When will the vulgar learn
humility?
Shelley
(Since writing this note I have some reason to suspect that
Jesus was an ambitious man, who aspired to the throne of Judea.
The vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of
Jesus was a supernatural event. Testimonies of miracles, so frequent in
unenlightened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something
divine. This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, met with the
reveries of Plato and the reasonings of Aristotle, and acquired force
and extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute
was death, which to doubt was infamy.
CHRISTIANITY is now the established religion: he who attempts to impugn
it must be contented to behold murderers and traitors take precedence of
him in public opinion; though, if his genius be equal to his courage,
and assisted by a peculiar coalition of circumstances, future ages may
exalt him to a divinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was
persecuted in the name of his predecessor in the homage of the world.
The same means that have supported every other popular belief have
supported Christianity. War, imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood;
deeds of unexampled and incomparable atrocity have made it what it is.
The blood shed by the votaries of the God of mercy and peace, since the
establishment of His religion, would probably suffice to drown all other
sectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive from our ancestors a
faith thus fostered and supported: we quarrel, persecute, and hate for
its maintenance. Even under a government which, whilst it infringes the
very right of thought and speech, boasts of permitting the liberty of
the press, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he is a deist, and
no one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged humanity. But it
is ever a proof that the falsehood of a proposition is felt by those who
use coercion, not reasoning, to procure its admission; and a
dispassionate observer would feel himself more powerfully interested in
favour of a man who, depending on the truth of his opinions, simply
stated his reasons for entertaining them, than in that of his aggressor
who, daringly avowing his unwillingness or incapacity to answer them by
argument, proceeded to repress the energies and break the spirit of
their promulgator by that torture and imprisonment whose infliction he
could command.
Analogy seems to favour the opinion that as, like other systems,
Christianity has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and
perish; that as violence, darkness, and deceit, not reasoning and
persuasion, have procured its admission among mankind, so, when
enthusiasm has subsided, and time, that infallible controverter of false
opinions, has involved its pretended evidences in the darkness of
antiquity, it will become obsolete; that Milton's poem alone will give
permanency to the remembrance of its absurdities; and that men will
laugh as heartily at grace, faith, redemption, and original sin, as they
now do at the metamorphoses of Jupiter, the miracles of Romish saints,
the efficacