P. W. Newman, who is always clear beyond all
+     scholars, and candid beyond all theologians, has published a
+     Palinode retracting former conclusions he had published, and
+     admitting the uncertainty of the evidence in favor of after-
+     existence.
+
+     ** The Queen on the Rev. J. Caird's sermon, Leaves from the
+     Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This end we reach not by a theological, but by a Secular, path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. SELF-EXTENDING PRINCIPLES
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Prodigious actions may as well be done
+     By weaver's issue as by prince's son."
+
+     &mdash;Dryden.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SO FAR as Secularism is reasonable, it must be self-extending among all
+      who think. Adherents of that class are slowly acquired. Accessions begin
+      in criticism, though that, as we have seen, is apt to stop there. In all
+      movements the most critical persons are the least suggestive of
+      improvements. Constructiveness only excites enthusiasm in fertile minds.
+      After the Cowper Street Discussion with the Rev. Brewin Grant in 1853, see
+      Chapter X, page 50, societies, halls, and newspapers adopted the Secular
+      name. In 1863 appeared the <i>Christian Reasoner</i>, edited by the Rev.
+      Dr. Rylance, a really reasoning clergyman, whom I afterwards had the
+      pleasure to know in New York. His publication was intended to be a
+      substitute for the <i>Reasoner</i>, which I had then edited for seventeen
+      years. But when the <i>Reasoner</i> commenced, in 1846, Christian
+      believing was far more thought of than Christian reasoning. One line in
+      Dr. Rylance's <i>Christian Reasoner</i> was remarkable, which charged us
+      with "forgetfulness of the necessary incompleteness of Re-velation."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far from forgetting it, it was one of the grounds on which Secularism
+      was founded. However, it is to the credit of Dr. Rylance that he should
+      have preceded, by thirty years, the Bishop of Worcester in discerning the
+      shortcomings of Revelation, as cited in Chapter XIX, page 101.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1869 we obtained the first Act of Secular affirmation, which Mr. J. S.
+      Mill said was mainly due to my exertions, and to my example of never
+      taking an oath. In obtaining the Act, I had no help from Mr. Bradlaugh, he
+      being an ostentatious oath-taker at that time. It was owing to Mr. G. W.
+      Hastings (then, or afterwards, M. P.), the founder of the Social Science
+      Association, that the Affirmation clause was added to the Act of 1869. One
+      of the objects we avowed was "to procure a law of affirmation for persons
+      who objected to take the oath."*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another of our aims was stated to be: "To convert churches and chapels
+      into temples of instruction for the people.... to solicit priests to be
+      teachers of useful knowledge."** We strove to promote these ends by
+      holding in honor all who gave effect to such human precepts as were
+      contained in Christianity. This fairness and justice has led many to
+      suppose that I accepted the theological as well as the ethical passages in
+      the Scriptures. But how can a Christian preacher be inclined to risk the
+      suspicion of the narrower-minded members of his congregation, if no one
+      gives him credit for doing right when he does it?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, p. 13;
+     1854. Fifteen years before the first Act was passed.
+
+     ** Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, by G.
+     J. Holyoake, p. 12; 1854.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      With our limited means and newness of doctrine, we could not hope to rival
+      an opulent hierarchy and occupy its temples; but we knew that the truth,
+      if we had it, and could diffuse it in a reasonable manner, would make its
+      way and gradually change the convictions of a theological caste. The very
+      nature of Free-thought makes it impossible for a long time yet, that we
+      should have many wealthy or well-placed supporters. Where the platform is
+      open to every subject likely to be of public service&mdash;subjects
+      suppressed everywhere else, and open to the discussion of the wise or
+      foolish present who may arise to speak, outrages of good taste will occur.
+      Persons who forget that abuse does not destroy use, and that freedom is
+      more precious than propriety, cease to support a free-speaking Society.
+      The advocacy of slave emancipation was once an outrage in America. It is
+      now regarded as the glory of the nation. In an eloquent passage it has
+      been pointed out what society owes to the unfriended efforts of those who
+      established and have maintained the right of free speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Theology of the old stamp, so far from encouraging us to love nature,
+      teaches us that it is under a curse. It teaches us to look upon the animal
+      creation with shuddering disgust; upon the whole race of man, outside our
+      narrow sect, as delivered over to the Devil; and upon the laws of nature
+      at large as a temporary mechanism, in which we have been caught, but from
+      which we are to anticipate a joyful deliverance. It is science, not
+      theology, which has changed all this; it is the atheists, infidels, and
+      rationalists, as they are kindly called, who have taught us to take fresh
+      interest in our poor fellow denizens of the world, and not to despise them
+      because Almighty Benevolence could not be expected to admit them to
+      Heaven. To the same teaching we owe the recognition of the noble
+      aspirations embodied in every form of religion, and the destruction of the
+      ancient monopoly of divine influences."*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Leslie Stephens's Freetkinking and Plain Speaking.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Those who, in storm and stress, bring truth into the world may not be able
+      to complete its triumph, but it makes its own way, and finally conquers
+      the understanding of mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Priestley, without fortune, with only the slender income of a Unitarian
+      minister, created and kept up a chemical laboratory. There alone he
+      discovered oxygen. Few regarded him, few applauded him; only a few
+      Parisian philosophers thanked him. He had no disciples to spread his new
+      truth. He was not even tolerated in the town which he endowed with the
+      fame of his priceless discovery. His house was burnt by a Church-and-King
+      mob; his instruments, books, and manuscripts destroyed; and he had to seek
+      his fortune in a foreign land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet what has come out of his discovery? It has become part of the
+      civilisation of the world, and mankind owe more to him than they yet
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a young man, he forsook the Calvinism in which he was reared. "I
+      came," he said, "to embrace what is called heterodox views on every
+      question."* He cared for this world as well as for another, and hence was
+      distrusted by all "true believers." Though he had "spiritual hopes," he
+      agreed that he should be called a materialist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now had (1895) a London Reform Sunday, more than two hundred and
+      fifty (one list gave four hundred) preachers of all denominations taking
+      for their unprecedented text, "The Duties and Responsibilities of
+      Citizenship,"&mdash;a thing the most sanguine deemed incredible when
+      suggested by me in 1854.** Within twenty years Dr. Felix Adler has founded
+      noble Ethical Societies. Dr. Stanton Coit is extending them in Great
+      Britain. They are Secularist societies in their nature. South Place Chapel
+      now has taken the name of Ethical Society. Since the days of W. J. Fox,
+      who first made it famous, it has been the only successor in London of the
+      Moral Church opened by Thomas Holcroft.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1888); article: Priestley.
+
+     ** We have now a Museum Sunday. Even twenty years ago those
+     who advocated the Sunday opening of museums were counted
+     irreverent and beyond the pale of grace.   Their opening is
+     now legalised (1896).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Though modern Secular societies, to which these pages relate, have been
+      anti-theological mainly, the Secular Society of Leicester is a
+      distinguished exception. It has long had a noble hall of its own, and from
+      the earliest inception of Secularism it has been consistent and persistent
+      in its principles. As stated elsewhere,* the "Principles of Secularism"
+      were submitted to John Stuart Mill in 1854, and his approval was of
+      importance in the eyes of their advocates. In the first issue of <i>Chambers's
+      Encyclopaedia</i> a special article appeared upon these views, and in the
+      later issue of that work in 1888 a new article was written on Secularism.
+      In the Rev. Dr. Molesworth's <i>History of England</i> a very clear
+      account was given of the rise of Secularist opinions. This will be
+      sufficient information for readers unacquainted with the subject.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, Chap. CX.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The cause of reason has had more to confront than the cause of
+      Christianity, which has always been on the side of power since the days of
+      Christ. The two most influential ideas which, in every age since
+      Christianity arose, have given it currency among the ignorant and the
+      credulous, have been the ideas of Hell and prayer. Hell has been the
+      terror, and prayer the bribe, which have won the allegiance of the timid
+      and the needy. These two master passions of alarm and despair have brought
+      the unfortunate portions of mankind to the foot of the Cross.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cause of reason has no advantages of this nature, and only the
+      intelligent have confidence in its progress. If we have expected to do
+      more than we have, we are not the only party who have been prematurely
+      sanguine. The Rev. David Bogue, preaching in Whitfield's Tabernacle,
+      Tottenham-Court Road, at the foundation of the Foreign Missionary Society
+      (1790) of the Congregational denomination, exclaimed amid almost
+      unequalled enthusiasm: "We are called together this evening to the funeral
+      of bigotry." Judging from what has happened since, bigotry was not dead
+      when its funeral was prepared, or it was not effectually buried, as it has
+      been seen much about since that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bigotry, like Charles II., takes an unconscionable time in dying. Down to
+      Sir Charles Lyell's days, so harmless a study as geology was distrusted,
+      and Lyell, like Priestley, had to seek auditors in America. While he
+      lectured at Boston to 1,500 persons, 2,000 more were unable to obtain
+      tickets, which were bought at a guinea each extra. At our great ancient
+      seat of learning, Oxford, Buckland lectured on the same interesting
+      subject to an audience of three.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secularism keeps the lamp of free thought burning by aiding and honoring
+      all who would infuse an ethical passion into those who lead the growing
+      army of independent thinkers. Our lamp is not yet a large one, and its
+      supply of oil is limited by Christian law; but, like the fire in the
+      Temple of Montezuma, we keep it burning. In all the centuries since the
+      torch of free thought was first lighted, though often threatened, often
+      assailed, often dimned, it has never been extinguished. We could not hope
+      to captivate society by splendid edifices, nor many cultivated advocates;
+      but truth of principle will penetrate where those who maintain it will
+      never be seen and never heard. The day cometh when other torches will be
+      lighted at the obscure fire, which, borne aloft by other and stronger
+      hands, will shed lasting illumination where otherwise darkness would
+      permanently prevail. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning has said: "Truth is
+      like sacramental bread,&mdash;we must pass it on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SECULARIST CEREMONIES.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Death is the decisive test of the value of the education
+     and morality of society; Secular funerals are the symbol of
+     the social renovation."
+
+     &mdash;J. P. Proudhon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CERTAIN ceremonies are common to all human society, and should be
+      consistent with the opinions of those in whose name the ceremonies take
+      place. The marriage service of the Church contains things no bride could
+      hear without a blush, if she understood them; and the Burial Service
+      includes statements the minister ought to know to be untrue, and by which
+      the sadness of death is desecrated. The Secularist naturally seeks other
+      forms of speech. It being a principle of Secularism to endeavor to replace
+      what it deems bad by something better&mdash;or more consistent with its
+      profession&mdash;the following addresses are given. Other hands may supply
+      happier examples; but, in the meantime, these which follow may meet with
+      the needs of those who have no one at hand to speak for them, and are not
+      accustomed to speak for themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON MARRIAGE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Marriage involves several things of which few persons think beforehand,
+      and which it is useful to call their attention to at this time. The
+      bridegroom, by the act of marriage, professes that he has chosen out of
+      all the women of the world, known to him, the one to whom he will be
+      faithful while life shall last. He declares the bride to be his
+      preference, and, whoever he may see hereafter, or like, or love, the door
+      of association shall be shut upon them in his heart for ever. The bride,
+      on her part, declares and promises the same things. The belief in each
+      other's perfection is the most beautiful illusion of love. Sometimes the
+      illusion happily continues during life. It may happen&mdash;it does happen
+      sometimes&mdash;that each discovers that the other is not perfect. The
+      Quaker's advice was: "Open your eyes wide before marriage, but shut them
+      afterwards." Those who have neglected the first part of this counsel will
+      still profit by observing the second. Let those who will look about, and
+      put tormenting constructions on innocent acts: beware of jealousy, which
+      kills more happiness than ever Love created.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of marriage is usually offspring, when society will have
+      imposed upon it an addition to its number. It is necessary for the credit
+      of the parents, as well as for the welfare of the children, that they
+      should be born healthy, reared healthy, and be well educated; so that they
+      may be strong and intelligent when the time comes for them to encounter,
+      for themselves, the vicissitudes of life. Those who marry are considered
+      to foreknow and to foresee these duties, and to pledge themselves to do
+      the best in their power to discharge them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, and ever afterwards, let love reign between you. And
+      remember the minister of Love is deference towards each other. Ceremonial
+      manners are conducive to affection. Love is not a business, but the
+      permanence of love is a business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unless there are good humor, patience, pleasantness, discretion, and
+      forbearance, love will cease. Those who expect perfection will lose
+      happiness. A wise tolerance is the sunshine of love, and they who maintain
+      the sentiment will come to count their marriage the beginning of the
+      brightness of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      NAMING CHILDREN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In naming children it is well to avoid names whose associations pledge the
+      child, without its consent, to some line of action it may have no mind to,
+      or capacity for, when grown up. A child called "Brutus" would be expected
+      to stab Cæsar&mdash;and the Cæsars are always about. The name "Washington"
+      destroyed a politician of promise who bore it. He could never live up to
+      it. A name should be a pleasant mark to be known by, not a badge to be
+      borne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In formally naming a child it is the parents alone to whom useful words
+      can be addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heredity, which means qualities derived from parentage, is a prophecy of
+      life. Therefore let parents render themselves as perfect in health, as
+      wise in mind, and as self-respecting in manners as they can; for their
+      qualities in some degree will appear in their offspring. One advantage of
+      children is that they contribute unconsciously to the education of
+      parents. No parents of sense can fail to see that children are as
+      imitative as monkeys, and have better memories. Not only do they imitate
+      actions, but repeat forms of expression, and will remember them ever
+      after. The manners of parents become more or less part of the manners and
+      mind of the child. Sensible parents, seeing this, will put a guard upon
+      their conduct and speech, so that their example in act and word may be a
+      store-house of manners and taste from which their children may draw wisdom
+      in conduct and speech. The minds of children are as photographic plates on
+      which parents are always printing something which will be indelibly
+      visible in future days. Therefore the society, the surroundings, the
+      teachers of the child, so far as the parents can control them, should be
+      well chosen, in order that the name borne by the young shall command
+      respect when their time comes to play a part in the drama of life. To this
+      end a child should be taught to take care what he promises, and that when
+      he has given his promise he has to keep it, for he whose word is not to be
+      trusted is always suspected, and his opinion is not sought by others, or
+      is disregarded when uttered. A child should early learn that debt is
+      dependence, and the habit of it is the meanness of living upon loans.
+      There can be no independence, no reliance upon the character of any one,
+      who will buy without the means of payment, or who lives beyond his income.
+      Such persons intend to live on the income of some one else, and do it
+      whether they intend it or not. He alone can be independent who trusts to
+      himself for advancement. No one ought to be helped forward who does not
+      possess this quality, or will not put his hand to any honest work open to
+      him. Beware of the child who has too much pride to do what he can for his
+      own support, but has not too much pride to live upon his parents, or upon
+      friends. Such pride is idleness, or thoughtlessness, or both, unless
+      illness causes the inability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since offspring have to be trained in health and educated in the
+      understanding, there must not be many in the family unless the parents
+      have property. The poor cannot afford to have many children if they intend
+      to do their duty by them. It is immoral in the rich to have many because
+      the example is bad, and because they are sooner or later quartered upon
+      the people to keep them; or, if they are provided for by their parents,
+      they are under no obligation to do anything for themselves, which is
+      neither good for them nor good for the community, to which they contribute
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Believing this child will be trained by its parents to be an honor to
+      them, and a welcome addition to the family of humanity, it is publicly
+      named with pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      OVER THE DEAD.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I.&mdash;&mdash;READING AT A GRAVE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Esdras and Uriel,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [An argument in which the Prophet speaks as a Secularist.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, said:&mdash;I
+      am sent to show thee three ways, and to set forth three similitudes before
+      thee: whereof, if thou canst declare me one, I will show thee also the way
+      that thou desirest to see....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I said, Tell on, my Lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then said he unto me, Go thy way; weigh me the weight of the fire, or
+      measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then answered I and said, What man is able to do that, that thou shouldest
+      ask such things of me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he said unto me, If I should ask thee how great dwellings are in the
+      midst of the sea, or how many springs are in the beginning of the deep, or
+      how many springs are above the firmament, or which are the outgoings of
+      Paradise, peradventure thou wouldst say unto me, I never went down into
+      the deep, nor as yet into Hell, neither did I ever climb up into Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, now have I asked thee but only of the fire, and wind, and of
+      the day wherethrough thou hast passed, and of things from which thou canst
+      not be separated, and yet canst thou give me no answer of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said, moreover, unto me, Thine own things, and such as are grown up
+      with thee, canst thou not know? How should thy vessel, then, be able to
+      comprehend the way of the Highest?....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then said I unto him, It were better that we were not at all than that we
+      should live still in wickedness and to suffer, and not to know wherefor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered me and said, I went into a forest, into a plain, and the trees
+      took counsel, and said, Come, let us go and make war against the sea, that
+      it may depart away before us, and that we may make us more woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floods of the sea also in like manner took counsel, and said, Come,
+      let us go up and subdue the woods of the plain: that there also we may
+      make us another country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of the wood was in vain, for the fire came and consumed it.
+      The thought of the floods of the sea came likewise to nought, for the sand
+      stood up and stopped them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If thou wert judge now betwixt these two, whom wouldest thou begin to
+      justify? or whom wouldest thou condemn?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered, and said, Verily it is a foolish thought that they both have
+      devised; for the ground is given unto the wood, and the sea also hath his
+      place to bear his floods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then answered he me and said, Thou hast given a right judgment; but why
+      judgest thou not thyself also? For like as the ground is given unto the
+      woods, and the sea to his floods, even so they that dwell upon the earth
+      may understand nothing but that which is upon the earth: and he that
+      dwelleth upon the heavens may only understand the things that are above
+      the height of the heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then answered I and said, I beseech thee, O Lord, let me have
+      understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For it was not my mind to be curious of the high things y but of such as
+      pass by us daily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet Martineau's Hymn.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Which may be sung where it can be so arranged.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      [The only hymn known to me in which a Supreme Cause is implied without
+      being asserted or denied, or the reader committed to belief in it.]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Beneath this starry arch
+     Nought resteth or is still,
+     But all things hold their march
+     As if by one great will:
+     Moves one, move all:
+     Hark to the footfall!
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     Yon sheaves were once but seed;
+     Will ripens into deed.
+     As eave-drops swell the streams,
+     Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams;
+     And sorrow tracketh wrong,
+     As echo follows song,
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     By night, like stars on high,
+     The hours reveal their train;
+     They whisper and go by;
+     I never watch in vain:
+     Moves one, move all:
+     Hark to the footfall!
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     They pass the cradle-head,
+     And there a promise shed;
+     They pass the moist new grave,
+     And bid bright verdure wave;
+     They bear through every clime,
+     The harvests of all time,
+     On, on, for ever!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      II.&mdash;AT THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The death of a child is alone its parents' sorrow. Too young to know, too
+      innocent to fear, its life is a smile and its death a sleep. As the sun
+      goes down before our eyes, so a mother's love vanishes from the gaze of
+      infancy, and death, like evening, comes to it with quietness, gentleness,
+      and rest. We measure the loss of a child by the grief we feel. When its
+      love is gone, its promise over, and its prattle silent, its fate excites
+      the parents' tears; but we forget that infancy, like the rose, is
+      unconscious of the sweetness it sheds, and it parts without pain from the
+      pleasure it was too young to comprehend, though engaging enough to give to
+      others. The death of a child is like the death of a day, of which George
+      Herbert sings:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Sweet day, so clear, so calm, so bright
+     Bridal of the earth and sky;
+     The dew shall weep thy fall to-night&mdash;
+     For thou must die."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is no consolation to say, "When a child dies it is taken from the
+      sorrows of life." Yes! it is taken from the sorrows of life, and from its
+      joys also. When the young die they are taken away from the evil, and from
+      good as well. What parents' love does not include the happiness of its
+      offspring? No! we will not cheat ourselves. Death is a real loss to those
+      who mourn, and the world is never the same again to those who have wept by
+      the grave of a child. Argument does not, in that hour, reach the heart. It
+      is human to weep, and sympathy is the only medicine of great grief. The
+      sight of the empty shoe in the corner will efface the most relevant logic.
+      Not all the preaching since Adam has made death other than death. Yet,
+      though sorrow cannot be checked at once by reason, it may be chastened by
+      it. Wisdom teaches that all human passions must be subordinate to the
+      higher purposes of life. We must no more abandon ourselves to grief than
+      to vice. The condition of life is the liability to vicissitude, and, while
+      it is human to feel, it is duty to endure. The flowers fade, and the stars
+      go down, and youth and loveliness vanish in the eternal change. Though we
+      cannot but regret a vital loss, it is wisdom to love all that is good for
+      its own sake; to enjoy its presence fully, but not to build on its
+      continuance, doing what we can to insure its continuance, and bearing with
+      fortitude its loss when it comes. If the death of infancy teaches us this
+      lesson, the past may be a charmed memory, with courage and dignity in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III.&mdash;MEN OR WOMEN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The science of life teaches us that while there is pain there is life. It
+      would seem, therefore, that death, with silent and courteous step, never
+      comes save to the unconscious. A niece of Franklin's, known for her wit
+      and consideration for others, arrived at her last hour at the age of
+      ninety-eight. In her composure a friend gently touched her. "Ah," murmured
+      the old lady, "I was dying so beautifully when you brought me back! But
+      never mind, my dear; I shall try it again." This bright resignation,
+      worthy of the niece of a philosopher, is making its way in popular
+      affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Tennyson, when death came near to him, wrote:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Sunset and evening star,
+     And one clear call for me!
+     And may there be no moaning of the bar
+     When I put out to sea.
+
+     "Twilight and evening bell,
+     And after that the dark,
+     And may there be no sadness of farewell
+     When I embark."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There is just a touch of superstition in these genial lines. He writes:
+      "After death the dark." How did he know that? What evidence is there that
+      the unknown land is "dark"? Why not light? The unknown has no determinate
+      or ascertained color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where we know nothing, neither priest nor poet has any right to speak as
+      though he had knowledge. Improbability does not imply impossibility. That
+      which invests death with romantic interest is, that it may be a venture on
+      untried existence. If a future state be true, it will befall those who do
+      not expect it as well as those who do. Another world, if such there be,
+      will come most benefitingly and most agreeably to those who have qualified
+      themselves for it, by having made the best use in their power of this. By
+      best use is meant the service of man. Desert consists alone in the service
+      of others. Kindness and cheerfulness are the two virtues which most
+      brighten human life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wide-eyed philanthropy is not merely money-giving goodness, but the wider
+      kindness which aids the ascendancy of the right and minimises misery
+      everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Death teaches, as nothing else does, one useful lesson. Whatever affection
+      or friendship we may have shown to one we have lost, Death brings to our
+      memory countless acts of tenderness which we had neglected. Conscience
+      makes us sensible of these omissions now it is too late to repair them.
+      But we can pay to the living what we think we owe to the dead; whereby we
+      transmute the dead we honor into benefactors of those they leave behind.
+      This is a useful form of consolation, of which all survivors may avail
+      themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Ernestine Rose&mdash;a brave advocate of unfriended right&mdash;when
+      age and infirmity brought her near to death, recalled the perils and
+      triumphs in which she had shared, the slave she had helped to set free
+      from the bondage of ownership, and the slave minds she had set free from
+      the bondage of authority; she was cheered, and exclaimed: "But I have
+      lived."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day will come when all around this grave shall meet death; but it will
+      be a proud hour if, looking back upon a useful and generous past, we each
+      can say: "I have <i>lived</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IV.&mdash;&mdash;ON A CAREER OF PUBLIC USEFULNESS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In reasoning upon death no one has surpassed the argument of Socrates, who
+      said: "Death is one of two things: either the dead may be nothing and have
+      no feeling&mdash;well, then, if there be no feeling, but it be like sleep,
+      when the sleeper has no dream, surely death would be a marvellous gain,
+      for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night. If, on
+      the other hand, death be a removal hence to another place, and what is
+      said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there
+      be than this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edwin Arnold, in his <i>Secret of Death</i>, writes:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Nay, but as when one layeth
+     His worn-out robes away,
+     And, taking new ones, sayeth,
+     'These will I wear to-day!'
+
+     So putteth by the spirit
+     Lightly its garb of flesh,
+     And passeth to inherit
+     A residence afresh."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This may be true, and there is no objection to it if it is. But the pity
+      is, nobody seems to be sure about it. At death we may mourn, but duty
+      ceaseth not. If we desist in endeavors for the right because a combatant
+      falls at our side, no battle will ever be won. "Life," Mazzini used to
+      say, "is a battle and a march." Those who serve others at their own peril
+      are always in
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "battle." Let us honor them as they pass. Some of them have believed:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Though love repine and reason chafe,
+     There came a voice without reply&mdash;
+     'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
+     When for the truth he ought to die.'"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They are of those who, as another poet has said, "are not to be mourned,
+      but to be imitated."* The mystery of death is no greater than the mystery
+      of life. All that precedes our existence was unseen, unimaginable, and
+      unknown to us. What may succeed in the future is unprovable by philosopher
+      or priest:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A flower above and the mould below:
+     And this is all that the mourners know."**
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The ideal of life which gives calmness and confidence in death is the same
+      in the mind of the wise Christian as in the mind of the philosopher.
+      Sydney Smith says: "Add to the power of discovering truth the desire of
+      using it for the promotion of human happiness, and you have the great end
+      and object of our existence."*** Putting just intention into action, a man
+      fulfils the supreme duty of life, which casts out all fear of the future.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * W. J. Linton.
+
+     ** Barry Cornwall.
+
+     ***  Moral Philosophy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A poet who thought to reconcile to their loss those whose lines have not
+      fallen to them in pleasant places wrote:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A little rule, a little sway,
+     A sunbeam on a winter's day,
+     Is all the proud and mighty have
+     Between the cradle and the grave."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This is not true; the proud and mighty have rest at choice, and play at
+      will. The "sunbeam" is on them all their days. Between the cradle and the
+      grave is the whole existence of man. The splendid inheritance of the
+      "proud and mighty" ought to be shared by all whose labor creates and makes
+      possible the good fortune of those who "toil not, neither do they spin"*,
+      and whoever has sought to endow the industrious with liberty and
+      intelligence, with competence and leisure, we may commit to the earth in
+      the sure and certain hope that they deserve well, and will fare well, in
+      any "land of the leal" to which mankind may go.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Secularism
+       A Confession Of Belief
+
+Author: George Jacob Holyoake
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38104]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH SECULARISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENGLISH SECULARISM
+
+A CONFESSION OF BELIEF
+
+By George Jacob Holyoake
+
+1896
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
+
+THE OPEN COURT, in which the series of articles constituting this
+work originally appeared, has given account of many forms of faith,
+supplementary or confirmatory of its own, and sometimes of forms of
+opinions dissimilar where there appeared to be instruction in them. It
+will be an advantage to the reader should its editor state objections,
+or make comments, as he may deem necessary and useful. English
+Secularism is as little known in America as American and Canadian
+Secularisation is understood in Great Britain. The new form of free
+thought known as English Secularism does not include either Theism or
+Atheism. Whether Monism, which I can conceive as a nobler and scientific
+form of Theism, might be a logical addition to the theory of Secularism,
+as set forth in the following pages, the editor of The Open Court may
+be able to show. If this be so, every open-minded reader will better see
+the truth by comparison. Contrast is the incandescent light of argument.
+
+ George Jacob Holyoake.
+ Eastern Lodge,
+ Brighton, England, February, 1896.
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
+
+AMONG the representative freethinkers of the world Mr. George J.
+Holyoake takes a most prominent position. He is a leader of leaders,
+he is the brain of the Secularist party in England, he is a hero and a
+martyr of their cause.
+
+Judged as a man, Mr. Holyoake is of sterling character; he was not
+afraid of prison, nor of unpopularity and ostracism, nor of persecution
+of any kind. If he ever feared anything, it was being not true to
+himself and committing himself to something that was not right. He was
+an agitator all his life, and as an agitator he was--whether or not
+we agree with his views--an ideal man. He is the originator of the
+Secularist movement that was started in England; he invented the name
+Secularism, and he was the backbone of the Secularist propaganda ever
+since it began. Mr. Holyoake left his mark in the history of thought,
+and the influence which he exercised will for good or evil remain an
+indelible heirloom of the future.
+
+Secularism is not the cause which The Open Court Publishing Co. upholds,
+but it is a movement which on account of its importance ought not to be
+overlooked. Whatever our religious views may be, we must reckon with
+the conditions that exist, and Secularism is powerful enough to deserve
+general attention.
+
+What is Secularism?
+
+Secularism espouses the cause of the world versus theology; of the
+secular and temporal versus the sacred and ecclesiastical. Secularism
+claims that religion ought never to be anything but a private affair; it
+denies the right of any kind of church to be associated with the public
+life of a nation, and proposes to supersede the official influence which
+religious institutions still exercise in both hemispheres.
+
+Rather than abolish religion or paralyse its influence, The Open Court
+Publishing Co. would advocate on the one hand to let the religious
+spirit pervade the whole body politic, together with all public
+institutions, and also the private life of every single individual; and
+on the other hand to carry all secular interests into the church, which
+would make the church subservient to the real needs of mankind.
+
+Thus we publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith, which is y an
+exposition of Secularism, not because we are Secularists, which we are
+not, but because we believe that Mr. Holyoake is entitled to a hearing.
+Mr. Holyoake is a man of unusually great common sense, of keen reasoning
+faculty, and of indubitable sincerity. What he says he means, and what
+he believes he lives up to, what he recognises to be right he will do,
+even though the whole world would stand up against him. In a word, he is
+a man who according to our conception of religion proves by his love of
+truth that, however he himself may disclaim it, he is actually a deeply
+religious man. His religious earnestness is rare, and our churches would
+be a good deal better off if all the pulpits were filled with men of his
+stamp.
+
+We publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith not for Secularists only,
+but also and especially for the benefit of religious people, of
+his adversaries, of his antagonists; for they ought to know him and
+understand him; they ought to appreciate his motives for dissenting from
+church views; and ought to learn why so many earnest and honest
+people are leaving the church and will have nothing to do with church
+institutions.
+
+Why is it that Christianity is losing its bold on mankind? Is it because
+the Christian doctrines have become antiquated, and does the church no
+longer adapt herself to the requirements of the present age? Is it that
+the representative Christian thinkers are lacking in intellectuality and
+moral strength? Or is it that the world at large has outgrown religion
+and refuses to be guided by the spiritual counsel of popes and pastors?
+
+Whatever the reason may be, the fact itself cannot be doubted, and the
+question is only, What will become of religion in the future? Will the
+future of mankind be irreligious (as for instance Mr. Lecky and M. Guyau
+prophesy); or will religion regain its former importance and become
+again the leading power in life, dominating both public and private
+affairs?
+
+The first condition of a reconciliation between religion and the
+masses of mankind would be for religious men patiently to listen to
+the complaints that are made by the adversaries of Christianity, and to
+understand the position which honest and sensible freethinkers, such as
+Mr. Holyoake, take. Religious leaders are too little acquainted with the
+world at large; they avoid their antagonists like outcasts, and
+rarely, if ever, try to comprehend their arguments. In the same way,
+freethinkers as a rule despise clergymen as hypocrites who for the sake
+of a living sell their souls and preach doctrines which they cannot
+honestly believe. In order to arrive at a mutual understanding, it
+would be necessary first of all that both parties should discontinue
+ostracising one another and become mutually acquainted. They should lay
+aside for a while the weapons with which they are wont to combat one
+another in the public press and in tract literature; they should cease
+scolding and ridiculing one another and simply present their own case in
+terse terms.
+
+This Mr. Holyoake has done. His Confession of Faith is as concise as any
+book of the kind can be; and he, being the originator of Secularism and
+its standard-bearer, is the man who speaks with authority.
+
+For the sake of religion, therefore, and for promoting the mutual
+understanding of men of a different turn of mind, we present his book to
+the public and recommend its careful perusal especially to the clergy,
+who will learn from this book some of the most important reasons why
+Christianity has become unacceptable to a large class of truth-loving
+men, who alone for the sake of truth find it best to stay out of the
+church.
+
+The preface of a book is as a rule not deemed the right place to
+criticise an author, but such is the frankness and impartiality of Mr.
+Holyoake that he has kindly permitted the manager of The Open
+Court Publishing Co. to criticise his book freely and to state the
+disagreements that might obtain between publishers and author in the
+very preface of the book. There is no need of making an extensive use of
+this permission, as a few remarks will be sufficient to render clear the
+difference between Secularism and the views of The Open Court Publishing
+Co., which we briefly characterise as "the Religion of Science."
+
+Secularism divides life into what is secular and what is religious,
+and would consign all matters of religion to the sphere of private
+interests. The Religion of Science would not divide life into a secular
+and a religious part, but would have both the secular and the religious
+united. It would carry religion into all secular affairs so as to
+sanctify and transfigure them; and for this purpose it would make
+religion practical, so as to be suited to the various needs of life; it
+would make religion scientifically sound, so as to be in agreement with
+the best and most scientific thought of the age; it would reform church
+doctrines and raise them from their dogmatic arbitrariness upon the
+higher plain of objective truth.
+
+In emphasising our differences we should, however, not fail to recognise
+the one main point of agreement, which is our belief in science. Mr.
+Holyoake would settle all questions of doubt by the usual method of
+scientific investigation. But there is a difference even here, which
+is a different conception of science. While science to Mr. Holyoake
+is secular, we insist on the holiness and religious significance of
+science. If there is any revelation of God, it is truth; and what is
+science but truth ascertained? Therefore we would advise all preachers
+and all those to whose charge souls of men are committed, to take off
+their shoes when science speaks to them, for science is the voice of
+God.
+
+The statement is sometimes made by those who belittle science in the
+vain hope of exalting religion, that the science of yesterday has been
+upset by the science of to-day, and that the science of today may again
+be upset by the science of to-morrow. Nothing can be more untrue.
+
+Of course, science must not be identified with the opinion of
+scientists. Science is the systematic statement of facts, and not the
+theories which are tentatively proposed to fill out the gaps of our
+knowledge. What has once been proved to be a fact has never been
+overthrown, and the actual stock of science has grown slowly but surely.
+The discovery of new facts or the proposition of a new and reliable
+hypothesis has often shown the old facts of science in a new light, but
+it has never upset or disproved them. There are fashions in the opinions
+of scientists, but science itself is above fashion, above change,
+above human opinion. Science partakes of that stern immutability, it is
+endowed with that eternality and that omnipresent universality which
+have since olden times been regarded as the main attribute of Godhood.
+
+There appears in all religions, at a certain stage of the religious
+development, a party of dogmatists. They are people who, in their zeal,
+insist on the exclusiveness of their own religion, as if truth were a
+commodity which, if possessed by one, cannot be possessed by anybody
+else. They know little of the spirit that quickens, but believe blindly
+in the letter of the dogma. It is not faith in their opinion that saves,
+but the blindness of faith. They interpret Christ's words and declare
+that he who has another interpretation must be condemned.
+
+The dogmatic phase in the development of religion is as natural as
+boyhood in a human life and as immaturity in the growth of fruit; it
+is natural and necessary, but it is a phase only which will pass as
+inevitably by as boyhood changes into manhood, and as the prescientific
+stage in the evolution of civilisation gives way to a better and deeper
+knowledge of nature.
+
+The dogmatist is in the habit of identifying his dogmatism with
+religion; and that is the reason why his definitions of religion and
+morality will unfailingly come in conflict with the common sense of
+the people. The dogmatist makes religion exclusive. In the attempt
+of exalting religion he relegates it to supernatural spheres, thus
+excluding it from the world and creating a contrast between the sacred
+and the profane, between the divine and the secular, between religion
+and life. Thus it happens that religion becomes something beyond,
+something extraneous, something foreign to man's sphere of being. And
+yet religion has developed for the sake of sanctifying the daily walks
+of man, of making the secular sacred, of filling life with meaning and
+consecrating even the most trivial duties of existence.
+
+Secularism is the reaction against dogmatism, but secularism still
+accepts the views of the dogmatist on religion; for it is upon the
+dogmatist's valuations and definitions that the secularist rejects
+religion as worthless.
+
+* * *
+
+The religious movement, of which The Open Court Publishing Co. is an
+exponent, represents one further step in the evolution of religious
+aspirations. As alchemy develops into chemistry, and astrology into
+astronomy, as blind faith changes into seeing face to face, as belief
+changes into knowledge, so the religion of miracles, the religion of
+a salvation by magic, the religion of the dogmatist, ripens into the
+religion of pure and ascertainable truth. The old dogmas, which in their
+literal acceptance appear as nonsensical errors, are now recognised
+as allegories which symbolise deeper truths, and the old ideals are
+preserved not with less, but with more, significance than before.
+
+God is not smaller but greater since we know more about Him, as to what
+He is and what He is not, just as the universe is not smaller but larger
+since Copernicus and Kepler opened our eyes and showed us what the
+relation of our earth in the solar system is and what it is not.
+
+Secularism is one of the signs of the times. It represents the unbelief
+in a religious alchemy; but its antagonism to the religion of dogmatism
+does not bode destruction but advance. It represents the transition to
+a purer conception of religion. It has not the power to abolish the
+church, but only indicates the need of its reformation.
+
+It is this reformation of religion and of religious institutions which
+is the sole aim of all the publications of The Open Court Publishing
+Co., and we see in Secularism one of those agencies that are at work
+preparing the way for a higher and nobler comprehension of the truth.
+
+Mr. Holyoake's aspirations, in our opinion, go beyond the aims which he
+himself points out, and thus his Confession of Faith, although nominally
+purely secular, will finally, even by churchmen, be recognised in its
+religious importance. It will help to purify the confession of faith of
+the dogmatist.
+
+In offering Mr. Holyoake's best and maturest thoughts to the public, we
+hope that both the secularists and the believers in religion will by
+and by learn to understand that Secularism as much as dogmatism is a
+phase--both are natural and necessary phases--in the religious evolution
+of mankind. There is no use in scolding either the dogmatist or the
+secularist, or in denouncing the one on account of his credulity and
+superstition, and the other on account of his dissent; but there is a
+use in--nay, there is need of--understanding the aspirations of both.
+
+There is a need of mutual exchange of thought on the basis of mutual
+esteem and good-will. Above all, there is a need of opening the church
+doors to the secularist.
+
+The church, if it has any right of existence at all, is for the
+world, and not for believers alone. Church members can learn from the
+secularist many things which many believers seem to have forgotten, and,
+on the other hand, they can teach the unbeliever what he has overlooked
+in his sincere attempts at finding the truth, May Mr. Holyoake's
+confession of faith be received in the spirit in which the author wrote
+it, which is a candid love of truth, and also in the spirit in which
+the publishers undertook its publication, with the irenic endeavor
+of letting every honest aspiration be rightly understood and rightly
+valued.
+
+Paul Carus, Manager of The Open Court Publishing Co.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. OPEN THOUGHT THE FIRST STEP TO INTELLIGENCE
+
+     "It is not prudent to be in the right too soon, nor to be in
+     the right against everybody else. And yet it sometimes
+     happens that after a certain lapse of time, greater or
+     lesser, you will find that one of those truths which you had
+     kept to yourself as premature, but which has got abroad in
+     spite of your teeth, has become the most commonplace thing
+     imaginable."
+
+     --Alphonse Karr.
+
+ONE purpose of these chapters is to explain how unfounded are the
+objections of many excellent Christians to Secular instruction in State,
+public, or board schools. The Secular is distinct from theology, which
+it neither ignores, assails, nor denies. Things Secular are as separate
+from the Church as land from the ocean. And what nobody seems to discern
+is that things Secular are in themselves quite distinct from Secularism.
+The Secular is a mode of instruction; Secularism is a code of conduct.
+Secularism does conflict with theology; Secularist teaching would, but
+Secular instruction does not.
+
+Persuaded as I am that lack of consideration for the convictions of
+the reader creates an impediment in the way of his agreement with the
+writer, and even disinclines him to examine what is put before him; yet
+some of these pages may be open to this objection. If so, it is owing
+to want of thought or want of art in statement, and is no part of the
+intention of the author.
+
+He would have diffidence in expressing, as he does in these pages,
+his dissent from the opinions of many Christian advocates--for whose
+character and convictions he has great respect, and for some even
+affection--did he not perceive that few have any diffidence or
+reservation (save in one or two exalted instances)* in maintaining their
+views and dissenting from his.
+
+Open thought, which in this chapter is brought under the reader's notice
+is sometimes called "self-thought," or "free thought," or "original
+thought"--the opposite of conventional second-hand thought--which is all
+that the custom-ridden mass of mankind is addicted to.
+
+Open thought has three stages:
+
+The first stage is that in which the right to think independently is
+insisted on; and the free action of opinion--so formed--is maintained.
+Conscious power thus acquired satisfies the pride of some; others limit
+its exercise from prudence. Interests, which would be jeopardised by
+applying independent thought to received opinion, keep more persons
+silent, and thus many never pass from this stage.
+
+     *  Of whom the greatest is Mr. Gladstone.
+
+The second stage is that in which the right of self-thought is applied
+to the criticism of theology, with a view to clear the way for life
+according to reason. This is not the work of a day or year, but is so
+prolonged that clearing the way becomes as it were a profession, and is
+at length pursued as an end instead of a means. Disputation becomes
+a passion and the higher state of life, of which criticism is the
+necessary precursor, is lost sight of, and many remain at this stage
+when it is reached and go no further.
+
+The third stage is that where ethical motives of conduct apart
+from Christianity are vindicated for the guidance of those who are
+indifferent about theology, or who reject it altogether. Supplying to
+such persons Secular reasons for duty is Secularism, the range of
+which is illimitable. It begins where free thought usually ends, and
+constitutes a new form of constructive thought, the principles and
+policy of which are quite different from those acted upon in the
+preceding stages. Controversy concerns itself with what is; Secularism
+with what ought to be.
+
+It is pertinent here to say that Christianity does not permit
+eclecticism--that is, it does not tolerate others selecting portions of
+Christian Scriptures possessing the mark of intrinsic truth, to which
+many could cheerfully conform in their lives. This rule compels all who
+cannot accept the entire Scriptures to deal with its teachings as
+they find them expressed, and for which Christianity makes itself
+responsible.
+
+All the while it is quite evident that Christians do permit eclecticism
+among themselves. The great Congress of the Free Churches, recently held
+in Nottingham, representing the personal and vital form of Christianity,
+had a humanness and tolerance un manifested by Christianity before,
+showing that humanity is stronger than historical integrity. If any one,
+therefore, should draw up, as might be done, a theory of Christianity
+solely from such doctrines as are represented in the elliptical
+preaching, practice, and social life of Christians of to-day, a very
+different estimate of the Christian system would have to be given from
+that with which the author deals in the subsequent chapters. In them
+Christianity is represented as Free-thought has found it, and as it
+exists in the Scriptures, in the law, in the pulpit, and in the school,
+which constitute its total force in the respects in which it represses
+and discourages independent thought. Science, truth, and criticism have
+engrafted themselves on historic Christianity. It has now new articles
+of belief. When it avows them it will win larger concurrence and respect
+than it can now command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE QUESTION STATED
+
+     "Look forward--not backward; Look up--not down; Look around;
+     Lend a hand."*
+
+     --Edward Everett Hale, D. D.
+
+Where a monarchy is master, inquiry is apt to be a disturbing element;
+and though exercised in the interest of the commonwealth it is none the
+less resented. Where the priest is master inquiry is sharply prohibited.
+The priest represents a spiritual monarchy in which the tenets of belief
+are fixed, assumed to be infallible, and to be prescribed by deity. Thus
+the priest regards inquiry as proceeding from an impertinent distrust,
+to which he is not reconciled on being assured that it is undertaken in
+the interest of truth. Thus the king denounces inquiry as sedition, and
+the priest as sin. In the end the inquirer finds himself an alien in
+State and Church, and laws are made against his life, his liberty,
+property, and veracity.**
+
+     * Dr. Hale did not popularise these energetic maxims of
+     earnestness in the connexion in which they are here used;
+     but their wisdom is of general application.
+
+     **When martyrdoms and imprisonments ceased, disabling laws
+     remained which imposed the Christian oath on all who
+     appealed to the courts, and any who had the pride of
+     veracity and declined to to swear, were denied protection
+     for property, or credence of their word.
+
+Thus from the time when monarch and priest first set up their
+pretensions in the world, the inquiring mind has had small
+encouragement. When Protestantism came it merely conceded inquiry _under
+direction_, and only so far as it tended to confirm its own anti-papal
+tenets. But when inquiry claimed to be independent, unfettered,
+uncontrolled,--in fact to be _free_ inquiry,--then Papist, Lutheran, and
+Dissenter, alike regarded it as dangerous, and stigmatised it by every
+term calculated to deter or dissuade people from it.
+
+But though this combined defamation of inquiry set many against it, it
+did not intimidate men entirely. There arose independent thinkers who
+held that unfettered investigation was the discoverer of truth and
+dangerous to error only, and that the freer it was the more effective it
+must be.
+
+Still timorous-minded persons remained suspicious of _free_ thought.
+At its best they found it involved conflict with false opinion, and
+conflict, to those without aspiration or conscience, is disquieting; and
+where impartial investigation interfered with personal interests it was
+opposed. No one could enter on the search for truth without finding his
+path obstructed by theological errors and interdictions. Having taken
+the side of truth, all who were loyal to it, were bound like Bunyan's
+
+Pilgrim to withstand the Apollyons who opposed it, and a combat began
+which lasted for centuries, and is not yet ended. But though theology
+was always in power, men of courage at length established the right of
+free inquiry, and established also a free press for the publication of
+the results arrived at. These rights were so indispensable for progress
+and were so long resisted, that generations fought for them as ends in
+themselves. Thus there grew up, as in military affairs, a class whose
+profession was destruction, and free thinkers came to be regarded as
+negationists. When I came into the field the combat was raging. Richard
+Carlile had not long been liberated from successive imprisonments of
+more than nine years duration in all. Charles Southwell was in Bristol
+gaol. Before his sentence had half expired I was in Gloucester gaol.
+George Adams was there; Mrs. Harriet Adams was committed for trial from
+Cheltenham. Matilda Roalfe, Thomas Finlay, Thomas Paterson, and others
+were incarcerated in Scotland. Robert Buchanan and Lloyd Jones, two
+social missionaries--colleagues of my own--only escaped imprisonment by
+swearing they believed what they did not believe,--an act I refused to
+imitate, and no mean inconvenience has resulted to me from it. I took
+part in the vindication of the free publicity of opinion until it was
+practically conceded. At the time when I was arrested in 1842, the
+Cheltenham magistrates who were angered at defiant remarks I made, had
+the power (and used it) of committing me to the Quarter Sessions as a
+"felon," where the same justices could resent, by penalties, what I had
+said to them. On representations I made to Parliament--through my friend
+John Arthur Roebuck and others--Sir James Graham caused a Bill to be
+passed which removed trials for opinion to the Assizes. I was the first
+person tried under this act. Thus for the first time heresy was ensured
+a dispassionate trial and was no longer subject to the jurisdiction of
+local prejudice and personal magisterial resentment.
+
+When overt acts of outrage were no longer possible against the adherents
+of free thought, Christians, some from fairness, and others from
+necessity, began to reason with them and asked: "Now you have
+established your claim to be heard. What have you to say?" The reply
+I proposed was: "Secularism--a form of opinion relating to the duty of
+this life which substituted the piety of useful men for the usefulness
+of piety."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE FIRST STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATION
+
+     "He who cannot reason is defenceless; he who fears to reason
+     has a coward mind; he who will not reason is willing to be
+     deceived and will deceive all who listen to him."
+
+     --Maxim of Free Thought.
+
+FREE THOUGHT is founded upon reason. It is the exercise of reason,
+without which free thought is free foolishness. Free thought being
+the precursor of Secularism, it is necessary first to describe its
+principles and their limitation. Free thought means independent
+self-thinking. Some say all thought is free since a man can think what
+he pleases and no one can prevent him, which is not true. Unfortunately
+thinking can be prevented by subtle spiritual intimidation, in earlier
+and even in later life.
+
+When a police agent found young Mazzini in the fields of Genoa,
+apparently meditating, his father's attention was called to the
+youth. His father was told that the Austrian Government did not permit
+thinking. The Inquisition intimidated nations from thinking. The priests
+by preventing instruction and prohibiting books, limited thinking.
+Archbishop Whately shows that no one can reason without words, and since
+speech can be, and is, disallowed and made penal, the highway of
+thought can be closed. No one can think to any purpose without inquiry
+concerning his subject, and inquiry can be made impossible. It is of
+little use that any one thinks who cannot verify his ideas by comparison
+with those of his compeers. To prevent this is to discourage thought. In
+fact thousands are prevented thinking by denying them the means and the
+facilities of thinking.
+
+Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal
+penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does
+not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not
+authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he
+is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law,
+nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society--whose opinion appals so many. He
+who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save
+the fear of error.
+
+Fearlessness is the essential condition of effective thought. If Satan
+sits at the top of the Bible with perdition open underneath it, into
+which its readers will be pushed who may doubt what they find in its
+pages, the right of private judgment is a snare. A man is a fool who
+inquires at this risk. He had better accept at once the superstition of
+the first priest he meets. It is not conceivable how a Christian can be
+a _free_ thinker.
+
+He who is afraid to know both sides of a question cannot think upon
+it. Christians do not, as a rule, want to know what can be said against
+their views, and they keep out of libraries all books which would inform
+others. Thus such Christians cannot think freely, and are against others
+doing it. Doubt comes of thinking; the Christian commonly regards doubt
+as sin. How can he be a free thinker who thinks thinking is a sin?
+
+Free thought implies three things as conditions of truth:
+
+1. Free inquiry, which is the pathway to truth.
+
+2. Free publicity to the ideas acquired, in order to learn whether they
+are useful--which is the encouragement of truth.
+
+3. The free discussion of convictions without which it is not possible
+to know whether they are true or false, which is the verification of
+truth.
+
+A man is not a man unless he is a thinker; he is a fool having no ideas
+of his own. If he happens to live among men who do think, he browses
+like an animal on their ideas. He is a sort of kept man being supported
+by the thoughts of others. He is what in England is called a pauper, who
+subsists upon "outdoor relief," allowed him by men of intellect.
+
+Without the right of publicity, individual thought, however praiseworthy
+and however perfect, would be barren to the community. Algernon Sidney
+said: "The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech and the
+example of using it."
+
+The clergy of every denomination are unfriendly to its use. The soldiers
+of the cross do not fight adversaries in the open. Mr. Gladstone alone
+among eminent men of piety has insisted upon the duty of the Church to
+prove its claims in discussion. In his Introduction to his address at
+the Liverpool College (1872 or 1873) he said: "I wish to place on record
+my conviction that belief cannot now be defended by reticence any more
+than by railing, or by any privileges or assumption." Since the day of
+Milton there has been no greater authority on the religious wisdom of
+debate.
+
+Thought, even theological, is often useless, ill-informed, foolish,
+mischievous, or even wicked; and he alone who submits it to free
+criticism gives guarantees that he means well, and is self-convinced. By
+criticism alone comes exposure, correction, or confirmation. The right
+of criticism is the sole protection of the community against error
+of custom, ignorance, prejudice, or incompetence. It is not until a
+proposition has been generally accepted after open and fair examination,
+that it can be considered as established and can safely be made a ground
+of action or belief.*
+
+     * See Formation of Opinions, by Samuel Bailey.
+
+These are the implementary rights of thought. They are what grammar is
+to the writer, which teaches him how to express himself, but not what
+to say. These rights are as the rules of navigation to the mariner. They
+teach him how to steer a ship but do not instruct him where to steer to.
+
+The full exercise of these rights of mental freedom is what training
+in the principles of jurisprudence is to the pleader, but it does not
+provide him with a brief. It is conceivable that a man may come to be a
+master of independent thinking and never put his powers to use; just as
+a man may know every rule of grammar and yet never write a book. In
+the same way a man may pass an examination in the art of navigation and
+never take command of a vessel; or he may qualify for a Barrister, be
+called to the Bar and never plead in any court. We know from experience
+that many persons join in the combat for the right of intellectual
+freedom for its own sake, without intending or caring to use the right
+when won. Some are generous enough to claim and contend for these rights
+from the belief that they may be useful to others. This is the first
+stage of free thought, and, as has been said, many never pass beyond it.
+
+Independent thinking is concerned primarily with removing obstacles to
+its own action, and in contests for liberty of speech by tongue and
+pen. The free mind fights mainly for its own freedom. It may begin in
+curiosity and may end in intellectual pride--unless conscience takes
+care of it. Its nature is iconoclastic and it may exist without ideas of
+reconstruction.
+
+Though a man goes no further, he is a better man than he who never went
+as far. He has acquired a new power, and is sure of his own mind.
+Just as one who has learned to fence, or to shoot, has a confidence in
+encountering an adversary, which is seldom felt by one who never had
+a sword in hand, or practised at a target. The sea is an element of
+recreation to one who has learned to swim; it is an element of death to
+one ignorant of the art. Besides, the thinker has attained a courage
+and confidence unknown to the man of orthodox mind. Since God (we are
+assured) is the God of truth, the honest searcher after truth has God on
+his side, and has no dread of the King of Perdition--the terror of all
+Christian people--since the business of Satan is with those who are
+content with false ideas; not with those who seek the true. If it be a
+duty to seek the truth and to live the truth, honest discussion, which
+discerns it, identifies it, clears it, and establishes it, is a form
+of worship of real honor to God and of true service to man. If the
+clergyman's speech on behalf of God is rendered exact by criticism, the
+criticism is a tribute, and no mean tribute to heaven. Thus the free
+exercise of the rights of thought involve no risk hereafter.
+
+Moreover, so far as a man thinks he gains. Thought implies enterprise
+and exertion of mind, and the result is wealth of understanding, to
+be acquired in no other way. This intellectual property like other
+property, has its rights and duties. The thinker's right is to be left
+in undisturbed possession of what he has earned; and his duty is
+to share his discoveries of truth with mankind, to whom he owes his
+opportunities of acquiring it.
+
+Free expression involves consideration for others, on principle.
+Democracy without personal deference becomes a nuisance; so free speech
+without courtesy is repulsive, as free publicity would be, if not mainly
+limited to reasoned truth. Otherwise every blatant impulse would have
+the same right of utterance as verified ideas. Even truth can only claim
+priority of utterance, when its utility is manifest. As the number and
+length of hairs on a man's head is less important to know, than the
+number and quality of the ideas in his brain.
+
+True free thought requires special qualities to insure itself
+acceptance. It must be owned that the thinker is a disturber. He is a
+truth-hunter, and there is no telling what he will find. Truth is an
+exile which has been kept out of her kingdom, and Error is a usurper in
+possession of it; and the moment Truth comes into her right, Error has
+to give up its occupancy of her territory; and as everybody consciously,
+or unconsciously harbors some of the emissaries of the usurper, they
+do not like owning the fact, and they dispute the warrant of truth
+to search their premises, though to be relieved of such deceitful and
+costly inmates would be an advantage to them.
+
+An inalienable attribute of free thought, which no theology possesses,
+is absolute toleration of all ideas put forward in the interests of
+public truth, and submitted to public discussion. The true free thinker
+is in favor of the free action of all opinion which injures no one else,
+and of putting the best construction he can on the acts of others, not
+only because he has thereby less to tolerate, but from perceiving that
+he who lacks tolerance towards the ideas of others has no claim for
+the tolerance of his own. The defender of toleration must himself be
+tolerant. Condemning the coercion of ideas, he is pledged to combat
+error only by reason. Vindictiveness towards the erring is not only
+inconsistency, it is persecution. Thus free thought is not only
+self-defence against error but, by the toleration it imposes, is itself
+security for respectfulness in controversy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ENTERPRISE
+
+     "Better wild ideas than no ideas at all."
+
+     --Professor Nichol at Horsham.
+
+THE emancipation of the understanding from intimidation and penal
+restraint soon incited thinkers of enterprise to put their new powers
+to use. Theology being especially a forbidden subject and the greatest
+repressive force, inquiry into its pretensions first attracted critical
+attention.
+
+In every century forlorn hopes of truth had set out to storm one or
+other of the ramparts of theology. Forces had been marshalled by
+great leaders and battle often given in the open field; and unforeseen
+victories are recorded, in the annals of the wars of infantine
+rationalism, against the full-grown powers of superstition and darkness.
+In every age valiant thinkers, scholars, philosophers, and critics, even
+priests in defiance of power, ecclesiastical and civil, have, at their
+own peril, explored the regions of forbidden truth.
+
+In Great Britain it was the courage of insurgent thinkers among the
+working class--whom no imprisonment could intimidate--who caused the
+right of free speech and free publicity to be finally conceded. Thus
+rulers came round to the conclusion of Caballero, that "tolerance is as
+necessary in ideas as in social relations."
+
+As soon as opinion was known to be emancipated, men began to think who
+never thought before. The thinker no longer had to obtain a "Ticket
+of Leave" from the Churches before he could inquire; he was free to
+investigate where he would and what he would. Power is, as a rule, never
+imparted nor acquired in vain, and honest men felt they owed it to those
+who had won freedom for them, that they should extend it. Thus it
+came to pass that independence was an inspiration to action in men
+of intrepid minds. Professor Tyndall in the last words he wrote for
+publication said, "I choose the nobler part of Emerson when, after
+various disenchantments, he exclaims, 'I covet truth!'" On printing
+these words the _Westminster Gazette_ added: "The gladness of true
+heroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to say this."
+The energies of intellectual intrepidity had doubtless been devoted to
+science and social progress; but as philosophers have found, down
+to Huxley's day, all exploration was impossible in that direction.
+Murchison, Brewster, Buckland, and other pioneers of science were
+intimidated. Lyell held back his book, on the Antiquity of Man, twenty
+years. Tyndall, Huxley, and Spencer were waiting to be heard. As
+Huxley has justly said: "there was no Thoroughfare into the Kingdom
+of Nature--By Order--Moses." Hence, to examine theology, to discover
+whether its authority was absolute, became a necessity. It was soon seen
+that there was ground for scepticism. The priests resented criticism
+by representing the sceptic of their pretensions, as being sceptical of
+everything, whereas they were only sceptics of clerical infallibility.
+They indeed did aver that branches of human knowledge, received as well
+established, were really open to question, in order to show that if men
+could not be confident of things of which they had experience, how could
+the Churches be confident of things of which no man had experience--and
+which contradicted experience? So far from disbelieving everything,
+scepticism went everywhere in search of truth and certainty. Since the
+Church could not be absolutely certain of the truth of its tenets,
+its duty was to be tolerant. But being intolerant it became as Julian
+Hibbert put it--"well-understood self-defence" to assail it. The Church
+fought for power, the thinker fought for truth. Free thought among the
+people may be likened to a good ship manned by adventurous mariners,
+who, cruising about in the ocean of theology came upon sirens, as other
+mariners had done before--dangerous to be followed by navigators
+bound to ports of progress. Many were thereby decoyed to their own
+destruction. The sirens of the Churches sang alluring songs whose
+refrains were:
+
+1. The Bible the guide of God.
+
+2. The origin of the universe disclosed.
+
+3. The care of Providence assured.
+
+4. Deliverance from peril by prayer dependable.
+
+5. Original sin effaceable by grace.
+
+6. Perdition avoidable by faith in crucifixion.
+
+7. Future life revealed.
+
+These propositions were subjects of resonant hymns, sermons, and tracts,
+and were not, and are not, disowned, but still defended in discussion by
+orthodox and clerical advocates. Save salvation by the blood of Christ
+(a painful idea to entertain), the other ideas might well fascinate the
+uninquiring. They had enchanted many believers, but the explorers of
+whom we speak had acquired the questioning spirit, and had learned
+prudently to look at both sides of familiar subjects and soon discovered
+that the fair-seeming propositions which had formerly imposed on their
+imagination were unsound, unsightly, and unsafe. The Syracusans of
+old kept a school in which slaves were taught the ways of bondage.
+Christianity has kept such a school in which subjection of the
+understanding was inculcated, and the pupils, now free to investigate,
+resolved to see whether such things were true.
+
+Then began the reign of refutation of theological error, by some from
+indignation at having been imposed upon, by others from zeal that
+misconception should end; by more from enthusiasm for facts; by the
+bolder sort from resentment at the intimidation and cruelty with which
+inquiry had been suppressed so long; and by not a few from the love
+of disputation which has for some the delight men have for chess or
+cricket, or other pursuit which has conflict and conquest in it.
+
+Self-determined thought is a condition of the progress of nations. Where
+would science be but for open thought, the nursing mother of enterprise,
+of discovery, of invention, of new conditions of human betterment?
+
+A modern Hindu writer* tells us that: "The Hindu is sorely handicapped
+by customs which are prescribed by his religious books. Hedged in by
+minute rules and restrictions the various classes forming the Hindu
+community have had but little room for expansion and progress. The
+result has been stagnation. Caste has prevented the Hindus from sinking,
+but it has also preventing them from rising."
+
+     *  Pramatha Nath Bose.
+
+The old miracle-bubbles which the Jews blew into the air of wonder two
+thousand years ago, delight churches still in their childhood. The sea
+of theology would have been stagnant centuries ago, had not insurgent
+thinkers, at the peril of their lives, created commotion in it. Morals
+would have been poisoned on the shores of theology had not free thought
+purified the waters by putting the salt of reason into that sea,
+freshening it year by year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CONQUESTS OF INVESTIGATION
+
+     "The secret of Genius is to suffer no fiction to live."
+
+     --Goethe.
+
+THEOLOGIANS had so choked the human mind with a dense undergrowth of
+dogmas that it was like cutting through an African forest, such as
+Stanley encountered, to find the paths of truth.
+
+On that path, when found, many things unforeseen before, became plain.
+The siren songs of orthodoxy were discovered to have strange discords of
+sense in them.
+
+1. The Guide of God seemed to be very human--not authentic, not
+consistent--containing things not readable nor explainable in the
+family; pagan fictions, such as the Incarnation reluctantly believable
+as the device of a moral deity. Men of genius and of noble ethical
+sympathy do however deem it defensible. In any human book the paternal
+exaction of such suffering as fell to Christ, would be regarded with
+alarm and repugnance. Wonder was felt that Scripture, purporting to
+contain the will of deity, should not be expressed so unmistakably that
+ignorance could not misunderstand it, nor perversity misconstrue it. The
+gods know how to write.
+
+2. The origin of all things has excited and disappointed the curiosity
+of the greatest exploring minds of every age. That the secret of the
+universe is undisclosed, is manifest from the different and differing
+conjectures concerning it. The origin of the universe remains
+unknowable. What awe fills or rather takes possession of the mind which
+comprehends this! Why existence exists is the cardinal wonder.
+
+3. Pleasant and free from anxiety, life would be were it true, that
+Providence is a present help in the day of need. Alas, to the poor it is
+evident that Providence does not interfere, either to befriend the good
+in their distress, or arrest the bad in the act of crime.
+
+4. The power of prayer has been the hope of the helpless and the
+oppressed in every age. Every man wishes it was true that help could be
+had that way. Then every just man could protect himself at will against
+his adversaries. But experience shows that all entreaty is futile to
+induce Providence to change its universal habit of non-intervention.
+Prayer beguiles the poor but provides no dinner. Mr. Spurgeon said at
+the Tabernacle that prayer filled his meal barrel when empty. I asked
+that he should publish the recipe in the interests of the hungry. But he
+made no reply.
+
+5. There is reason to think that original sin is not anything more than
+original ignorance. The belief in natural depravity discourages all
+efforts of progress. The primal imperfection of human nature is only
+effaceable by knowledge and persistent endeavor. Even in things lawful
+to do, excess is sin, judged by human standards. There may be error
+without depravity.
+
+6. Eternal perdition for conscientious belief, whether erroneous or
+not, is humanly incredible. The devisors of this doctrine must have
+been unaware that belief is an affair of ignorance, prejudice, custom,
+education, or evidence. The liability of the human race to eternal
+punishment is the foundation on which all Christianity (except
+Unitarianism) rests. This awful belief, if acted upon with the sincerity
+that Christianity declares it should be, would terminate all enjoyment,
+and all enterprise would cease in the world. None would ever marry. No
+persons, with any humanity in their hearts would take upon themselves
+the awful responsibility of increasing the number of the damned. The
+registrar of births would be the most fiendish clerk conceivable. He
+would be practically the secretary of hell.
+
+The theory that all the world was lost through a curious and
+enterprising lady, eating an apricot or an apple, and that three
+thousand or more years after, mankind had to be redeemed by the murder
+of an innocent Jew, is of a nature to make men afraid to believe in a
+deity accused of contriving so dreadful a scheme.
+
+Though this reasoning will seem to many an argument against the
+existence of God whereas it is merely against the attributes of deity,
+as ascribed to him by Christianity. If God be not moral, in the human
+sense of the term, he may as well be not moral at all. It is only he
+whose principles of justice, men can understand, that men can
+trust. Prof. T. H. Huxley, conspicuous for his clearness of view and
+dispassionateness of judgment, was of this opinion, and said: "The
+suggestion arises, if God is the cause of all things he is responsible
+for evil as well as for good, and it appears utterly irreconcilable with
+our notions of justice that he should punish another for that which he
+has in fact done himself." The poet concurs with the philosopher when he
+exclaims:
+
+     "The loving worm within its clod,
+     Were diviner than a loveless God Amid his worlds."*
+
+     * Browning.
+
+Christianity indeed speaks of the _love_ of God in sending his son
+to die for the security of others. But not less is the heart of the
+intelligent and humane believer torn with fear, as he thinks what
+must be the character of that God who could only be thus appeased.
+The example of self-sacrifice is noble--but is it noble in any one
+who deliberately creates the necessity for it? The better side of
+Christianity seems overshadowed by the worse.
+
+7. Future life is uncertain, being unprovable and seemingly improbable,
+judging from the dependence of life on material conditions. Christians
+themselves do not seem confident of another existence. If they were
+_sure_ of it, who of them would linger here when those they love and
+honor have gone before? Ere we reach the middle of our days, the joy of
+every heart lies in some tomb. If the Christian actually believed that
+the future was real, would he hang black plumes over the hearse, and
+speak of death as darkness? No! the cemeteries would be hung with joyful
+lights, the grave would be the gate of Paradise. Every one would find
+justifiable excuse for leaving this for the happier world. All tenets
+which are contradicted by reason had better not be.
+
+Many preachers now disown, in controversy, these doctrines, but until
+they carry the professions of the platform into the statute book,
+the rubric, and the pulpit, such doctrines remain operative, and the
+Churches remain answerable for them. Nonconformists do not protest
+against a State Church on account of its doctrines herein enumerated.
+When the doctrines which conflict with reason and humanity are disowned
+by authority, ecclesiastical and legal, in all denominations, the duty
+of controverting them as impediments to progress will cease.
+
+It may be said in reply to what is here set forth as tenets of Christian
+Scripture, that the writer follows the letter and not the spirit of the
+word. Yes, that is what he does. He is well aware of the new practice of
+seeking refuge in the "spirit," of "expanding" the letter and taking a
+"new range of view." He however holds that to drop the "letter" is to
+drop the doctrine. To "expand" the "letter" is to change it. New "range
+of view" is the term under which desertion of the text is disguised.
+But "new range" means new thought, which in this insidious way is put
+forward to supersede the old. The frank way is to say so, and admit
+that the "letter" is obsolete--is gone, is disproved, and that new views
+which are truer constitute the new letter of progress. The best thing to
+do with the "dead hand" is to bury it. To try to expand dissolution is
+but galvanising the corpse and tying the dead to the living.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. STATIONARINESS OF CRITICISM
+
+     "Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the
+     dark."
+
+     --John Newton.
+
+CRITICISM in theology, as in literature, is with many an intoxication.
+Zest in showing what is wrong is apt to blunt the taste for what is
+right, which it is the true end of criticism to discover. Lord Byron
+said critics disliked Pope because he afforded them so few chances
+of objection. They found fault with him because he had no faults. The
+criticism of theology begets complacency in many. There is a natural
+satisfaction in being free from the superstition of the vulgar, in the
+Church as well as out of it. No wonder many find abiding pleasure in the
+intellectual refutation of the errors of supernaturalism and in putting
+its priests to confusion. Absorbed in the antagonism of theology, many
+lose sight of ultimate utility, and regard error, not as a misfortune
+to be alleviated, so much as a fault to be exposed. Like the theologian
+whose color they take, they do not much consider whether their method
+causes men to dislike the truth through its manner of being offered
+to them. Their ambition is to make those in error look foolish. Free
+thinkers of zeal are apt to become intense, and like Jules Ferry (a late
+French premier), care less for power, than for conflict, and the lover
+of conflict is not easily induced to regard the disproof of theology
+as a means to an end* higher than itself. It is difficult to impart to
+uncalculating zealots a sense of proportion. They dash along the warpath
+by their own momentum. Railway engineers find that it takes twice as
+much power to stop an express train as it does to start it.
+
+     * Buckle truly says, "Liberty is not a means, it is an end
+     in itself," But the uses of liberty are means to ends
+     Else why do we want liberty?
+
+When I first knew free thought societies they were engaged in
+Church-fighting--which is still popular among them, and which has led
+the public to confuse criticism with Secularism, an entirely different
+thing.
+
+Insurgent thought exclusively directed, breeds, as is said elsewhere,
+a distinguished class of men--among scholars as well as among the
+uninformed--who have a passion for disputation, which like other
+passions "grows by what it feeds upon." Yet a limited number of such
+paladins of investigation are not without uses in the economy of
+civilisations. They resemble the mighty hunters of old, they extirpate
+beasts of prey which roam the theological forests, and thus they render
+life more safe to dwellers in cities, open to the voracious incursions
+of supernaturalism.
+
+Without the class of combatants described, in whom discussion is
+irrepressible, and whose courage neither odium nor danger abates,
+many castles of superstition would never be stormed. But mere
+intellectual-ism generates a different and less useful species of
+thinkers, who neither hunt in the jungles of theology nor storm
+strongholds. We all know hundreds in every great town who have freed
+themselves, or have been freed by others, from ecclesiastical error, who
+remain supine. Content with their own superiority (which they owe to
+the pioneers who went before them more generous than they) they speak no
+word, and lend no aid towards conferring the same advantages upon such
+as are still enslaved. They affect to despise the ignorance they ought
+to be foremost to dissipate. They exclaim in the words of Goethe's
+Coptic song:
+
+     "Fools from their folly 'tis hopeless to stay,
+     Mules will be mules by the laws of their mulishness,
+     Then be advised and leave fools to their foolishness,
+     What from an ass can be got but a bray."
+
+These Coptic philosophers overlook that they would have been "asses"
+also, had those who vindicated freedom before their day, and raised it
+to a power, been as indifferent and as contemptuous as believers in
+the fool-theory are. Coptic thinkers forget that every man is a fool
+in respect of any question on which he gives an opinion without having
+thought independently upon it. With patience you can make a thinker out
+of a fool; and the first step from the fool stage is accomplished by a
+little thinking. It is well to remember the exclamation of Thackeray:
+"If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man."
+
+It is, however, but justice to some who join the stationariness, to
+own that they have fared badly on the warpath against error, and are
+entitled to the sympathy we extend to the battered soldier who falls
+out of the ranks on the march. Grote indicates what the severity of
+the service is, in the following passage from his _Mischiefs of Natural
+Religion_:--"Of all human antipathies that which the believer in a God
+bears to the unbeliever, is the fullest, the most unqualified, and
+the most universal. The mere circumstance of dissent involves a tacit
+imputation of error and incapacity on the part of the priest, who
+discerns that his persuasive power is not rated so highly by others
+as it is by himself. This invariably begets dislike towards his
+antagonist."
+
+Nevertheless it is a reproach to those whom militant thought has made
+free, if they remain unmindful of the fate of their inferiors. Yet
+Christian churches, with all self-complacent superiority to which
+many of them are prone, are not free from the sins of indifference and
+superfineness. This was conspicuously shown by Southey in a letter to
+Sir Henry Taylor, in which he says:--"Have you seen the strange
+book which Anastasius Hope left for publication and which his
+representatives, in spite of all dissuasion, have published? His notion
+of immortality and heaven is that at the consummation of all things he,
+and you, and I, and John Murray, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Lambert the fat
+man, and the Living Skeleton, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Hottentot,
+Venus, and Thutell, and Probert, and the Twelve Apostles, and the noble
+army of martyrs, and Genghis Khan and all his armies, and Noah with all
+his ancestors and all his posterity,--yea, all men, and all women, and
+all children that have ever been, or ever shall be, saints and sinners
+alike, are all to be put together and made into one great celestial,
+eternal human being.... I do not like the scheme. I don't like the
+notion of being mixed up with Hume, and Hunt, and Whittle Harvey, and
+Philpotts, and Lord Althorp, and the Huns, and the Hottentots, and the
+Jews, and the Philistines, and the Scotch, and the Irish. God forbid! I
+hope to be I, myself, in an English heaven, with you yourself,--you and
+some others without whom heaven would be no heaven to me."
+
+Most of these persons would have the same dislike to be mixed up with
+Mr. Southey. Lord Byron would not have been enthusiastic about it. The
+Comtists have done something to preach a doctrine of humanity, and
+to put an end to this pitiful contempt of a few men for their
+fellows,--fellows who in many respects are often superior to those who
+despise them.
+
+All superiority is apt to be contemptuous of inferiors, unless
+conscience and generosity takes care of it, and incites it to instruct
+inferior natures. The prayer of Browning is one of noble discernment:--
+
+     "Make no more giants, God--
+     But elevate the race at once."
+
+Even free thought, so far as it confines itself to itself, becomes
+stationary. Like the squirrel in its cage:
+
+     "Whether it turns by wood or wire,
+     Never gets one hair's breadth higher."
+
+If any doubt whether stationariness of thought is possible, let them
+think of Protestantism which climbed on to the ledge of private judgment
+three centuries ago--and has remained there. Instead of mounting higher
+and overrunning all the plateaus of error above them, it has done its
+best to prevent any who would do it, from ascending. There is now,
+however, a new order of insurgent thought of the excelsior caste which
+seeks to climb the heights. Distinguished writers against theology in
+the past have regarded destructive criticism as preparing the way to
+higher conceptions of life and duty. If so little has been done in this
+direction among working class thinkers, it is because destructiveness
+is more easy. It needs only indignation to perfect it, and indignation
+requires no effort. The faculty of constructiveness is more arduous in
+exercise, and is later in germination. More men are able to take a state
+than to make a state. Hence Secularism, though inevitable as the next
+stage of militant progress, more slowly wins adherents and appreciation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THIRD STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT--SECULARISM
+
+     "Nothing is destroyed until it has been replaced."
+
+     --Madame de Stael.
+
+SEEING this wise maxim in a paper by Auguste Comte, I asked my friend
+Wm. de Fonvielle, who was in communication with Comte, to learn for me
+the authorship of the phrase. Comte answered that it was the Emperor's
+(Napoleon III.). It first appeared, as I afterwards found, in the
+writings of Madame de Stael, and more fully expressed by her.
+
+Self-regarding criticism having discovered the insufficiency of theology
+for the guidance of man, next sought to ascertain what rules human
+reason may supply for the independent conduct of life, which is the
+object of Secularism.
+
+At first, the term was taken to be a "mask" concealing sinister
+features--a "new name for an old thing"--or as a substitute term for
+scepticism or atheism. If impressions were always knowledge, men would
+be wise without inquiry, and explanations would be unnecessary. The
+term Secularism was chosen to express the extension of free thought to
+ethics. Free thinkers commonly go no further than saying, "We search for
+truth"*; Secularists say we have found it--at least, so much as replaces
+the chief errors and uncertainties of theology.
+
+Harriet Martineau, the most intrepid thinker among the women of her day,
+wrote to Lloyd Garrison a letter (inserted in the _Liberator_, 1853)
+approving "the term Secularism as including a large number of persons
+who are not atheists and uniting them for action, which has Secularism
+for its object. By the adoption of the new term a vast amount of
+prejudice is got rid of." At length it was seen that the "new term"
+designated a new conception.
+
+Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on
+considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find
+theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable.
+
+Its essential principles are three:
+
+1. The improvement of this life by _material_ means.
+
+2. That science is the available** Providence of man.
+
+3. That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the
+good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.
+
+     * M. Aurelius Antoninus said, "I seek the truth by which no
+     man was ever injured." It would be true had he said mankind.
+     Men are continually injured by the truth, or how do martyrs
+     come, or why do we honor them?
+
+     **This phrase was a suggestion of my friend the Rev. Dr. H.
+     T. Crosskey about 1854. I afterwards used the word
+     "available" which does not deny, nor challenge, nor affirm
+     the belief in a theological Providence by others, who,
+     therefore, are not incited to assail the effectual
+     proposition that material resources are an available
+     Providence where a spiritual Providence is inactive.
+
+Individual good attained by methods conducive to the good of others, is
+the highest aim of man, whether regard be had to human welfare in this
+life or personal fitness for another. Precedence is therefore given to
+the duties of this life.
+
+Being asked to send to the International Congress of Liberal Thinkers,
+(1886), an account of the tenets of the English party known as
+Secularists, I gave the following explanation to them.
+
+"The Secular is that, the issues of which can be tested by the
+experience of this life.
+
+"The ground common to all self-determined thinkers is that of
+independency of opinion, known as free thought, which though but an
+impulse of intellectual courage in the search for truth, or an impulse
+of aggression against hurtful or irritating error, or the caprice of
+a restless mind, is to be encouraged. It is necessary to promote
+independent thought--whatever its manner of manifestation--since
+there can be no progress without it. A Secularist is intended to be
+a reasoner, that is as Coleridge defined him, one who inquires what a
+thing is, and not only what it is, but _why_ it is what it is.
+
+"One of two great forces of opinion created in this age, is what is
+known as atheism,* which deprives superstition of its standing-ground
+and compels theism to reason for its existence. The other force is
+materialism which shows the physical consequences of error, supplying,
+as it were, beacon lights to morality.
+
+     * Huxley's term agnosticism implies a different thing--
+     unknowingness without denial.
+
+"Though respecting the right of the atheist and theist to their theories
+of the origin of nature, the Secularist regards them as belonging to the
+debatable ground of speculation. Secularism neither asks nor gives any
+opinion upon them, confining itself to the entirely independent field of
+study--the order of the universe. Neither asserting nor denying theism
+or a future life, having no sufficient reason to give if called upon;
+the fact remains that material influences exist, vast and available for
+good, as men have the will and wit to employ them. Whatever may be the
+value of metaphysical or theological theories of morals, utility in
+conduct is a daily test of common sense, and is capable of deciding
+intelligently more questions of practical duty than any other rule.
+Considerations which pertain to the general welfare, operate without the
+machinery of theological creeds, and over masses of men in every land to
+whom Christian incentives are alien, or disregarded."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THREE PRINCIPLES VINDICATED
+
+     "Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise."
+
+     --Francis Quarles.
+
+FIRST PRINCIPLE: _Of material means as conditions of welfare in this
+world_.--Theology works by "spiritual" means, Secularism by _material_
+means. Christians and Secularists both intend raising the character of
+the people, but their methods are very different. Christians are now
+beginning to employ material agencies for the elevation of life, which
+science, and not theology, has brought under their notice. But the
+Christian does not trust these agencies; the Secularist does, and in his
+mind the Secular is sacred. Spiritual means can never be depended upon
+for food, raiment, art, or national defence.
+
+The Archbishop of York (Dr. Magee), a clearheaded and candid prelate,
+surprised his contemporaries (at the Diocesan Conference, Leicester,
+October 19, 1889) by declaring that "Christianity made no claim to
+rearrange the economic relations of man in the State, or in society. He
+hoped he would be understood when he said plainly that it was his firm
+belief that any Christian State, carrying out in all its relations, the
+Sermon on the Mount, could not exist for a week. It was perfectly clear
+that a State could not continue to exist upon what were commonly called
+Christian principles."
+
+From the first, Secularism had based its claims to be regarded on the
+fact that only the rich could afford to be Christians, and the poor must
+look to other principles for deliverance.
+
+Material means are those which are calculable, which are under the
+control and command of man, and can be tested by human experience.
+No definition of Secularism shows its distinctiveness which omits to
+specify _material_ means as its method of procedure.
+
+But for the theological blasphemy of nature, representing it as the
+unintelligent tool of God, the Secular would have ennobled common life
+long ago. Sir Godfrey Kneller said, "He never looked on a bad picture
+but he carried away in his mind a dirty tint." Secularism would efface
+the dirty tints of life which Christianity has prayed over, but not
+removed.
+
+Second Principle: _Of the providence of science_.--Men are limited
+in power, and are oft in peril, and those who are taught to trust to
+supernatural aid are betrayed to their own destruction. We are told we
+should work as though there were no help in heaven, and pray as though
+there were no help in ourselves. Since, however, praying saves no ship,
+arrests no disease, and does not pay the tax-gatherer, it is better to
+work at once and without the digression of sinking prayer-buckets
+into empty wells, and spending life in drawing nothing up. The word
+illuminating secular life is _self-help_. The Secularist vexes not the
+ear of heaven by mendicant supplications. His is the only religion that
+gives heaven no trouble.
+
+Third Principle: _Of goodness as fitness for this world or
+another_.--Goodness is the service of others with a view to their
+advantage. There is no higher human merit. Human welfare is the sanction
+of morality. The measure of a good action is its conducive-ness to
+progress. The utilitarian test of generous rightness in motive may be
+open to objection,--there is no test which is not,--but the utilitarian
+rule is one comprehensible by every mind. It is the only rule which
+makes knowledge necessary, and becomes more luminous as knowledge
+increases. A fool may be a believer,* but not a utilitarian who seeks
+his ground of action in the largest field of relevant facts his mind is
+able to survey.
+
+     * The Guardian told as about 1887 that the Bishop of Exeter
+     confirmed five idiots.
+
+Utility in morals is measuring the good of one by its agreement with the
+good of many. Large ideas are when a man measures the good of his parish
+by the good of the town, the good of the town by the good of the county,
+the good of the county by the good of the country, the good of the
+country by the good of the continent, the good of the continent by the
+cosmopolitanism of the world.
+
+Truth and solicitude for the social welfare of others are the proper
+concern of a soul worth saving. Only minds with goodness in them have
+the desert of future existence. Minds without veracity and generosity
+die. The elements of death are in the selfish already. They could not
+live in a better world if they were admitted.
+
+In a noble passage in his sermon on "Citizenship" the Rev. Stopford
+Brooks said: "There are thousands of my fellow-citizens, men, and women,
+and children, who are living in conditions in which they have no true
+means of becoming healthy in body, trained in mind, or comforted by
+beauty. Life is as hard for them as it is easy for me. I cannot help
+them by giving them money, one by one, but I can help them by making the
+condition of their life easier by a good government of the city in
+which they live. And even if the charge on my property for this purpose
+increases for a time, year by year, till the work is done, that charge I
+will gladly pay. It shall be my ethics, _my religion_, my patriotism, my
+citizenship to do it."* The great preacher whose words are here cited,
+like Theodore Parker, the Jupiter of the pulpit in his day, as Wendell
+Phillips described him to me, is not a Secularist; but he expresses here
+the religion of the Secularist, if such a person can be supposed to have
+a religion.
+
+     * Preached in reference to the London County Council
+     election, March, 1892.
+
+A theological creed which the base may hold, and usually do, has none
+of the merit of deeds of service to humanity, which only the good
+intentionally perform. Conscience is the sense of right with regard
+to others, it is a sense of duty towards others which tells us that we
+should do justice to them; and if not able to do it individually, to
+endeavor to get it done by others. At St. Peter's Gate there can be no
+passport so safe as this. He was not far wrong who, when asked where
+heaven lay, answered: "On the other side of a good action."
+
+If, as Dr. James Martineau says, "there is a thought of God in the thing
+that is true, and a will of God in that which is right," Secularism,
+caring for truth and duty, cannot be far wrong. Thus, it has a
+reasonable regard for the contingencies of another life should it
+supervene. Reasoned opinions rely for justification upon intelligent
+conviction, and a well informed sincerity.
+
+The Secularist, is without presumption of an infallible creed, is
+without the timorous indefiniteness of a creedless believer. He does
+not disown a creed because theologians have promulgated Jew bound,
+unalterable articles of faith. The Secularist has a creed as definite as
+science, and as flexible as progress, increasing as the horizon of truth
+is enlarged. His creed is a confession of his belief. There is more
+unity of opinion among self-thinkers than is supposed. They all maintain
+the necessity of independent opinion, for they all exercise it. They all
+believe in the moral rightfulness of independent thought, or they are
+guilty for propagating it. They all agree as to the right of publishing
+well-considered thought, otherwise thinking would be of little use. They
+all approve of free criticism, for there could be no reliance on thought
+which did not use, or could not bear that. All agree as to the equal
+action of opinion, without which opinion would be fruitless and action
+a monopoly. All agree that truth is the object of free thought, for many
+have died to gain it. All agree that scrutiny is the pathway to truth,
+for they have all passed along it. They all attach importance to the
+good of this life, teaching this as the first service to humanity. All
+are of one opinion as to the efficacy of material means in promoting
+human improvement, for they alone are distinguished by vindicating their
+use. All hold that morals are effectively commended by reason, for all
+self-thinkers have taught so. All believe that God, if he exists, is the
+God of the honest, and that he respects conscience more than creeds,
+for all free thinkers have died in this faith. Independent thinkers from
+Socrates to Herbert Spencer and Huxley* have all agreed:
+
+     * See Biographical Dictionary of Free Thinkers of all Ages
+     and Nations, by J. M. Wheeler, and Four Hundred Years of
+     Free Thought from Columbus to Ingersoll, by Samuel Porter
+     Putnam, containing upwards of 1,000 biographies.
+
+In the necessity of free thought.
+
+In the rightfulness of it.
+
+In the adequacy of it.
+
+In the considerate publicity of it.
+
+In the fair criticism of it.
+
+In the equal action of conviction.
+
+In the recognition of this life, and
+
+In the material control of it.
+
+The Secularist, like Karpos the gardener, may say of his creed, "Its
+points are few and simple. They are: to be a good citizen, a good
+husband, a good father, and a good workman. I go no further," said
+Karpos, "but pray God to take it all in good part and have mercy on my
+soul."*
+
+     * Dialogue between Karpos the gardener and Bashiew Tucton,
+     by Voltaire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. HOW SECULARISM AROSE
+
+     "We must neither lead nor leave men to mistake falsehood for
+     truth. Not to undeceive is to deceive."
+
+     --Archbishop Whately.
+
+BEING one of the social missionaries in the propaganda of Robert Owen,
+I was, like H. Viewssiew, a writer of those days, a "student of
+realities." It soon became clear to me, as to others, that men are much
+influenced for good or evil, by their environments. The word was unused
+then, "circumstances" was the term employed. Then as now there were
+numerous persons everywhere to be met with who explained everything on
+supernatural principles with all the confidence of infinite knowledge.
+Not having this advantage, I profited as well as I could by such
+observation as was in my power to make. I could see that material laws
+counted for something in the world. This led me to the conclusion that
+the duty of watching the ways of nature was incumbent on all who
+would find true conditions of human betterment, or new reasons for
+morality--both very much needed. To this end the name of Secularism was
+given to certain principles which had for their object human improvement
+by material means, regarding science as the providence of man and
+justifying morality by considerations which pertain to this life alone.
+
+The rise and development (if I may use so fine a term) of these views
+may be traced in the following records.
+
+1. "Materialism will be advanced as the only sound basis of rational
+thought and practice." (Prospectus of the _Movement_, 1843, written by
+me.)
+
+2. Five prizes awarded to me, for lectures to the Manchester Order of
+Odd-fellows. These Degree Addresses (1846) were written on the principle
+that morality, apart from theology, could be based on human reason and
+experience.
+
+3. The _Reasoner_ restricts itself to the known, to the present, and
+seeks to realise the life that is. (Preface to the _Reasoner_, 1846.)
+
+4. A series of papers was commenced in the _Reasoner_ entitled "The
+Moral Remains of the Bible," one object of which was to show that those
+who no longer held the Bible as an infallible book, might still value
+it wherein it was ethically excellent. (_Reasoner_, Vol. V., No. 106, p.
+17, 1848.)
+
+5. "To teach men to see that the sum of all knowledge and duty is
+_Secular_ and that it pertains to this world alone." (_Reasoner_, Nov.
+19, 1851. Article, "Truths to Teach," p. 1.)
+
+This was the first time the word "Secular" was applied as a general test
+of principles of conduct apart from spiritual considerations.
+
+6. "Giving an account of ourselves in the whole extent of opinion, we
+should use the word _Secularist_ as best indicating that province of
+human duty which belongs to this life." (_Reasoner_, Dec. 3, 1851, p.
+34.)
+
+This was the first time the word "Secularist" appeared in literature as
+descriptive of a new way of thinking.
+
+7. "Mr. Holyoake, editor of the _Reasoner_, will lay before the meeting
+[then proposed] the present position of Secularism in the provinces."
+(_Reasoner_, Dec. 10, 1851, p. 62.)
+
+This was the first time the word "Secularism" appeared in the press.
+
+The meeting above mentioned was held December 29, 1851, at which
+the statement made might be taken as an epitome of this book. (See
+_Reasoner_, No. 294, Vol. 12, p. 129. 1852.)
+
+8. A letter on the "Future of Secularism" appeared in the _Reasoner_,
+(_Reasoner_, Feb. 4, 1852, p. 187.)
+
+This was the first time Secularism was written upon as a movement. The
+term was the heading of a letter by Charles Frederick Nicholls.
+
+9. "One public purpose is to obtain the repeal of all acts of Parliament
+which interfere with Secular practice." (Article, "Nature of Secular
+Societies," (Reasoner), No. 325, p. 146, Aug. 18, 1852.)
+
+This is exactly the attitude Secularism takes with regard to the Bible
+and to Christianity. It rejects such parts of the Scriptures, or of
+Christianism, or Acts of Parliament, as conflict with or obstruct
+ethical truth. We do not seek the repeal of all Acts of Parliament, but
+only of such as interfere with Secular progress.
+
+10. "The friends of 'Secular Education' [the Manchester Association was
+then so known] are not Secularists. They do not pretend to be so, they
+do not even wish to be so regarded, they merely use the word Secular as
+an adjective, as applied to a mode of instruction. We apply it to the
+_nature_ of all knowledge." We use the noun Secularism. No one else has
+done it. With others the term Secular is merely a descriptive; with us
+the term is used as a subject. With others it is a branch of knowledge;
+with us it is the primary business of life,--the name of the province of
+speculation to which we confine ourselves.* When so used in these
+pages the word "Secularism" or "Secularist" is employed to mark the
+distinction.
+
+     * See article "The Seculars--the Propriety of Their Name,"
+     by G.J. Holyoake.   Reasoner, p. 177, Sep. 1, 1852.
+
+A Bolton clergyman reported in the _Bolton Guardian_ that Mr. Holyoake
+had announced as the first subject of his Lectures, "Why do the Clergy
+Avoid Discussion and the Secularists Seek it?" (_Reasoner_, No. 328, p.
+294, Vol. 12, 1852.)
+
+These citations from my own writings are sufficient to show the origin
+and nature of Secularism. Such views were widely accepted by liberal
+thinkers of the day, as an improvement and extension of free thought
+advocacy. Societies were formed, halls were given a Secular name, and
+conferences were held to organise adherents of the new opinion. The
+first was held in the Secular Institute, Manchester (Oct. 3, 1852).
+Delegates were sent from Societies in Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton,
+Blackburn, Bradford, Burnley, Bury, Glasgow, Keighley, Leigh, London,
+Manchester, Miles Platting, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oldham, Over Darwen,
+Owen's Journal, Paisley, Preston, Rochdale, Stafford, Sheffield,
+Stockport, Todmorden.
+
+Among the delegates were many well known, long known, and some still
+known--James Charlton (now the famous manager of the Chicago and Alton
+Railway), Abram Greenwood (now the cashier of the Cooperative Wholesale
+Bank of Manchester), William Mallalieu of Todmorden (familiarly known as
+the "Millionaire" of the original Rochdale Pioneers), Dr. Hiram Uttley
+of Burnley, John Crank of Stockport, Thomas Hayes, then of Miles
+Platting, now manager of the Crumpsall Biscuit Works of the Cooperative
+Wholesale Society, Joseph Place of Nottingham, James Motherwell of
+Paisley, Dr. Henry Travis (socialist writer on Owen's system), Samuel
+Ingham of Manchester, J. R. Cooper of Manchester, and the present
+writer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. HOW SECULARISM WAS DIFFUSED
+
+     "Only by varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced on
+     reluctant minds."
+
+     --Herbert Spencer.
+
+IN 1853 the Six-Night Discussion took place in Cowper Street School
+Rooms, London, with the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published
+by Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6d, of which 45,900 were sold, which
+widely diffused a knowledge of Secularistic views.
+
+Our adversary had been appointed with clerical ceremony, on a "Three
+years' mission" against us. He had wit, readiness, and an electric
+velocity of speech, boasting that he could speak three times faster than
+any one else. But he proved to be of use to us without intending it,
+
+                  "His acrid words
+     Turned the sweet milk of kindness into curds."
+
+whereby he set many against the cause he represented. He had the
+cleverness to see that there ought to be a "Christian Secularism," which
+raised Secularism to the level of Christian curiosity. In Glasgow, in
+1854, I met Mr. Grant again during several nights' discussion in the
+City Hall. This debate also was published, as was one of three nights
+with the Rev. J. H. Rutherford (afterwards Dr. Rutherford) in Newcastle
+on Tyne, who aimed to prove that Christianity contained the better
+Secularism. Thus that new form of free thought came to have public
+recognition.
+
+The lease of a house, 147 Fleet Street, was bought (1852), where was
+established a Secular Institute, connected with printing, book-selling,
+and liberal publishing. Further conferences were held in July, 1854, one
+at Stockport. At an adjourned conference Mr. Joseph Barker (whom we had
+converted) presided.* We had a London Secular Society which met at the
+Hall of Science, City Road, and held its Council meetings in Mr. Le
+Blond's handsome house in London Wall. This work, and much more, was
+done before and while Mr. Bradlaugh (who afterwards was conspicuously
+identified with the movement) was in the army.
+
+     * Reasoner, No. 428, Vol. XVII.. p. 87.
+
+It was in 1854 that I published the first pamphlet on _Secularism
+the Practical Philosophy of the People_. It commenced by showing the
+necessity of independent, self-helping, self-extricating opinions. Its
+opening passage was as follows:
+
+"In a state of society in which every inch of land, every blade of
+grass, every spray of water, every bird and flower has an owner,
+what has the poor man to do with orthodox religion which begins by
+proclaiming him a miserable sinner, and ends by leaving him a miserable
+slave, as far as unrequited toil goes?
+
+"The poor man finds himself in an _armed_ world where might is God,
+and poverty is fettered. Abroad the hired soldier blocks up the path
+of freedom, and the priest the path of progress. Every penniless man,
+woman, and child is virtually the property of the capitalist, no less
+in England than is the slave in New Orleans.* Society blockades poverty,
+leaving it scarce escape. The artisan is engaged in an imminent struggle
+against wrong and injustice; then what has he the struggler, to do with
+doctrines which brand him with inherited guilt, which paralyse him by an
+arbitrary faith, which deny saving power to good works, which menace him
+with eternal perdition?"
+
+The two first works of importance, controverting Secularist principles,
+were by the Rev. Joseph Parker and Dr. J. A. Langford; Dr. Parker was
+ingenious, Dr. Langford eloquent. I had discussed with Dr. Parker in
+Banbury. In his _Six Chapters on Secularism_** which was the title of
+his book, he makes pleasant references to that debate. The _Christian
+Weekly News_ of that day said: "These Six Chapters have been written
+by a young provincial minister of great power and promise, of whom the
+world has not yet heard, but of whom it will hear pleasing things some
+day."
+
+     * Not entirely so.   The English slave can run away--at his
+     own peril.
+
+     **  Published by my, then, neighbour, William Freeman, of 69
+     Fleet Street, himself an energetic, pleasant-minded
+     Christian.
+
+This prediction has come true. I had told Mr. Freeman that the "young
+preacher" had given me that impression in the discussion with him. Dr.
+Parker said in his first Chapter that, "If the New Testament teachings
+oppose our own consciousness, violate our moral sense, lead us out of
+sympathy with humanity, then we shall abandon them." This was exactly
+the case of Secularism which he undertook to confute. Dr. Langford held
+a more rational religion than Dr. Parker. His _Answer_, which reached
+a second thousand, had passages of courtesy and friendship, yet he
+contended with graceful vigor against opinions--three-fourths of which
+justified his own.
+
+In an address delivered Sept. 29, 1851, I had said that, "There were
+three classes of persons opposed to Christianity:--
+
+"1. The dissolute.
+
+"2. The indifferent.
+
+"3. The intellectually independent.
+
+"The dissolute are against Christianity because they regard it as a foe
+to sensuality. The indifferent reject it through being ignorant of it,
+or not having time to attend to it, or not caring to attend to it, or
+not being able to attend to it, through constitutional insensibility
+to its appeals. The intellectually independent avoid it as opposed to
+freedom, morality and progress." It was to these classes, and not to
+Christians, that Secularism was addressed. Neither Dr. Parker nor Dr.
+Langford took notice that it was intended to furnish ethical guidance
+where Christianity, whatever might be its quality, or pretensions, or
+merit, was inoperative.*
+
+     * In 1857 Dr. Joseph Parker published a maturer and more
+     important volume, Helps to Truth Seekers, or, Christianity
+     and Scepticism, containing "The Secularist Theory--A
+     Critique." At a distance of more than thirty-five years it
+     seems to me an abler book, from the Christian point of view,
+     than I thought it on its appearance.
+
+The new form of free thought under the title of the "Principles of
+Secularism" was submitted to John Stuart Mill, to whose friendship and
+criticism I had often been indebted, and he approved the statement as
+one likely to be useful to those outside the pale of Christianity.
+
+A remarkable thing occurred in 1854. A prize of L100 was offered by
+the Evangelical Alliance for the best book on the "Aspects, Causes, and
+Agencies" of what they called by the odious apostolic defamatory name
+of "Infidelity."* The Rev. Thomas Pearson of Eyemouth won the prize by
+a brilliant book, which I praised for its many relevant quotations, its
+instruction and fairness, but I represented that its price (10s. 6d.)
+prevented numerous humble readers from possessing it. The Evangelical
+Alliance inferred that the "relevancy" was on their side, altogether,
+whereas I meant relevant to the argument and to those supposed to be
+confuted by it. They resolved to issue twenty-thousand copies at
+one shilling a volume. The most eminent Evangelical ministers and
+congregations of the day subscribed to the project. Four persons put
+down their names for one thousand copies each, and a strong list of
+subscribers was sent out. Unfortunately I published another article
+intending to induce readers of the _Reasoner_ to procure copies, as they
+would find in its candid pages a wealth of quotations of free-thought
+opinion with which very few were acquainted. The number of eminent
+writers, dissentients from Christianity, and the force and felicity
+of their objections to it, as cited by Mr. Pearson, would astonish
+and instruct Christians who were quite unfamiliar with the historic
+literature of heretical thought. This unwise article stopped the
+project. The "Shilling Edition" never appeared, and the public lost the
+most useful and informing book written against us in my time. The Rev.
+Mr. Pearson died not long after; all too soon, for he was a minister who
+commanded respect. He had research, good faith, candor, and courtesy,
+qualities rare in his day.
+
+     * A term of intentional offence as here used. Infidelity
+     meant treachery to the truth, whereas the heretic has often
+     sacrificed his life from fidelity to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SECULAR INSTRUCTION DISTINCT FROM SECULARISM
+
+     "A mariner must have his eye on the rock and the sand as
+     well as upon the North Star."
+
+     --Maxim of the Sea.
+
+IT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that
+Secular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier
+days the term "scientific" was the distressing word in connexion with
+education, but the trouble of later years is with the word "Secular."
+Theological critics run on the "rock" there.
+
+Many persons regard Secular teaching with distrust, thinking it to be
+the same as Secularism. Secular instruction is known by the sign of
+separateness. It means knowledge given apart from theology. Secular
+instruction comprises a set of rules for the guidance of industry,
+commerce, science, and art. Secular teaching is as distinct from
+theology as a poem from a sermon. A man may be a mathematician, an
+architect, a lawyer, a musician, or a surgeon, and be a
+
+Christian all the same; as Faraday was both a chemist and a devout
+Sandemanian; as Buckland was a geologist as well as a Dean. But
+if theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be
+muddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and
+any learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of
+Christianity by its being distinctive in his mind. Secular instruction
+neither assails Christianity nor prejudices the learner against it; any
+more than sculpture assails jurisprudence, or than geometry prejudices
+the mind against music. If the Secular instructor made it a point, as he
+ought to do, to inculcate elementary ideas of morality, he would
+confine himself to explaining how far truth and duty have sanctions
+in considerations purely human--leaving it to teachers of religion to
+supplement at another time and place, what they believe to be further
+and higher sanctions.
+
+     * Edward Baines (afterwards Sir Edward) was the greatest
+     opponent in his day, of national schools and Secular
+     instruction, sent his sou to a Secular school, because he
+     wanted him to be clever as well as Christian. He was both as
+     I well know.
+
+Secular instruction implies that the proper business of the
+school-teacher is to impart a knowledge of the duties of this world;
+and the proper business of chapel and church is to explain the duties
+relevant to another world, which can only be done in a secondhand way
+by the school-teacher. The wonder is that the pride of the minister does
+not incite him to keep his own proper work in his own hands, and protest
+against the school-teacher meddling with it. By doing so he would
+augment his own dignity and the distinctiveness of his office.
+
+By keeping each kind of knowledge apart, a man learns both, more easily
+and more effectually. Secular training is better for the scholar and
+safer for the State; and better for the priest if he has a faith that
+can stand by itself.
+
+If the reader does not distrust it as a paradox, he will assent that the
+Secular is distinct from Secularism, as distinct as an act is
+distinct from its motive. Secular teaching comprises a set of rules of
+instruction in trade, business, and professional knowledge. Secularism
+furnishes a set of principles for the ethical conduct of life. Secular
+instruction is far more limited in its range than Secularism which
+defends secular pursuits against theology, where theology attacks them
+or obstructs them. But pure Secular knowledge is confined to its own
+pursuit, and does not come in contact with theology any more than
+architecture comes in contact with preaching.
+
+A man may be a shareholder in a gas company or a waterworks, a house
+owner, a landlord, a farmer, or a workman. All these are secular
+pursuits, and he who follows them may consult only his own interest. But
+if he be a Secularist, he will consider not only his own interest, but,
+as far as he can, the welfare of the community or the world, as his
+action or example may tell for the good of universal society. He will do
+"his best," not as Mr. Ruskin says, "the best of an ass," but "the best
+of an intelligent man." In every act he will put his conscience and
+character with a view so to discharge the duties of this life as to
+merit another, if there be one. Just as a Christian seeks to serve God,
+a Secularist seeks to serve man. This it is to be a Secularist. The
+idea of this service is what Secularism puts into his mind. Professor
+Clifford exclaimed: "The Kingdom of God has come--when comes the Kingdom
+of man?" A Secularist is one who hastens the coming of this kingdom:
+which must be agreeable to heaven if the people of this world are to
+occupy the mansions there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE DISTINCTIVENESS MADE FURTHER EVIDENT.
+
+     "The cry that so-called secular education is Atheistic is
+     hardly worth notice. Cricket is not theological; at the same
+     time, it is not Atheistic."
+
+     --Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D., Times, October 11, 1894.
+
+NOR is Secularism atheism. The laws of the universe are quite distinct
+from the question of the origin of the universe. The study of the laws
+of nature, which Secularism selects, is quite different from speculation
+as to the authorship of nature. We may judge and prize the beauty
+and uses of an ancient edifice, though we may never know the builder.
+Secularism is a form of opinion which concerns itself only with
+questions the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this
+life. It is clear that the existence of deity and the actuality of
+another life, are questions excluded from Secularism, which exacts no
+denial of deity or immortality, from members of Secularist societies.
+During their day only two persons of public distinction--the Bishop
+of Peterborough and Charles Bradlaugh--maintained that the Secular was
+atheistic. Yet Mr. Bradlaugh never put a profession of atheism as one of
+the tenets of any Secularist Society. Atheism may be a personal
+tenet, but it cannot be a Secularist tenet, from which it is wholly
+disconnected.
+
+No one would confuse the Secular with the atheistic who understood that
+the Secular is separate. Mr. Hodgson Pratt, a Christian, writing
+in _Concord_ (October, 1894), a description of the burial of Angelo
+Mazzoleni, said "the funeral was entirely Secular," meaning the ceremony
+was distinct from that of the Church, being based on considerations
+pertaining to duty in this world.
+
+In the indefiniteness of colloquial speech we constantly hear the
+phrase, "School Board education." Yet School Boards cannot give
+education. It is beyond their reach. Most persons confuse instruction
+with education. Instruction relates to industrial, commercial,
+agricultural, and scientific knowledge and like subjects. Education
+implies the complete training and "drawing out of the whole powers of
+the mind."* Thus instruction is different from education. Instruction is
+departmental knowledge. Education includes all the influences of life;
+instruction gives skill, education forms character.
+
+     *  Henry Drummond gave this definition in the House of
+     Commons, and it was adopted by W. J. Fox and other leaders
+     of opinion in that day.
+
+The Rev. Dr. Parker is the first Nonconformist preacher of distinction
+who has avowed his concurrence with Secular instruction in Board
+Schools. When Mr. W. E. Forster was framing his Education Act, I
+besought him to raise English educational policy to the level of the
+much smoking, much-pondering Dutch. "The system of education in Holland
+dates from 1857. It is a Secular system, meaning by Secular that
+the Bible is not allowed to be read in schools, nor is any religious
+instruction allowed to be given. The use of the school-room is, however,
+granted to ministers of all denominations for the purpose of teaching
+religion out of school-hours. The schoolmaster is not allowed to give
+religious instruction, or even to read the Bible in school at any
+time."*
+
+     *  Report from the Hague, by Mr. (now Right Hon.) Jesse
+     Collings, M. P., May, 1870.
+
+No State rears better citizens or better Christians than the Dutch.
+Mr. Gladstone, with his customary discernment, has said that "Secular
+instruction does not involve denial of religious teaching, but merely
+separation in point of time." It seems incredible that Christian
+ministers, generally, do not see the advantage of this. I should
+probably have become a Christian preacher myself, had it not been for
+the incessantness with which religion was obtruded on me in childhood
+and youth. Even now my mind aches when I think of it. For myself, I
+respect the individuality of piety. It is always picturesque. Looking
+at religion from the outside, I can see that concrete sectarianism is a
+source of religious strength. A man is only master of his own faith
+when he sees it clearly, distinctly, and separately. Rather than permit
+Secular instruction and religious education to be imparted separately,
+Christian ministers permit the great doctrines they profess to maintain
+to be whittled down to a School Board average, in which, when done
+honestly towards all opinions, no man can discern Christianity without
+the aid of a microscope. And this passes, in these days, for good
+ecclesiastical policy. In a recent letter (November, 1894) Mr. Gladstone
+has re-affirmed his objection to "an undenominational system of religion
+framed by, or under the authority of, the State." He says: "It would,
+I think, be better for the State to limit itself to giving Secular
+instruction, which, of course, is no complete education." Mr. Gladstone
+does not confound Secular instruction with education, but is of the
+way of thinking of Miltou, who says: "I call a complete and generous
+education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and
+magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and
+war." Secular instruction touches no doctrine, menaces no creed, raises
+no scepticism in the mind. But an average of belief introduces the
+aggressive hand of heresy into every school, tampering with tenets
+rooted in the conscience, wantonly alarming religious convictions, and
+substituting for a clear, frank, and manly issue a disastrous, blind,
+and timid policy, wriggling along like a serpent instead of walking with
+self-dependent erectness. This manly erect-ness would be the rule
+were the formula of the great preacher accepted who has said: "Secular
+education by the State, and Christian education by the Christian Church
+is my motto."* Uniformity of truth is desirable, and it will come, not
+by contrivance, but by conviction.
+
+     * The Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D.
+
+Some one quoted lately in the _Daily News_ (September 19, 1895) the
+following sentences I wrote in 1870:
+
+"With secular instruction only in the day school, religion will acquire
+freshness and new force. The clergyman and the minister will exercise
+a new influence, because their ministrations will have dignity and
+definiteness. They will no longer delegate things declared by them to
+be sacred to be taught second-hand by the harassed, overworked, and
+oft-reluctant schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who must contradict
+the gentleness of religion by the peremptoriness of the pedagogue, and
+efface the precept that 'God is love' by an incontinent application of
+the birch.... It is not secular instruction which breeds irreverence,
+but this ill-timed familiarity with the reputed things of God which robs
+divinity of its divineness."
+
+The Bible in the school-room will not always be to the advantage of
+clericalism, as it is thought to be now.
+
+Mr. Forster's Education Act created what Mr. Disraeli contemptuously
+described as a new "sacerdotal caste,"--a body of second-hand preachers,
+who are to be paid by the money of the State to do the work which
+the minister and the clergyman avow they are called by heaven to
+perform,--namely, to save the souls of the people. According to this
+Act, the clergy are really no longer necessary; their work can be done
+by a commoner and cheaper order of artificer. Mr. Forster insisted
+that the Bible be introduced into the school-room, which gives great
+advantage to the Freethinker, as it makes a critical agitation against
+its character and pretensions a matter of self-defence for every family.
+Another eminent preacher, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, wrote, not openly in
+the _Times_ as Dr. Parker did, but in _The Sword and Trowel_ thus: "We
+should like to see established a system of universal application,
+which would give a sound Secular education to children, and leave
+the religious training to the home and the agencies of the Church of
+Christ." It is worthy of the radiant common sense of the famous orator
+of the Tabernacle that he should have said this anywhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. SELF-DEFENSIVE FOR THE PEOPLE
+
+     "What suits the gods above
+     Only the gods can know;
+     What we want is
+     This World's sense
+     How to live below."
+
+BY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once
+drew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the
+children should be taught the tenets of the Christian, Catholic, Moslem,
+Jewish, and the leading theological systems of the world, as well as
+Secularistic and atheistic forms of thought; so that when the pupil
+came to years of discretion he might be able, intelligently, to choose
+a faith for himself. Less than this would be a fraud upon the
+understanding of a man. In matters which concern himself alone, he must
+be free to choose for himself, and know what he is choosing from.
+That form of belief which has misgivings as to whether it can stand by
+itself, is to be distrusted.
+
+It is the scandal of Christianity that, for twenty-five years, it has
+paralysed School Board instruction by its discord of opinion as to
+the religious tenets to be imparted; while in Secularity there is no
+disunity. Everybody is agreed upon the rules of arithmetic. The laws
+of grammar command general assent. There are no rival schools upon the
+interpretation of geometrical problems. It is only in divinity that
+irreconcilable diversity exists. When Secular instruction is conceded,
+denominational differences will be respected, as aspects of the
+integrity of conscience, which no longer obstruct the intellectual
+progress of the people.
+
+But there are graver issues than the pride and preference of the
+preacher; namely, the welfare of the children of the people. What the
+working classes want is an industrial education. Poverty is a battle,
+and the poor are always in a conflict--a conflict in which the most
+ignorant ever go to the wall. The accepted policy of the State leaves
+the increase of population to chance. It suffers none to be killed; it
+compels people to be kept alive, and abandons their subsistence to the
+accident of capitalists requiring to hire their services. Thus our great
+towns are crowded with families, impelled there by the wild forces of
+hunger and of passion. From the workingman thus situated, the governing
+class exacts four duties:
+
+1. That he shall give the parish no disquietude by asking it to maintain
+his family.
+
+2. That he shall pay whatever taxes are levied upon him.
+
+3. That he shall give no trouble to the police.
+
+4. That he shall fight generally whomsoever the Government may see fit
+to involve the nation in war with.
+
+Whatever knowledge is necessary to enable the future workman to do these
+things, is his right, and should be given to him in his youth in the
+speediest manner; and any other inculcation which shall delay this
+knowledge on its way, or confuse the learner in acquiring it, is a
+cruelty to him and a peril to the community which permits it; and the
+State, were it discerning and just, would forbid it.
+
+In April, 1870, in a letter which appeared in the _Spectator_; I wrote
+as follows:
+
+"In the speech of the Bishop of Peterborough, delivered at the
+Educational Conference at Leicester, and published in a separate form by
+the National Education Union, his Lordship quotes from a recent letter
+of mine to the _Daily News_ some words in which I explained that
+'unsectarian education amounts to a new species of parliamentary piety.'
+It is a satisfaction to find that the Bishop of Peterborough is able
+to 'entirely endorse these words.' The Bishop asks: 'Whose words do you
+suppose they are? They are the words of that reactionary maintainer of
+creeds and dogmas--Mr. Holyoake.' So far from being a 'reactionary'
+in this matter, I have always maintained that every form of sincere
+opinion, religious or secular, should have free play and fair play. I
+have never varied in advocating the right of free utterance and free
+action of all earnest conviction. The State requires a self-supporting
+and tax-paying population. But the State cannot insure this, except by
+imparting _productive_ knowledge to the people. It is necessary for the
+people to receive, it is the interest of the State to give, _productive_
+instruction in national schools."
+
+If people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed,
+they would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending
+sects. Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. A
+knowledge of soils, of cattle, of climate, and crops, and how to nail
+up a wigwam and grow pork and corn, is what they need. For want of such
+knowledge Clerkenwell watchmakers, Northampton shoemakers, Lancashire
+weavers, and Durham miners perish as emigrants, and their bones
+bleach the prairies. Yet all orthodox teaching turns out its pupils
+uninstructed, for, as Tillottson has said, "He that does not know
+those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an
+ignorant man, whatever he may know beside." To know this world, and the
+Secular conditions of prosperity in it, is indispensable to the people.
+
+Christianity is entirely futile in industry. If a workman cannot pay
+his taxes, the most devout Chancellor of the Exchequer will not abate
+sixpence in consideration of the defaulter's piety. The poor man may
+believe in the Thirty-nine Articles, be able to recite all the Collects;
+he may spend his Sundays at church, and his evenings at prayer-meeting;
+but the reverend magistrate, who has confirmed him and preached to him,
+will send him to gaol if he does not pay. The sooner workmen understand
+that Christianity has no commercial value, the better for them.
+
+Why should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when
+purely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human
+experience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a
+clergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of
+common remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of
+parents in other professions.
+
+We want no whining or puling population. The elements of science and
+morality will give children the use of their minds, and minds to
+use, and teach justice and kindness, self-direction, self-reliance,
+fortitude, and truth. There is piety in this instruction,--piety to
+mankind,--exactly that sort of piety for the want of which society
+suffers.
+
+The principles for which during two centuries Nonconformity in England
+has contended are, that the State should forbid no religion, impose no
+religion, teach no religion, pay no religion. In 1870, the year in which
+Mr. Forster's Act came into operation, I was the only person who
+issued a public address to the "School Board Electors" in favor of free
+compulsory, and Secular instruction. Two of the proposals, the least
+likely to be favorably received, have since been adopted. The turn of
+the third must be near, unless fools are always at the polls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. REJECTED TENETS REPLACED BY BETTER
+
+     "False ideas can be confuted by argument, but it is only by
+     true ideas they can be expelled."
+
+     --Cardinal Newman.
+
+ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error,
+if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be
+otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has
+established:
+
+1. That God is unknown.
+
+2. That a future life is unprovable.
+
+3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.
+
+4. That Providence sleeps.
+
+5. That prayer is futile.
+
+6. That original sin is untrue.
+
+7. That eternal perdition is unreal.
+
+What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however
+untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these
+doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do
+it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men
+that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest
+their attention if we can point out the right road to take.
+
+No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that
+it has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow,
+cramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is
+suspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is
+eating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment,
+he must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you
+cannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles,
+they should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth
+should tread close upon the heels of theological error.
+
+1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism substitutes
+the study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman
+admitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.
+
+2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as
+he who fails in this "duty nearest hand" has no moral fitness for any
+other.
+
+3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation,
+and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth
+for authority.
+
+4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the
+providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings
+deliverance when peril comes.
+
+5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the
+resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the
+waggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the
+wheel.
+
+6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort
+for personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those
+conditions, so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it
+shall be "impossible for a man to be depraved or poor." The aim
+of Secularism is to promote the moralisation of this world, which
+Christianity has proved ineffectual to accomplish.
+
+7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism
+substitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the
+violation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth--penalties
+inexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to
+the individual no farther than this life, they are without the
+terrible element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and
+inevitable--following the offender close as the shadow of the
+offence--are more deterrent than future punishment, which "faith" may
+evade without merit.
+
+The aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of
+man. It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection,
+and from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and
+was indifferent whether an error--which no longer harmed him--prevailed
+or not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for
+the sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his
+day, who said (1824): "I believe in the right of religion and the
+_duty_ of free inquiry." He is a very exceptional person--as we know
+in political as well as in questions of mental freedom--who cares for a
+right he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have
+seen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he
+does not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think
+that a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the
+right. Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is
+morally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest
+numbers. The service of others is the practical form of duty. "He,"
+says Buddha, "who was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest,
+lights up the world like the moon escaped from a cloud."
+
+Constructiveness is an education which attains success but slowly. Some
+men have no distinctive notion whatever of truth. It seems never to have
+occurred to them that there is anything intrinsic in it, and they only
+fall into it by accident. Others have a wholesome idea that truth is
+essential, and that, as a rule, you ought to tell it, and some do it.
+This is a small conception of truth, but it is good as far as it goes,
+and ought to be valued, as it is scarce. If any one asks such a person
+whether what he says is what he _thinks_, or what he _knows_, to be
+true, he is perplexed. The difference between the two things has not
+occurred to him. He has been under the impression that what he believes
+is the same thing as what he knows, and when he finds the two things are
+very different, his idea of truth is doubled and is twice as large as it
+was before.
+
+There is yet a larger view, to which many never attain. To them all
+truth is truth of equal value. All geese are geese, but all are not
+equally tender. Though all horses are horses, all are not equally swift.
+Yet many never observe that all facts are not equally succulent or
+swift, nor all truth of equal value or usefulness.
+
+Social truth has three marks,--it must be explicit, relevant to the
+question in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires
+some intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY
+
+     "Religion, as dealing with the confessedly incomprehensible,
+     is not the basis for human union, in social, or industrial,
+     or political circles, but only that portion of old religion
+     which is now called moral."
+
+     --Professor Francis William Newman.
+
+BISHOP ELLICOTT was the first prelate whom I heard admit (in a sermon to
+the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science)
+that men might be moral from other motives than those furnished by
+Christianity. Renan says that Justin Martyr "in his _Apology_, never
+attacks the principle of the empire. He wants the empire to examine the
+Christian doctrines." A Secularist would have attacked the principle,
+regarding freedom as of more consequence to progress than any doctrine
+without it. Those who seek to guide life by reason are not without a
+standard of appeal. "Secularism accepts no authority but that of nature,
+adopts no methods but those of science and philosophy, and respects in
+practice no rule but that of the conscience, illustrated by the common
+sense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past, and looks to
+tradition as presenting a storehouse of raw materials for thought, and
+in many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it
+utterly disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether miracles
+and supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its side. No sacred
+Scripture or ancient Church can be made a basis of belief, for the
+obvious reason that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot
+without absurdity be assumed. The association leaves to its individual
+members to yield whatever respects their own good sense judges to be due
+to the opinions of great men, living or dead, spoken or written; as also
+to the practice of ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical. But
+it disowns all appeal to such authorities as final tests of truth."*
+
+     *  I owe the expression of this passage, whose
+     comprehensiveness and felicity of phrase exceed the reach of
+     my pen, to Professor Francis William Newman.
+
+Morality can be inspired and confirmed by perception of the
+consequences of conduct. Theology regards free will as the foundation of
+responsibility. But free will saves no man from material consequences,
+and diverts attention from material causes of evil and good. Under the
+free will doctrine the wonder is that any morality is left in the world.
+It is a doctrine which gives scoundrels the same chance as a saint. When
+a man is assured that he can be saved when he believes, and that, having
+free will, he can believe when he pleases, he, as a rule, never does
+please until he has had his fill of vice, or is about to die,--either of
+disease or by the hangman. If by the hangman, he is told that, provided
+he repents before eight o'clock in the morning, he may find himself
+nestling in Abraham's bosom before nine. Free will is the doctrine of
+rascalism. It is time morality had other foundation than theology. The
+relations of life can be made as impressive as ideas of supernaturalism.
+But in this Christians not only lend no help, they disparage the attempt
+to control life by reason. When Secularism was first talked of, the
+President of the Congregational Union, the Rev. Dr. Harris, commended to
+the Union the words of Bishop Lavington of a century earlier (1750): "My
+brethren, I beg you will rise up with me against mere moral preaching."*
+A writer of distinction, R. H. Hutton, writing on "Secularism" in the
+_Expositor_ so late as 1881, argues strenuously that moral government is
+impossible without supernatural convictions. The egotism of Christianity
+is as conspicuous as that of politics. No ethic is genuine unless it
+bears the hall-mark of the Church. Secularism does not deny the efficacy
+of other theories of life upon those who accept them, and only claims
+to be of use as commending morality on considerations purely human,
+to those who reject theories purely spiritual. Any one familiar with
+controversy knows that Christianity is advertised like a patent medicine
+which will cure all the maladies of mankind. Everybody who tries
+reasoned morality is encouraged to condemn it, and is denounced if he
+commends it.
+
+     * British Banner, October 27, 1852.
+
+It is a maxim of Secularism that, wherever there is a rightful object at
+which men should aim, there is a Secular path to it.
+
+Nearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical
+improvability, which improvability can be indefinitely advanced by
+supplying proper material conditions.
+
+Since it is not capable of demonstration whether the inequalities of
+human condition will be compensated for in another life, it is the
+business of intelligence to rectify them in this world. The speculative
+worship of superior beings, who cannot need it, seems a lesser duty
+than the patient service of known inferior natures and the mitigation
+of harsh destiny, so that the ignorant may be enlightened and the low
+elevated.
+
+Christians often promote projects beneficial to men; but are they not
+mainly incited thereto by the hope of inclining the hearts of those they
+aid to their cause? Is not their motive proselytism? Is it not a higher
+morality to do good for its own sake, careless whether those benefited
+become adherents or not?
+
+Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will illustrate
+the principle of Secularism. One man will go on this errand from pure
+sympathy with the unfortunate; this is goodness. Another goes because
+the priest bids him; this is obedience. Another goes because the
+twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will
+pass to the right hand of the Father; this is calculation. Another goes
+because he believes God commands him; this is theological piety. Another
+goes because he is aware that the neglect of suffering will not answer;
+this is utilitarianism. But another goes on the errand of mercy
+because it is an immediate service to humanity, knowing that material
+deliverance is piety and better than spiritual consolation; this is
+Secularism.
+
+One whose reputation for spirituality is in all the Churches says:
+"Properly speaking, all true work is religion, and whatsoever religion
+is not work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, the Antinomians,
+Spinning Dervishes, or where it will. Admirable was that maxim of the
+old monks, _Laborare est orare_ (Work is worship)".* In his article on
+Auguste Comte, Mr. J. S. Mill says he "uses religion in its modern sense
+as signifying that which binds the convictions, whether to deity or to
+duty,--deity in the theological sense, or duty in the moral sense." This
+is the only sense in which a Secularist would employ the term. Religious
+moralism is a term I might use, since it binds a man to humanity, which
+religion does not. "Without God," said Mazzini to the Italian workingmen
+forty years ago,--"without God you may compel, but not persuade. You may
+become tyrants in your turn; you cannot be educators or apostles."
+One night, when Mazzini was speaking in this way, in the hearing of
+Garibaldi, arguing that there was no ground of duty unless based on the
+idea of God, the General turned round and said: "I am an Atheist. Am I
+deficient in the sense of duty?" "Ah," replied Mazzini, "you imbibed it
+with your mother's milk." All around smiled at the quick-witted evasion.
+
+     * Carlyle, Past and Present.
+
+In one sense Mazzini was as atheistic in mind as orthodox Christians. He
+disbelieved that truth, duty, or humanity could have any vitality unless
+derived from belief in God. Devout as few men are, in the Church or out
+of it, yet Mazzini believed alone in God. Dogmas of the Churches were
+to him as though they were not; yet there were times when he seemed to
+admit that other motives than the one which inspired him might operate
+for good in other minds. In a letter he once addressed to me there
+occurred this splendid passage:--
+
+"We pursue the same end,--progressive improvement, association,
+transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, the
+overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We
+both want man to be, not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric
+unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another;
+bending to power which he hates and despises; carrying empty popish
+or Thirty-nine Article formulas on his brow, and none within; but
+a fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to
+collective humanity,--the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle,
+mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that
+is just and heroic,--the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet."
+
+Mazzini saw in the conception of God the great "Indicator" of duty, and
+that the one figure, "the most deeply inspired of God, men have seen on
+the earth was Jesus." Mazzini's impassioned protest against unbelief was
+itself a form of unbelief. He believed only in one God, not in three.
+If Jesus was inspired of God, he was not God, or he would have been
+self-inspired. But, apart from this repellent heresy, if Theism and
+Christianism are essential to those who would serve humanity, all
+propaganda of freedom must be delayed until converts are made to this
+new faith.
+
+The question will be put, Has independent morality ever been seen in
+action?
+
+Voltaire, at the peril of his liberty and life, rescued a friendless
+family from the fire and the wheel the priests had prepared for them.
+Paine inspired the independence of America, and Lloyd Garrison
+gave liberty to the slaves whose bondage the clergy defended. The
+Christianity of three nations produced no three men in their day who
+did anything comparable to the achievement of these three sceptics,
+who wrought this splendid good, not only without Christianity, but in
+opposition to it. Save for Christian obstruction, they had accomplished
+still greater good without the peril they had to brave.
+
+None of the earlier critics of Secularism, as has been said (and
+not many in the later years), realised that it was addressed, not
+to Christians, but to those who rejected Christianity, or who were
+indifferent to it, and were outside it. Christians cannot do anything
+to inspire _them_ with ethical principles, since they do not believe in
+morality unless based on their supernatural tenets. They have to convert
+men to Theism, to miracles, prophecy, inspiration of the Scriptures, the
+Trinity, and other soul-wearying doctrines, before they can inculcate
+morality they can trust. We do not rush in where they fear to tread.
+Secularism moves where they do not tread at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. ETHICAL CERTITUDE
+
+     "You can tell more about a man's character by trading horses
+     with him once than you can by hearing him talk for a year in
+     prayer meeting."
+
+     --American Maxim.
+
+A FORM of thought which has no certitude can command no intelligent
+trust. Unless capable of verification, no opinion can claim attention,
+nor retain attention, if it obtains it.
+
+If a sum in arithmetic be wrong, it can be discovered by a new way of
+working; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is manifest in the
+health; if a political law is wrong, it is sooner or later apparent in
+the mischief it produces; if a theorem in navigation is erroneous, delay
+or disaster warns the mariner of his mistake; if an insane moralist
+teaches that adherence to truth is wrong, men can try the effects
+of lying, when distrust and disgrace soon undeceive them. But if a
+theological belief is wrong, we must die to find it out. Secularism,
+therefore, is safer. It is best to follow the double lights of reason
+and experience than the dark lantern of faith. "In all but religion,"
+exclaims a famous preacher,* "men know their true interests and use
+their own understanding. Nobody takes anything on trust at market, nor
+would anybody do so at church if there were but a hundredth part the
+care for truth which there is for money."
+
+     * W. J. Fox.
+
+Mr. Rathbone Greg has shown, in a memorable passage, that "the lot of
+man--not perhaps altogether of the individual, but certainly of the
+race--is in his own hands, from his being surrounded by _fixed laws_, on
+knowledge of which, and conformity to which, his well-being depends. The
+study of these and obedience to them form, therefore, the great aim of
+public instruction. Men must be taught:
+
+"1. The physical laws on which health depends.
+
+"2. The moral laws on which happiness depends.
+
+"3. The intellectual laws on which knowledge depends.
+
+"4. The social and political laws on which national prosperity and
+advancement depend.
+
+"5. The economic laws on which wealth depends."
+
+Mr. Spurgeon had flashes of Secularistic inspiration, as when engaging
+a servant, who professed to have taken religion, he asked "whether she
+swept under the mats." It was judging piety by a material test.
+
+There is no trust surer than the conclusions of reason and science. What
+is incapable of proof is usually decided by desire, and is without the
+conditions of uniformity or certitude.
+
+Duty consists in doing the right because it is just to others, and
+because we must set the example of doing right to others, or we have no
+claim that others shall do right to us. Certitude is best obtained by
+the employment of material means, because we can better calculate them,
+and because they are less likely to evade us, or betray us, than any
+other means available to us.
+
+Orthodox religions are pale in the face now. They still keep the word
+of material promise to the ear, and break it to the heart; and a great
+number of people now know it, and many of the clergy know that they know
+it. The poor need material aid, and prayer is the way not to get
+it; while science, more provident than faith, has brought the people
+generous gifts, and inspired them with just expectations. What men need
+is a guide which stands on a business footing. The Churches administer
+a system of foreign affairs in a very loose way, quite inconsistent with
+sound commercial principles. For instance, a firm giving checks on
+a bank in some distant country--not to be found in any gazetteer of
+ascertained places, nor laid down in any chart, and from which
+no persons who ever set out in search of it were ever known to
+return--would do very little business among prudent men. Yet this is
+precisely the nature of the business engaged in by orthodox firms.
+
+On the other hand, Secularism proposes to transact the business of
+life on purely mercantile principles. It engages only in that class of
+transactions the issue of which can be tested by the experience of this
+life. Its checks, if I may so speak, are drawn upon duty, good sense,
+and material effort, and are to be cashed from proceeds arising in our
+midst--under our own eyes--subject to ordinary commercial tests. Nature
+is the banker who pays all notes held by those who observe its laws. To
+use the words of Macbeth, it is here, "on this bank and shoal of time"
+upon which we are cast, that nature pays its checks, and not elsewhere;
+which are honored now, and not in an unknown world, in some unknown
+time, and in an entirely unknown way. By lack of judgment, or sense, the
+Secularist may transact bad business; but he gives good security. His
+surety is experience. His references are to the facts of the present
+time. He puts all who have dealings with him on their guard. Secularism
+tells men that they must look out for themselves, act for themselves,
+within the limits of neither injuring nor harming others. Secularism
+does not profess to be infallible, but it acts on honest principles. It
+seeks to put progress on the business footing of good faith.* Adherents
+who accept the theory of this life for this life dwell in a land of
+their own--the land of certitude. Science and utilitarian morality are
+kings in that country, and rule there by right of conquest over error
+and superstition. In the kingdom of Thought there is no conquest
+over men, but over foolishness only. Outside the world of science and
+morality lies the great Debatable Ground of the existence of Deity and
+a Future State. The Ruler of the Debatable Ground is named Probability,
+and his two ministers are Curiosity and Speculation. Over that mighty
+plain, which is as wide as the universe and as old as time, no voice of
+the gods has ever been heard, and no footsteps of theirs have ever been
+traced. Philosophers have explored the field with telescopes of a longer
+range than the eyes of a thousand saints, and have recognised nothing
+save the silent and distant horizon. Priests have denounced them for
+not perceiving what was invisible. Sectaries have clamored, and the
+most ignorant have howled--as the most ignorant always do--that there
+is something there, because they want to see it. All the while the white
+mystery is still unpenetrated in this life.
+
+     * See Secularism a Religion which Gives Heaven no Trouble.
+
+But a future being undisclosed is no proof that there is no future.
+Those who reason through their desires will believe there is; those who
+reason through their understanding may yet hope that there is. In the
+meantime, all stand before the portals of the untrodden world in equal
+unknowingness. If faith can be piety, work is more so. To bring new
+beauty out of common life--is not that piety? To change blank stupidity
+into intelligent admiration of any work of nature--is not that piety? If
+our towns and streets be made to give gladness and cheerfulness to all
+who live or walk therein--is not that piety? If the prayer of innocence
+ascend to heaven through a pure atmosphere, instead of through the
+noisome and polluted air of uncleanness common in the purlieus of towns
+and of churches, and even cathedrals--is not that piety? Can we, in
+these days, conceive of religious persons being ignorant and dirty?
+Yet they abound. If, therefore, we send to heaven clean, intelligent,
+bright-minded saints--is not that piety? It is no bad religion--as
+religions go--to believe in the good God of knowledge and cleanliness
+and cheerfulness and beauty, and offer at his altar the daily sacrifice
+of intelligent sincerity and material service.
+
+We leave to others their own way of faith and worship. We ask only
+leave to take our own. Carlyle has told us that only two men are to be
+honored, and no third--the mechanic and the thinker: he who works with
+honest hand, making the world habitable; and he who works with his
+brain, making thought artistic and true. "All the rest," he adds with
+noble scorn, "are chaff, which the wind may blow whither it list-eth."
+The certainty of heaven is for the useful alone. Mere belief is the
+easiest, the poorest, the shabbiest device by which conscientious men
+ever attempted to scale the walls of Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE ETHICAL METHOD OF CONTROVERSY
+
+     "It was one of the secrets of my craft in the old days, when
+     I wanted to weld iron or work steel to a fine purpose, to
+     begin gently. If I began, as all learners do, to strike my
+     heaviest blows at the start, the iron would crumble instead
+     of welding, or the steel would suffer under my hammer, so
+     that when it came to be tempered it would 'fly,' as we used
+     to say, and rob the thing I had made of its finest quality."
+
+     --Robert Coliyer, D. D.
+
+"THEY who believe that they have truth ask no favor, save that of being
+heard; they dare the judgment of mankind; refused co-operation, they
+invoke opposition, for opposition is their opportunity." This was the
+maxim I wrote at the beginning of the Secularistic movement, to show
+that we were willing to accept ourselves the controversy, which we
+contended was the sole means of establishing truth. No proposition, as
+Samuel Bailey showed, is to be trusted until it has been tested by very
+wide discussion. We soon found that the free and open field of Milton
+was not sufficient. It needed a "fair" as well as a "free and open
+encounter." Disputants require to be equally matched in debate as in
+arms.
+
+The Secularist policy is to accept the purely moral teaching of
+the Bible, and to controvert its theology, in such respects as it
+contradicts and discourages ethical effort. Yet theological questions
+are always sought to be forced upon us. The Rev. Henry Townley followed
+me to the _Leader_ office (1853-1854) to induce me to discuss the
+question of the "existence of God." I never had done so, and objected
+that it would give the impression that Secularism was atheistic. He was
+so insistent and importunate that I consented to discuss the question
+with him. Never after did I do so with any one. The Rev. Brewin Grant
+endeavored to get my acceptance of propositions which pledged me to a
+wild opposition to Christianity. Mr. Samuel Morley, honorable in all
+things, admitted I had objected to it, but in the end I assented to
+it, that the discussion might not be broken off. Thomas Cooper was
+persistent that I should discuss with him the authenticity of the
+Scriptures. What I proposed was the proposition that the authenticity of
+the Scripture, its miracles, and prophecies are quite apart from moral
+truth.
+
+The discussion took place in the city of York, lasting five nights.
+Canon Robinson and Canon Hey presided alternately. Mr. Cooper was an
+able man in dealing with the stock propositions of Christianity; but
+their relevance as tests of morality was an entirely new subject to him.
+He protested rather than reasoned, and declared he would never discuss
+the question of the ethical test of the truth of Scriptures; nor have I
+ever found any responsible minister willing to do so down to this
+day. Thus Christians should condemn with reservation the tendency in
+Secularists to debate theology, seeing how reluctant they are to do
+otherwise themselves. Christians seem incapable of understanding how
+much the objection to their cause arises in the revolt of the moral
+sense against it.
+
+On first meeting Richard Carlile in 1842, some years before Secularism
+took a distinctive form, he invited me to hear him lecture upon the
+principles of the _Christian Warrior_,* of which he was editor, and to
+give my opinion thereon. In doing so I explained the ideas from which
+I have never departed; namely, that no theologic, astronomic, or
+miraculous mode of proving Scriptural doctrine could ever be made even
+intelligible, except to students of very considerable research.
+Such theories, I contended, must rest, more or less, on critical and
+conjectural interpretation, and could never enable a workingman to dare
+the understanding of others in argument. Scientific interpretation laid
+entirely outside Christian requirements, and seemed to Christians
+as disingenuous evasion of what they took to be obvious truths. My
+contention was that the people have no historic or critical knowledge
+enabling them to determine the divine origin of Christianity.
+
+     * The last periodical Mr. Carlile edited.
+
+On the platform he who has most knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
+will always be able to silence any dissentient who has not equal
+information. If by accident a controversialist happen to possess this
+knowledge, it goes for nothing unless he has credit for classical
+competency. In controversy of this nature it is not enough for a man
+to know; he must be known to know before his conclusions can command
+attention. To myself it was not of moment whether the Scriptures were
+authentic or inspired. My sole inquiry was, Did they contain clear moral
+guidance? If they did, I accepted that guidance with gratitude. If I
+found maxims obviously useful and true, judged by human experience, I
+adopted them, whether given by inspiration or not. If precepts did not
+answer to this test, they were not acceptable, though all the apostles
+in session had signed them. To miracles I did not object, nor did I see
+any sense in endeavoring to explain them away. We all have reason to
+regret that no one performs them now. It was our misfortune that the
+power, delegated with so much pomp of promise to the saints, had not
+descended to these days. If any preacher or deacon could, in our day,
+feed five thousand men on a few loaves and a few small fishes, and leave
+as many baskets of fragments as would run a workhouse for a month, the
+Poor Law Commissioners would make a king of that saint. But if a precept
+enjoined me to believe what was not true, it would be a base precept,
+and all the miracles in the Scriptures could not alter its character;
+while, if a precept be honest and just, no miracle is wanted to attest
+it; indeed, a miracle to allure credence in it would only cast suspicion
+on its genuineness. The moral test of the Scriptures was sufficient,
+since it had the commanding advantage of appealing to the common sense
+of all sorts and conditions of men, of Christian or of Pagan persuasion.
+Ethical criticism has this further merit, that on the platform of
+discussion the miner, the weaver, or farm-laborer is on the same level
+as the priest. A man goes to heaven upon his own judgment; whereas,
+if his belief is based on the learning of others, he goes to heaven
+second-hand.
+
+When Mr. J. A. Froude wrote for John Henry Newman the Life of St.
+Belletin, he ended with the words: "And this is all that is known, _and
+more than all_, of the life of a servant of God." In the Bible there
+appears to be a great deal more than was ever known. This does not
+concern the Secularist, though it does the scholar. If there be moral
+maxims in the Scripture, what does it matter how they got there?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. ITS DISCRIMINATION
+
+     "There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight"
+
+     --Goethe.
+
+IN 1847 I commenced in the _Reasoner_ what I entitled "The Moral Remains
+of the Bible,"--a selection of some splendid moral stories, incidents,
+and sentences having ethical characteristics such as I doubted not would
+"remain" when the Bible came to be regarded as a human book. I wrote
+a "Logic of Life."* My _Trial of Theism_ was only "as accused of
+obstructing Secular life," as stated on the title-page. The object was
+to show how much useful criticism could be entered upon without touching
+the questions of authenticity, or miracles, or the existence of deity.
+Thus it was left to opponents to declare that things morally incredible
+were inspired by God. In this case it was not I, but _they_, who
+blasphemed.
+
+     * Companion to the "Logic of Death," both contained in The
+     Trial of Theism.
+
+Take the case of Samson's famous engagement with the Philistines at
+Ramath,--Lehi surrounded by a band of warlike Philistines (though,
+as the text implies, 3,000 of his own armed countrymen were at hand).
+Samson, who had no weapon, was not given one by them, but had to look
+about for a "new jawbone of an ass." With this singular instrument he
+killed, one after the other, a thousand Philistine soldiers, who were
+big, strong men, and, unless every blow was fatal, it must have taken
+several blows to kill some of them.
+
+Are there three places in the human body where a single blow will be
+sure to kill a man? Did Samson know those places? And was he always
+able to direct his blow with unerring precision to one or other of those
+particular spots? If the thousand Philistines "surrounded" him, how did
+he keep the others off while he struggled with the one he was killing?
+It is not conceivable that the Philistines stood there to be killed, and
+meekly submitted to ignoble blows, death, and degradation. The jawbone
+must have been of strange texture to have crashed through armor,
+and have turned aside spears and swords of stalwart warriors without
+chipping, splitting, or breaking in two. What time it must have taken
+Samson to pursue each man, beat off his comrades, drag him from their
+midst, give him the asinine _coup de grace_, drag and cast his dead body
+upon the "heaps" of slain he was piling up! What struggling, scuffling,
+and turmoil of blood and blows Samson must have gone through! Spurted
+all over with blood, Barnum would have bought him for a Dime Museum
+as the deepest-colored Red Indian known. No Deerfoot could have been
+nimbler than Samson must have been on this mighty day. When this
+Herculean fight was over, which, with the utmost expedition, must have
+occupied Samson six days,--which would give 166 killed single-handed per
+day,--the only effect produced upon Samson appears to have been that he
+was "sore athirst." Even after this extraordinary use of the jawbone it
+was in such good condition that, a hollow place being "clave" in it, a
+fount of water gushed forth for refreshing this remarkable warrior. Were
+it not recorded in the Bible, it would be said that the writer intended
+to imply that the jawbone of the ass is to be found only in the mouth of
+the reader.
+
+Can it need miracle or prophecy, authenticity, or inspiration, to attest
+this story of the Jewish Jack-the-Giant-killer? What moral good can
+arise from a narration which it is reverence to reject? By leaving it to
+the Christian to say it is given by "inspiration" of God, it is he
+who blasphemes. But if the question of authenticity were raised, the
+character of the narrative would be lost sight of, and would not
+come into question; while the test of moral probability decides the
+invalidity of the story within the compass of the knowledge of an
+ordinary audience.
+
+In the same manner, keeping to the policy of affirmation, he who
+maintains the self-existence, the self-action, and eternity of the
+universe can be met only by those who defame nature as a second-hand
+tool of God. Such are atheists towards nature, the author of their
+existence, and God must so regard them.
+
+A single precept of Christ's, "Take no thought for the morrow," has
+bred swarms of mendicants in every age since this day; but a far more
+dangerous precept is "Resist not evil," which has made Christianity
+welcome to so many tyrants. Christ, whatever other sentiments he had,
+had a slave heart. Every friend of freedom knows that "resistance is the
+backbone of the world." The patriot poet* exclaims:
+
+     "Land of our Fathers--in their hour of need
+     God help them, guarded by the passive creed."
+
+     * Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+No miracle could make these precepts true, and he who proved their
+authenticity would be the enemy of mankind.
+
+Whether Christ existed or not affects in no way what excellence and
+inimitableness there was in his delineated character. His offer of
+palpable materialistic evidence to Thomas showed that he recognised the
+right of scepticism to relevant satisfaction. His concession of proof in
+this case needed no supernatural testimony to render it admirable.
+
+The reader will now see what the policy of Secularist advocacy
+is,--mainly to test theology by its ethical import. To many all policy
+is restraint; they cry down policy, and erect blundering into a virtue.
+
+Whereas policy is guidance to a chosen end. Mathematics is but the
+policy of measurement; grammar but the policy of speech; logic but the
+policy of reason; arithmetic but the policy of calculation; temperance
+but the policy of health; trigonometry but the policy of navigation;
+roads but the policy of transit; music but the policy of controlling
+sound; art but the policy of beauty; law but the policy of protection;
+discipline but the policy of strength; love but the policy of affection.
+An enemy may object to an adversary having a policy, because he is
+futile without one. The policy adopted may be bad, but no policy at all
+is idiocy, and commits a cause to the providence of Bedlam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. APART FROM CHRISTIANISM
+
+     "What is written by Moses can only be read by God."
+
+     --Bikar Proverb.
+
+SECULARISM differs from Christianism in so far as it accepts only the
+teachings which pertain to man, and which are consonant with reason and
+experience.
+
+Parts of the Bible have moral splendor in them, but no Christian will
+allow any one to take the parts he deems true, and reject as untrue
+those he deems false. He who ventured to be thus eclectic would be
+defamed as Paine was. Thus Christians compel those who would stand by
+reason to stand apart from them.
+
+To accept a part, and put that forward as the whole--to pretend or even
+to assume it to be the whole--is dishonest. To retain a portion, and
+reject what you leave, and not say so, is deceiving. To contend that
+what you accept as the spirit of Christianity is in accordance with
+all that contradicts it, is to spend your days in harmonising opposite
+statements--a pursuit demoralising to the understanding. The Secularist
+has, therefore, to choose between dishonesty, the deception of
+others and deception of himself, or ethical principles independent of
+Christianity--and this is what he does:
+
+The Bible being a bundle of Hebrew tracts on tribal life and tribal
+spite, its assumed infallibility is a burden, contradicting and
+misleading to all who accept it as a divine handbook of duty.
+
+In papers issued by religious societies upon the Bible it is declared to
+be "so complete a system that nothing can be added to it, or taken from
+it," and that "it contains everything needful to be known or done." This
+is so false that no one, perceiving it, could be honest and not protest
+against it in the interest of others. Recently the Bishop of Worcester
+said: "It was of no use resisting the Higher Criticism. God had not been
+pleased to give us what might be called a perfect Bible."* Then it is
+prudence to seek a more trustworthy guide.
+
+     * Midland Evening News, 1893.
+
+If money were bequeathed to maintain the eclectic criticism of the
+Scripture, it would be confiscated by Christian law. So to stand apart
+is indispensable self-defence. Individual Christians, as I well know,
+devote themselves with a noble earnestness to the service of man, as
+they understand his interests; but so long as Christianity retains the
+power of fraud, and uses it, Christianism as a system, or as a cause,
+remains outside the pale of respect. Prayer, in which the oppressed and
+poor are taught to trust, is of no avail for protection or food, and the
+poor ought to know it. The Bishop of Manchester declared, in my hearing,
+that the Lord's Prayer will not bring us "daily bread," but that "it
+is an exercise of faith to ask for what we shall not receive." But if
+prayer will not bring "daily bread," it is a dangerous deception to keep
+up the belief that it will. The eyes of forethought are closed by trust
+in such aid, thrift is an affront to the generosity of heaven, and
+labor is foolishness. But, alas! aid does not come by supplication. The
+prayer-maker dies in mendicancy. It is not reverence 'to pour into
+the ears of God praise for protection never accorded. Dean Stanley,
+admirable as a man as well as a saint, was killed in the Deanery,
+Westminster, by a bad drain, in spite of all his Collects. Dean Farrar
+has been driven from St. Margaret's Rectory, in Dean's Yard, by another
+drain, which poisons in spite of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Canon
+Eyton refuses to take up his residence until the sanitary engineers have
+overhauled* the place, which, notwithstanding the invocations of
+the Church, Providence does not see to. To keep silence on the
+non-intervention of Providence would be to connive at the fate of those
+who come to destruction by such dependence.
+
+     "O mother, praying God will save
+     Thy sailor!
+     While thy head is bowed,
+     His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
+     Drops in his vast and wandering grave!"
+
+     * See Westminister Gazette London Letter, November 19, 1895.
+
+True respect would treat God as though at the least he is a gentlemen.
+Christianity does not do this. No gentleman would accept thanks for
+benefits he had not conferred, nor would he exact thanks daily and
+hourly for gifts he had really made, nor have the vanity to covet
+perpetual thanksgivings. He who would respect God, or respect himself,
+must seek a faith apart from such Christianity.
+
+A divine, who excelled in good sense, said: "Dangerous it were for the
+feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High. Our
+soundest knowledge is, to know that we know him not; _and our safest
+eloquence concerning Him is our silence_; therefore it be-hoveth our
+words to be wary and few."*
+
+Mrs. Barbauld may have borrowed from Richard Hooker her fine line:
+
+     "Silence is our least injurious praise."**
+
+     * Ecclesiastical Polity, book I., | 2.
+
+     ** Charles Lamb was of this opinion when he remarked: "Had I
+     to say grace, I would rather say it over a good book than
+     over a mutton chop." Christians say grace over an
+     indigestible meal. But perhaps they are right, since they
+     need supernatural aid to assimilate it.
+
+An earnest Christian, not a religious man (for all Christians are not
+religious), assuming the professional familiarity with the mind of God,
+said to me: "Should the Lord call you to-day, are you prepared to meet
+Him?" I answered: Certainly; for the service of man in some form is
+seldom absent from my thoughts, and must be consonant with his will.
+Were I to pray, I should pray God to spare me from the presumption of
+expecting to meet him, and from the vanity and conceit of thinking that
+the God of the universe will take an opportunity of meeting me.
+
+Who can have moral longing for a religion which represents God as
+hanging over York Castle to receive the soul of Dove, the debauchee, who
+slowly poisoned his wife, and whose final spiritual progress was posted
+day by day on the Castle gates until the hour of the hangman came?
+Dove's confession was as appalling as instructive. It ran thus:
+
+     "I know that the Eternal One,
+     Upon His throne divine,
+     Gorged with the blood of His own Son,
+     No longer thirsts for mine.
+
+     "Many a man has passed his life
+     In doing naught but good,
+     Who has not half the confidence I have
+     In Jesus Christ, His blood."*
+
+     * From a volume of verse privately circulated in Liverpool
+     at the time, by W. H. Rathbone.
+
+By quoting these lines, which Burns might have written, the writer is
+sorry to portray, in their naked form, principles which so many cherish.
+But the anatomy of creeds can no more be explained, with the garments
+of tradition and sentiment upon them, than a surgeon can demonstrate
+the structure of the body with the clothes on. Divine perdition is an
+ethical impossibility.
+
+Christianism is too often but a sour influence on life. It tolerates
+nature, but does not enjoy it. Instead of giving men two Sundays, as it
+might,--one for recreation and one for contemplation,--it converts the
+only day of the poor into a penal infliction. It is always more or less
+against art, parks, clubs, sanitation, equity to labor, freedom, and
+many other things. If any Christians eventually accept these material
+ideas, they mostly dislike them. Art takes attention from the Gospel.
+In parks many delight to walk, when they might be at chapel or
+church. Clubs teach men toleration, and toleration is thought to
+beget indifference. Sanitation is a form of blasphemy. Every Christian
+sings:--
+
+     "Diseases are Thy servants, Lord;
+     They come at Thy command."
+
+But sanitation assassinates these "servants of the Lord." In every
+hospital they are tried, condemned, and executed as the enemies of
+mankind. If labor had justice, it would be independent, and no longer
+hopeless, as the poor always are. Freedom renders men defiant of
+subjection, which all priests are prone to exercise. Secularism has
+none of this distrust and fear. It elects to be on the side of human
+progress, and takes that side, withstand it who may. Thus, those who
+care for the improvement of mankind must act on principles dissociated
+from doctrines repellent to humanity and deterrent of ameliorative
+enterprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. SECULARISM CREATES A NEW RESPONSIBILITY
+
+     "Mankind is an ass, who kicks those who endeavor to take off
+     his panniers."
+
+     --Spanish Proverb.
+
+NO ONE need go to Spain to meet with animals who kick you if you serve
+them. Spanish asses are to be found in every land. Could we see the legs
+of truth, we should find them black and blue with the kicks received in
+unloosening the panniers of error, strapped by priests on the backs of
+the people. Even philosophers kick as well as the ignorant, when new
+ideas are brought before them. No improvement would ever be attempted if
+friends of truth were afraid of the asses' hoofs in the air.
+
+He who maintains that mankind can be largely improved by material means,
+imposes on himself the responsibility of employing such means, and
+of promoting their use as far as he can, and trusting to their
+efficacy,--not being discouraged because he is but one, and mankind are
+many. No man can read all the books, or do all the work, of the world.
+It is enough that each reads what he needs, and, in matter of moral
+action, does all he can. He who does less, fails in his duty to himself
+and to others.
+
+Christian doctrine has none of the responsibility which Secularism
+imposes. If there be vice or rapine, oppression or murder, the purely
+Christian conscience is absolved. It is the Lord's world, and nothing
+could occur unless he permitted it. If any Christian heart is moved to
+compassion, it commonly exudes in prayer. He "puts the matter before the
+Lord and leaves it in His hands." The Secularist takes it into his own.
+What are his hands for? The Christian can sit still and see children
+grow up with rickets in their body and rickets in their soul. He will
+see them die in a foul atmosphere, where no angel could come to receive
+their spirit without first stopping his nose with his handkerchief, as
+I have seen Lord Palmerston do on entering Harrow on Speech Day. The
+Christian can make money out of unrequited labor. When he dies, he makes
+no reparation to those who earned his wealth, but leaves it to build a
+church, as though he thought God was blind, not knowing (if Christ spake
+truly) that the Devil is sitting in the fender in his room, ready to
+carry his soul up the chimney to bear Dives company. Why should he be
+anxious to mitigate inequality of human condition? It is the Lord's
+will, or it would not be. When it was seen that I was ceasing to believe
+this, Christians in the church to which I belonged knelt around me, and
+prayed that I might be influenced not to go out into the world to see
+if these things could be improved. It was no light duty I imposed on
+myself.
+
+A Secularist is mindful of Carlyle's saying, "No man is a saint in his
+sleep." Indeed, if any one takes upon himself the responsibility of
+bettering by reason the state of things, he will be kept pretty well
+awake with his understanding.
+
+Many persons think their own superiority sufficient for mankind, and do
+not wish their exclusiveness to be encroached upon. Their plea is that
+they distrust the effect of setting the multitude free from mental
+tyranny, and they distrust democracy, which would sooner or later end
+political tyranny.
+
+These men of dainty distrust have a crowd of imitators, in whom nobody
+recognises any superiority to justify their misgivings as to others. The
+distrust of independence in the hands of the people arises mainly from
+the dislike of the trouble it takes to educate the ignorant in its use
+and limit. The Secularist undertakes this trouble as far as his means
+permit. As an advocate of open thought and the free action of opinion,
+he counts the responsibility of trust in the people as a duty.
+
+It will be asked, What are the deterrent influences upon which
+Secularism relies for rendering vice, of the major or minor kind,
+repellent? It relies upon making it clear that in the order of nature
+retribution treads upon the heels of transgression, and, if tardy in
+doing it, its steps should be hastened.
+
+The mark of error of life is--disease. Science can take the body to
+pieces, and display mischief palpable to the eyes, when the results of
+vice startle, like an apparition, those who discern that:
+
+     "Their acts their angels are,--if good; if ill,
+     Their fatal shadows that walk by them still."
+
+A man is not so ready to break the laws of nature when he sees he will
+break himself in doing it. He may not fear God, but he fears fever
+and consumption. He may have a gay heart, but he will not like the
+occupation of being his own sexton and digging his own grave. When he
+sees that death lurks in the frequent glass, for instance, that spoils
+the flavor of the wine. He takes less pride in the beeswing who sees
+the shroud in the bottle. He may hope that God will forgive him, but he
+knows that death will not. He who holds the scythe is accustomed to cut
+down fools, whether they be peers or sweeps. Death knows the fool at a
+glance. To prevent any mistake, Disease has marked him with her broad
+arrow. The young man who once has his eyes well open to this state
+of the case, will be considerate as to the quality of his pleasures,
+especially when he knows that alluring but unwholesome pleasure is in
+the pay of death. Temperance advocates made more converts by exhibiting
+the biological effects of alcohol than by all their exhortations.
+
+The moral nature of man is as palpable as the physical to those who look
+for its signs. There is a moral squint in the judgment, as plain to be
+seen as a cast in the eyes. The voice is not honest; it has the accent
+of a previous conviction in it. The speech has contortions of meaning in
+it. The sense is limp and flaccid, showing that the mind is flabby.
+Such a one has the backbone of a fish; he does not stand upright. As the
+Americans say, he does not "stand square" to anything. There is no moral
+pulse in his heart. If you could take hold of his soul, it would feel
+like a dead oyster, and would slip through your fingers. Everybody knows
+these people. You don't consult them; you don't trust them. You would
+rather have no business transactions with them. If they are in a
+political movement, you know they will shuffle when the pinch of
+principle comes.
+
+Crime has its consequences, and criminals, little and great, know it.
+When Alaric A. Watts wrote of the last Emperor of the French:--
+
+     "Safe art thou, Louis!--for a time;
+     But tremble!--never yet was crime,
+     Beyond one little space, secure.
+     The coward and the brave alike
+     Can wait and watch, can rush and strike.
+     Which marks thee?   One of them, be rare,--"
+
+few thought the bold prediction true; but it came to pass, and the
+Napoleonic name and race became extinct, to the relief of Europe.
+
+Trouble comes from avowing unpopular ideas. Diderot well saw this when
+he said: "There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than
+in being wise by oneself." One who regards truth as duty will accept
+responsibilities. It is the American idea
+
+     "To make a man and leave him be."
+
+But we must be sure we have made him a man,--self-acting, guided by
+reasoned proof, and one who, as Archbishop Whately said, "believes the
+principles he maintains, and maintains them because he believes them."
+
+A man is not a man while under superstition, nor is he a man when free
+from it, unless his mind is built on principles conducive and incentive
+to the service of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THROUGH OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION
+
+     "So many gods, so many creeds--
+     So many paths that wind and wind,
+     While just the art of being kind
+     Is all the sad world needs."
+
+     --Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
+
+LADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew "Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he
+was always _intending_ something." Any improvement in the method of
+life is "intending something," and society ought to be tolerant of those
+whose badness takes no worse form. The rules Secularism prescribes
+for human conduct are few, and no intelligent preacher would say they
+indicate a dangerous form of "badness." They are:
+
+1. Truth in speech.
+
+2. Honesty in transaction.
+
+3. Industry in business.
+
+4. Equity in according the gain among those whose diligence and
+vigilance help to produce it.
+
+     "Though this world be but a bubble,
+     Two things stand like stone--
+     Kindness in another's trouble,
+     Courage in your own."
+
+Learning and fortune do but illuminate these virtues. They cannot
+supersede them. The germs of these qualities are in every human heart.
+It is only necessary that we cultivate them. Men are like billiard
+balls--they would all go into the right pockets in a few generations, if
+rightly propelled. Yet these principles, simple and unpretending as
+they are, being founded on considerations apart from modes of orthodox
+thought, have had a militant career. The Spanish proverb has been in
+request: "Beware of an ox before, of a mule behind, and of a monk
+on every side." The monk, tonsured and untonsured, is found in every
+religion.
+
+In Glasgow I sometimes delivered lectures on the Sunday in a quaint old
+hall situated up a wynd in Candleriggs. On the Saturday night I gave a
+woman half-a-crown to wash and whiten the stairs leading to the hall,
+and the passage leading to the street and across the causeway, so
+that the entrance to the hall should be clean and sweet. Sermons were
+preached in the same hall when the stairs were repulsively dirty. The
+woman remarked to a neighbor that "Mr. Holyoake's views were wrang, but
+he seemed to have clean principles." He who believes in the influence
+of material conditions will do what he can to have them pure, not
+only where he speaks, but where he frequents and where he resides. The
+theological reader, who by accident or curiosity looks over these pages,
+will find much from which he will dissent; but I hope he will be able
+to regard this book as one of "clean principles," as far as the limited
+light of the author goes. Accepting the "golden rule" of Huxley--"Give
+unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so
+clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted"--causes the Secularist
+to credit less than his neighbors, and that goes against him; being, as
+it were, a reproach of their avidity of belief. One reason for writing
+this book is to explain--to as many of the new generation as may
+happen to read it--the discrimination of Secularism. Newspapers and the
+clerical class, who ought to be well informed, continually speak of mere
+free-thinking as Secularism. How this has been caused has already been
+indicated. Two or three remarkable and conspicuous representatives of
+free thought, who found iconoclasticism easier, less responsible,
+and more popular, have given to many erroneous impressions. When
+Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Foote came into the Secularistic
+movement, which preceded their day, they gave proof that they understood
+its principles, which they afterwards disregarded or postponed. I cite
+their opinions lest the reader should think that this book gives an
+account of a form of thought not previously known. One wrote:
+
+"From very necessity, Secularism is affirmative and constructive; it
+is impossible to thoroughly negate any falsehood without making more or
+less clear the opposing truth."*
+
+     *  "Secularism: What Is It?"   National Secular Society's
+     Tracts--No. 7. By Charles Bradlaugh.
+
+Again:
+
+"Secularism conflicts with theology in this: that the Secularist teaches
+the improvability of humanity by human means; while the theologian
+not only denies this, but rather teaches that the Secular effort is
+blasphemous and unavailing unless preceded and accompanied by reliance
+on divine aid."*
+
+Mrs. Besant said:
+
+"Still we have won a plot of ground--men's and women's hearts. To them
+Secularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to them
+it gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of
+life. Our morality is tested only--be it noted--by utility in this life
+and in this world."**
+
+Mr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying:
+
+"Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time
+and the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares
+to be the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily
+teach the same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding
+it upon the supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its
+being set aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative
+divine injunction."***
+
+     * "Why Are We Secularists?" National Secular Society's
+     Tracts--No. 8. By Charles Bradlaugh.
+
+     ** "Secular Morality." National Secular Society's Tracts--
+     No. 3. By Annie Besant.
+
+     *** Secularism and Its Misrepresentation, by G. W. Foote,
+     who subsequently succeeded Mr. Bradlaugh as President of the
+     National Secular Society.
+
+For several years the _National Reformer_ bore the subtitle of "Secular
+Advocate."
+
+We could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring
+ethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality.
+We accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney--namely, that "Reason cannot
+show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above
+reason." We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not
+half so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an
+atheistical advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The
+Secularistic proposal to consult the instruction of an adversary proved
+less exciting than his destruction. The patience and resource it implies
+to work by reason alone are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is
+easier than a kindness, and less troublesome than explanation. Those who
+have the refutatory passion intense say you must clear the ground before
+you can build upon it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times
+show that a good deal of ground has been cleared. The instinct of
+progress renders the minority, who reflect, more interested in the
+builder than the undertaker. What would be thought of a general who
+delayed occupying a country he had conquered until he had extirpated all
+the inhabitants in it? So, in the kingdom of error, he who will go on
+breaking images, without setting statues up in their place, will give
+superstition a long life. The savage man does not desert his idols
+because you call them ugly. It is only by slow degrees, and under the
+influence of better-carved gods, that his taste is changed and his
+worship improved. The reader will see that Secularism leaves the mystery
+of deity to the chartered imagination of man, and does not attempt
+to close the door of the future, but holds that the desert of another
+existence belongs only to those who engage in the service of man in this
+life. Prof. F. W. Newman says: "The conditions of a future life being
+unknown, there is no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and others
+in it, except by aiming after present goodness."*
+
+Men have a right to look beyond this world, but not to overlook it.
+Men, if they can, may connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot
+disconnect themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. The
+purport of Secularism is not far from the tenor of the famous sermon by
+the Rev. James Caird, of which the Queen said:
+
+"He explained in the most simple manner what real religion is--not a
+thing to drive us from the world, not a perpetual moping over 'good'
+books; but being and doing good."**
+
+     * Prof. P. W. Newman, who is always clear beyond all
+     scholars, and candid beyond all theologians, has published a
+     Palinode retracting former conclusions he had published, and
+     admitting the uncertainty of the evidence in favor of after-
+     existence.
+
+     ** The Queen on the Rev. J. Caird's sermon, Leaves from the
+     Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
+
+This end we reach not by a theological, but by a Secular, path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. SELF-EXTENDING PRINCIPLES
+
+     "Prodigious actions may as well be done
+     By weaver's issue as by prince's son."
+
+     --Dryden.
+
+SO FAR as Secularism is reasonable, it must be self-extending among all
+who think. Adherents of that class are slowly acquired. Accessions begin
+in criticism, though that, as we have seen, is apt to stop there. In
+all movements the most critical persons are the least suggestive of
+improvements. Constructiveness only excites enthusiasm in fertile
+minds. After the Cowper Street Discussion with the Rev. Brewin Grant in
+1853, see Chapter X, page 50, societies, halls, and newspapers adopted
+the Secular name. In 1863 appeared the _Christian Reasoner_, edited by
+the Rev. Dr. Rylance, a really reasoning clergyman, whom I afterwards
+had the pleasure to know in New York. His publication was intended to be
+a substitute for the _Reasoner_, which I had then edited for seventeen
+years. But when the _Reasoner_ commenced, in 1846, Christian believing
+was far more thought of than Christian reasoning. One line in Dr.
+Rylance's _Christian Reasoner_ was remarkable, which charged us with
+"forgetfulness of the necessary incompleteness of Re-velation."
+
+So far from forgetting it, it was one of the grounds on which Secularism
+was founded. However, it is to the credit of Dr. Rylance that he should
+have preceded, by thirty years, the Bishop of Worcester in discerning
+the shortcomings of Revelation, as cited in Chapter XIX, page 101.
+
+In 1869 we obtained the first Act of Secular affirmation, which Mr. J.
+S. Mill said was mainly due to my exertions, and to my example of never
+taking an oath. In obtaining the Act, I had no help from Mr. Bradlaugh,
+he being an ostentatious oath-taker at that time. It was owing to Mr.
+G. W. Hastings (then, or afterwards, M. P.), the founder of the Social
+Science Association, that the Affirmation clause was added to the Act of
+1869. One of the objects we avowed was "to procure a law of affirmation
+for persons who objected to take the oath."*
+
+Another of our aims was stated to be: "To convert churches and chapels
+into temples of instruction for the people.... to solicit priests to
+be teachers of useful knowledge."** We strove to promote these ends
+by holding in honor all who gave effect to such human precepts as were
+contained in Christianity. This fairness and justice has led many to
+suppose that I accepted the theological as well as the ethical passages
+in the Scriptures. But how can a Christian preacher be inclined to risk
+the suspicion of the narrower-minded members of his congregation, if no
+one gives him credit for doing right when he does it?
+
+     * Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, p. 13;
+     1854. Fifteen years before the first Act was passed.
+
+     ** Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, by G.
+     J. Holyoake, p. 12; 1854.
+
+With our limited means and newness of doctrine, we could not hope to
+rival an opulent hierarchy and occupy its temples; but we knew that the
+truth, if we had it, and could diffuse it in a reasonable manner, would
+make its way and gradually change the convictions of a theological
+caste. The very nature of Free-thought makes it impossible for a long
+time yet, that we should have many wealthy or well-placed supporters.
+Where the platform is open to every subject likely to be of public
+service--subjects suppressed everywhere else, and open to the discussion
+of the wise or foolish present who may arise to speak, outrages of good
+taste will occur. Persons who forget that abuse does not destroy use,
+and that freedom is more precious than propriety, cease to support a
+free-speaking Society. The advocacy of slave emancipation was once an
+outrage in America. It is now regarded as the glory of the nation. In
+an eloquent passage it has been pointed out what society owes to the
+unfriended efforts of those who established and have maintained the
+right of free speech.
+
+"Theology of the old stamp, so far from encouraging us to love nature,
+teaches us that it is under a curse. It teaches us to look upon the
+animal creation with shuddering disgust; upon the whole race of man,
+outside our narrow sect, as delivered over to the Devil; and upon the
+laws of nature at large as a temporary mechanism, in which we have been
+caught, but from which we are to anticipate a joyful deliverance. It is
+science, not theology, which has changed all this; it is the atheists,
+infidels, and rationalists, as they are kindly called, who have taught
+us to take fresh interest in our poor fellow denizens of the world, and
+not to despise them because Almighty Benevolence could not be expected
+to admit them to Heaven. To the same teaching we owe the recognition
+of the noble aspirations embodied in every form of religion, and the
+destruction of the ancient monopoly of divine influences."*
+
+     * Leslie Stephens's Freetkinking and Plain Speaking.
+
+Those who, in storm and stress, bring truth into the world may not be
+able to complete its triumph, but it makes its own way, and finally
+conquers the understanding of mankind.
+
+Priestley, without fortune, with only the slender income of a Unitarian
+minister, created and kept up a chemical laboratory. There alone he
+discovered oxygen. Few regarded him, few applauded him; only a few
+Parisian philosophers thanked him. He had no disciples to spread his new
+truth. He was not even tolerated in the town which he endowed with
+the fame of his priceless discovery. His house was burnt by a
+Church-and-King mob; his instruments, books, and manuscripts destroyed;
+and he had to seek his fortune in a foreign land.
+
+Yet what has come out of his discovery? It has become part of the
+civilisation of the world, and mankind owe more to him than they yet
+understand.
+
+When a young man, he forsook the Calvinism in which he was reared. "I
+came," he said, "to embrace what is called heterodox views on every
+question."* He cared for this world as well as for another, and hence
+was distrusted by all "true believers." Though he had "spiritual hopes,"
+he agreed that he should be called a materialist.
+
+We have now had (1895) a London Reform Sunday, more than two hundred and
+fifty (one list gave four hundred) preachers of all denominations
+taking for their unprecedented text, "The Duties and Responsibilities
+of Citizenship,"--a thing the most sanguine deemed incredible when
+suggested by me in 1854.** Within twenty years Dr. Felix Adler has
+founded noble Ethical Societies. Dr. Stanton Coit is extending them
+in Great Britain. They are Secularist societies in their nature. South
+Place Chapel now has taken the name of Ethical Society. Since the days
+of W. J. Fox, who first made it famous, it has been the only successor
+in London of the Moral Church opened by Thomas Holcroft.
+
+     * See Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1888); article: Priestley.
+
+     ** We have now a Museum Sunday. Even twenty years ago those
+     who advocated the Sunday opening of museums were counted
+     irreverent and beyond the pale of grace.   Their opening is
+     now legalised (1896).
+
+Though modern Secular societies, to which these pages relate, have
+been anti-theological mainly, the Secular Society of Leicester is a
+distinguished exception. It has long had a noble hall of its own, and
+from the earliest inception of Secularism it has been consistent and
+persistent in its principles. As stated elsewhere,* the "Principles of
+Secularism" were submitted to John Stuart Mill in 1854, and his approval
+was of importance in the eyes of their advocates. In the first issue of
+_Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ a special article appeared upon these views,
+and in the later issue of that work in 1888 a new article was written
+on Secularism. In the Rev. Dr. Molesworth's _History of England_ a very
+clear account was given of the rise of Secularist opinions. This will be
+sufficient information for readers unacquainted with the subject.
+
+     * Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, Chap. CX.
+
+The cause of reason has had more to confront than the cause of
+Christianity, which has always been on the side of power since the days
+of Christ. The two most influential ideas which, in every age since
+Christianity arose, have given it currency among the ignorant and the
+credulous, have been the ideas of Hell and prayer. Hell has been the
+terror, and prayer the bribe, which have won the allegiance of the
+timid and the needy. These two master passions of alarm and despair have
+brought the unfortunate portions of mankind to the foot of the Cross.
+
+The cause of reason has no advantages of this nature, and only the
+intelligent have confidence in its progress. If we have expected to do
+more than we have, we are not the only party who have been prematurely
+sanguine. The Rev. David Bogue, preaching in Whitfield's Tabernacle,
+Tottenham-Court Road, at the foundation of the Foreign Missionary
+Society (1790) of the Congregational denomination, exclaimed amid almost
+unequalled enthusiasm: "We are called together this evening to the
+funeral of bigotry." Judging from what has happened since, bigotry
+was not dead when its funeral was prepared, or it was not effectually
+buried, as it has been seen much about since that day.
+
+Bigotry, like Charles II., takes an unconscionable time in dying.
+Down to Sir Charles Lyell's days, so harmless a study as geology was
+distrusted, and Lyell, like Priestley, had to seek auditors in America.
+While he lectured at Boston to 1,500 persons, 2,000 more were unable to
+obtain tickets, which were bought at a guinea each extra. At our
+great ancient seat of learning, Oxford, Buckland lectured on the same
+interesting subject to an audience of three.
+
+Secularism keeps the lamp of free thought burning by aiding and honoring
+all who would infuse an ethical passion into those who lead the growing
+army of independent thinkers. Our lamp is not yet a large one, and its
+supply of oil is limited by Christian law; but, like the fire in the
+Temple of Montezuma, we keep it burning. In all the centuries since the
+torch of free thought was first lighted, though often threatened, often
+assailed, often dimned, it has never been extinguished. We could not
+hope to captivate society by splendid edifices, nor many cultivated
+advocates; but truth of principle will penetrate where those who
+maintain it will never be seen and never heard. The day cometh when
+other torches will be lighted at the obscure fire, which, borne aloft by
+other and stronger hands, will shed lasting illumination where otherwise
+darkness would permanently prevail. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning has
+said: "Truth is like sacramental bread,--we must pass it on."
+
+
+
+
+SECULARIST CEREMONIES.
+
+     "Death is the decisive test of the value of the education
+     and morality of society; Secular funerals are the symbol of
+     the social renovation."
+
+     --J. P. Proudhon.
+
+CERTAIN ceremonies are common to all human society, and should be
+consistent with the opinions of those in whose name the ceremonies take
+place. The marriage service of the Church contains things no bride could
+hear without a blush, if she understood them; and the Burial Service
+includes statements the minister ought to know to be untrue, and by
+which the sadness of death is desecrated. The Secularist naturally seeks
+other forms of speech. It being a principle of Secularism to endeavor to
+replace what it deems bad by something better--or more consistent with
+its profession--the following addresses are given. Other hands may
+supply happier examples; but, in the meantime, these which follow may
+meet with the needs of those who have no one at hand to speak for them,
+and are not accustomed to speak for themselves.
+
+
+
+
+ON MARRIAGE.
+
+Marriage involves several things of which few persons think beforehand,
+and which it is useful to call their attention to at this time. The
+bridegroom, by the act of marriage, professes that he has chosen out
+of all the women of the world, known to him, the one to whom he will
+be faithful while life shall last. He declares the bride to be his
+preference, and, whoever he may see hereafter, or like, or love, the
+door of association shall be shut upon them in his heart for ever. The
+bride, on her part, declares and promises the same things. The belief
+in each other's perfection is the most beautiful illusion of love.
+Sometimes the illusion happily continues during life. It may happen--it
+does happen sometimes--that each discovers that the other is not
+perfect. The Quaker's advice was: "Open your eyes wide before marriage,
+but shut them afterwards." Those who have neglected the first part of
+this counsel will still profit by observing the second. Let those who
+will look about, and put tormenting constructions on innocent acts:
+beware of jealousy, which kills more happiness than ever Love created.
+
+The result of marriage is usually offspring, when society will have
+imposed upon it an addition to its number. It is necessary for the
+credit of the parents, as well as for the welfare of the children, that
+they should be born healthy, reared healthy, and be well educated; so
+that they may be strong and intelligent when the time comes for them to
+encounter, for themselves, the vicissitudes of life. Those who marry
+are considered to foreknow and to foresee these duties, and to pledge
+themselves to do the best in their power to discharge them.
+
+In the meantime, and ever afterwards, let love reign between you.
+And remember the minister of Love is deference towards each other.
+Ceremonial manners are conducive to affection. Love is not a business,
+but the permanence of love is a business.
+
+Unless there are good humor, patience, pleasantness, discretion, and
+forbearance, love will cease. Those who expect perfection will lose
+happiness. A wise tolerance is the sunshine of love, and they who
+maintain the sentiment will come to count their marriage the beginning
+of the brightness of life.
+
+
+
+
+NAMING CHILDREN.
+
+In naming children it is well to avoid names whose associations pledge
+the child, without its consent, to some line of action it may have no
+mind to, or capacity for, when grown up. A child called "Brutus" would
+be expected to stab Caesar--and the Caesars are always about. The name
+"Washington" destroyed a politician of promise who bore it. He could
+never live up to it. A name should be a pleasant mark to be known by,
+not a badge to be borne.
+
+In formally naming a child it is the parents alone to whom useful words
+can be addressed.
+
+Heredity, which means qualities derived from parentage, is a prophecy of
+life. Therefore let parents render themselves as perfect in health, as
+wise in mind, and as self-respecting in manners as they can; for their
+qualities in some degree will appear in their offspring. One advantage
+of children is that they contribute unconsciously to the education
+of parents. No parents of sense can fail to see that children are as
+imitative as monkeys, and have better memories. Not only do they imitate
+actions, but repeat forms of expression, and will remember them ever
+after. The manners of parents become more or less part of the manners
+and mind of the child. Sensible parents, seeing this, will put a guard
+upon their conduct and speech, so that their example in act and word may
+be a store-house of manners and taste from which their children may draw
+wisdom in conduct and speech. The minds of children are as photographic
+plates on which parents are always printing something which will
+be indelibly visible in future days. Therefore the society, the
+surroundings, the teachers of the child, so far as the parents can
+control them, should be well chosen, in order that the name borne by the
+young shall command respect when their time comes to play a part in the
+drama of life. To this end a child should be taught to take care what he
+promises, and that when he has given his promise he has to keep it, for
+he whose word is not to be trusted is always suspected, and his opinion
+is not sought by others, or is disregarded when uttered. A child should
+early learn that debt is dependence, and the habit of it is the meanness
+of living upon loans. There can be no independence, no reliance upon the
+character of any one, who will buy without the means of payment, or who
+lives beyond his income. Such persons intend to live on the income of
+some one else, and do it whether they intend it or not. He alone can be
+independent who trusts to himself for advancement. No one ought to be
+helped forward who does not possess this quality, or will not put his
+hand to any honest work open to him. Beware of the child who has too
+much pride to do what he can for his own support, but has not too much
+pride to live upon his parents, or upon friends. Such pride is idleness,
+or thoughtlessness, or both, unless illness causes the inability.
+
+Since offspring have to be trained in health and educated in the
+understanding, there must not be many in the family unless the parents
+have property. The poor cannot afford to have many children if they
+intend to do their duty by them. It is immoral in the rich to have
+many because the example is bad, and because they are sooner or later
+quartered upon the people to keep them; or, if they are provided for
+by their parents, they are under no obligation to do anything for
+themselves, which is neither good for them nor good for the community,
+to which they contribute nothing.
+
+Believing this child will be trained by its parents to be an honor to
+them, and a welcome addition to the family of humanity, it is publicly
+named with pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+OVER THE DEAD.
+
+I.----READING AT A GRAVE.
+
+Esdras and Uriel,
+
+[An argument in which the Prophet speaks as a Secularist.]
+
+And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, said:--I am
+sent to show thee three ways, and to set forth three similitudes before
+thee: whereof, if thou canst declare me one, I will show thee also the
+way that thou desirest to see....
+
+And I said, Tell on, my Lord.
+
+Then said he unto me, Go thy way; weigh me the weight of the fire, or
+measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past.
+
+Then answered I and said, What man is able to do that, that thou
+shouldest ask such things of me?
+
+And he said unto me, If I should ask thee how great dwellings are in the
+midst of the sea, or how many springs are in the beginning of the deep,
+or how many springs are above the firmament, or which are the outgoings
+of Paradise, peradventure thou wouldst say unto me, I never went down
+into the deep, nor as yet into Hell, neither did I ever climb up into
+Heaven.
+
+Nevertheless, now have I asked thee but only of the fire, and wind, and
+of the day wherethrough thou hast passed, and of things from which thou
+canst not be separated, and yet canst thou give me no answer of them.
+
+He said, moreover, unto me, Thine own things, and such as are grown up
+with thee, canst thou not know? How should thy vessel, then, be able to
+comprehend the way of the Highest?....
+
+Then said I unto him, It were better that we were not at all than
+that we should live still in wickedness and to suffer, and not to know
+wherefor.
+
+He answered me and said, I went into a forest, into a plain, and the
+trees took counsel, and said, Come, let us go and make war against the
+sea, that it may depart away before us, and that we may make us more
+woods.
+
+The floods of the sea also in like manner took counsel, and said, Come,
+let us go up and subdue the woods of the plain: that there also we may
+make us another country.
+
+The thought of the wood was in vain, for the fire came and consumed it.
+The thought of the floods of the sea came likewise to nought, for the
+sand stood up and stopped them.
+
+If thou wert judge now betwixt these two, whom wouldest thou begin to
+justify? or whom wouldest thou condemn?
+
+I answered, and said, Verily it is a foolish thought that they both have
+devised; for the ground is given unto the wood, and the sea also hath
+his place to bear his floods.
+
+Then answered he me and said, Thou hast given a right judgment; but why
+judgest thou not thyself also? For like as the ground is given unto the
+woods, and the sea to his floods, even so they that dwell upon the earth
+may understand nothing but that which is upon the earth: and he that
+dwelleth upon the heavens may only understand the things that are above
+the height of the heavens.
+
+Then answered I and said, I beseech thee, O Lord, let me have
+understanding.
+
+For it was not my mind to be curious of the high things y but of such as
+pass by us daily.
+
+Harriet Martineau's Hymn.*
+
+     * Which may be sung where it can be so arranged.
+
+[The only hymn known to me in which a Supreme Cause is implied without
+being asserted or denied, or the reader committed to belief in it.]
+
+     Beneath this starry arch
+     Nought resteth or is still,
+     But all things hold their march
+     As if by one great will:
+     Moves one, move all:
+     Hark to the footfall!
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     Yon sheaves were once but seed;
+     Will ripens into deed.
+     As eave-drops swell the streams,
+     Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams;
+     And sorrow tracketh wrong,
+     As echo follows song,
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     By night, like stars on high,
+     The hours reveal their train;
+     They whisper and go by;
+     I never watch in vain:
+     Moves one, move all:
+     Hark to the footfall!
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+     They pass the cradle-head,
+     And there a promise shed;
+     They pass the moist new grave,
+     And bid bright verdure wave;
+     They bear through every clime,
+     The harvests of all time,
+     On, on, for ever!
+
+II.--AT THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.
+
+The death of a child is alone its parents' sorrow. Too young to know,
+too innocent to fear, its life is a smile and its death a sleep. As the
+sun goes down before our eyes, so a mother's love vanishes from the
+gaze of infancy, and death, like evening, comes to it with quietness,
+gentleness, and rest. We measure the loss of a child by the grief we
+feel. When its love is gone, its promise over, and its prattle silent,
+its fate excites the parents' tears; but we forget that infancy, like
+the rose, is unconscious of the sweetness it sheds, and it parts without
+pain from the pleasure it was too young to comprehend, though engaging
+enough to give to others. The death of a child is like the death of a
+day, of which George Herbert sings:
+
+     "Sweet day, so clear, so calm, so bright
+     Bridal of the earth and sky;
+     The dew shall weep thy fall to-night--
+     For thou must die."
+
+It is no consolation to say, "When a child dies it is taken from the
+sorrows of life." Yes! it is taken from the sorrows of life, and from
+its joys also. When the young die they are taken away from the evil, and
+from good as well. What parents' love does not include the happiness of
+its offspring? No! we will not cheat ourselves. Death is a real loss to
+those who mourn, and the world is never the same again to those who have
+wept by the grave of a child. Argument does not, in that hour, reach the
+heart. It is human to weep, and sympathy is the only medicine of great
+grief. The sight of the empty shoe in the corner will efface the most
+relevant logic. Not all the preaching since Adam has made death other
+than death. Yet, though sorrow cannot be checked at once by reason, it
+may be chastened by it. Wisdom teaches that all human passions must
+be subordinate to the higher purposes of life. We must no more abandon
+ourselves to grief than to vice. The condition of life is the liability
+to vicissitude, and, while it is human to feel, it is duty to endure.
+The flowers fade, and the stars go down, and youth and loveliness vanish
+in the eternal change. Though we cannot but regret a vital loss, it is
+wisdom to love all that is good for its own sake; to enjoy its presence
+fully, but not to build on its continuance, doing what we can to insure
+its continuance, and bearing with fortitude its loss when it comes. If
+the death of infancy teaches us this lesson, the past may be a charmed
+memory, with courage and dignity in it.
+
+III.--MEN OR WOMEN.
+
+The science of life teaches us that while there is pain there is life.
+It would seem, therefore, that death, with silent and courteous step,
+never comes save to the unconscious. A niece of Franklin's, known for
+her wit and consideration for others, arrived at her last hour at the
+age of ninety-eight. In her composure a friend gently touched her. "Ah,"
+murmured the old lady, "I was dying so beautifully when you brought
+me back! But never mind, my dear; I shall try it again." This bright
+resignation, worthy of the niece of a philosopher, is making its way in
+popular affection.
+
+Lord Tennyson, when death came near to him, wrote:
+
+     "Sunset and evening star,
+     And one clear call for me!
+     And may there be no moaning of the bar
+     When I put out to sea.
+
+     "Twilight and evening bell,
+     And after that the dark,
+     And may there be no sadness of farewell
+     When I embark."
+
+There is just a touch of superstition in these genial lines. He writes:
+"After death the dark." How did he know that? What evidence is there
+that the unknown land is "dark"? Why not light? The unknown has no
+determinate or ascertained color.
+
+Where we know nothing, neither priest nor poet has any right to speak
+as though he had knowledge. Improbability does not imply impossibility.
+That which invests death with romantic interest is, that it may be a
+venture on untried existence. If a future state be true, it will befall
+those who do not expect it as well as those who do. Another world, if
+such there be, will come most benefitingly and most agreeably to those who
+have qualified themselves for it, by having made the best use in their
+power of this. By best use is meant the service of man. Desert consists
+alone in the service of others. Kindness and cheerfulness are the two
+virtues which most brighten human life.
+
+Wide-eyed philanthropy is not merely money-giving goodness, but the
+wider kindness which aids the ascendancy of the right and minimises
+misery everywhere.
+
+Death teaches, as nothing else does, one useful lesson. Whatever
+affection or friendship we may have shown to one we have lost,
+Death brings to our memory countless acts of tenderness which we had
+neglected. Conscience makes us sensible of these omissions now it is too
+late to repair them. But we can pay to the living what we think we owe
+to the dead; whereby we transmute the dead we honor into benefactors of
+those they leave behind. This is a useful form of consolation, of which
+all survivors may avail themselves.
+
+Mrs. Ernestine Rose--a brave advocate of unfriended right--when age and
+infirmity brought her near to death, recalled the perils and triumphs
+in which she had shared, the slave she had helped to set free from the
+bondage of ownership, and the slave minds she had set free from the
+bondage of authority; she was cheered, and exclaimed: "But I have
+lived."
+
+The day will come when all around this grave shall meet death; but it
+will be a proud hour if, looking back upon a useful and generous past,
+we each can say: "I have _lived_."
+
+IV.----ON A CAREER OF PUBLIC USEFULNESS.
+
+In reasoning upon death no one has surpassed the argument of Socrates,
+who said: "Death is one of two things: either the dead may be nothing
+and have no feeling--well, then, if there be no feeling, but it be like
+sleep, when the sleeper has no dream, surely death would be a marvellous
+gain, for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.
+If, on the other hand, death be a removal hence to another place, and
+what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing
+can there be than this?"
+
+Sir Edwin Arnold, in his _Secret of Death_, writes:
+
+     "Nay, but as when one layeth
+     His worn-out robes away,
+     And, taking new ones, sayeth,
+     'These will I wear to-day!'
+
+     So putteth by the spirit
+     Lightly its garb of flesh,
+     And passeth to inherit
+     A residence afresh."
+
+This may be true, and there is no objection to it if it is. But the pity
+is, nobody seems to be sure about it. At death we may mourn, but duty
+ceaseth not. If we desist in endeavors for the right because a combatant
+falls at our side, no battle will ever be won. "Life," Mazzini used
+to say, "is a battle and a march." Those who serve others at their own
+peril are always in
+
+"battle." Let us honor them as they pass. Some of them have believed:
+
+     "Though love repine and reason chafe,
+     There came a voice without reply--
+     'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
+     When for the truth he ought to die.'"
+
+They are of those who, as another poet has said, "are not to be mourned,
+but to be imitated."* The mystery of death is no greater than
+the mystery of life. All that precedes our existence was unseen,
+unimaginable, and unknown to us. What may succeed in the future is
+unprovable by philosopher or priest:
+
+     "A flower above and the mould below:
+     And this is all that the mourners know."**
+
+The ideal of life which gives calmness and confidence in death is
+the same in the mind of the wise Christian as in the mind of the
+philosopher. Sydney Smith says: "Add to the power of discovering truth
+the desire of using it for the promotion of human happiness, and
+you have the great end and object of our existence."*** Putting just
+intention into action, a man fulfils the supreme duty of life, which
+casts out all fear of the future.
+
+     * W. J. Linton.
+
+     ** Barry Cornwall.
+
+     ***  Moral Philosophy.
+
+A poet who thought to reconcile to their loss those whose lines have not
+fallen to them in pleasant places wrote:
+
+     "A little rule, a little sway,
+     A sunbeam on a winter's day,
+     Is all the proud and mighty have
+     Between the cradle and the grave."
+
+This is not true; the proud and mighty have rest at choice, and play at
+will. The "sunbeam" is on them all their days. Between the cradle and
+the grave is the whole existence of man. The splendid inheritance of
+the "proud and mighty" ought to be shared by all whose labor creates and
+makes possible the good fortune of those who "toil not, neither do they
+spin"*, and whoever has sought to endow the industrious with liberty and
+intelligence, with competence and leisure, we may commit to the earth in
+the sure and certain hope that they deserve well, and will fare well, in
+any "land of the leal" to which mankind may go.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's English Secularism, by George Jacob Holyoake
+
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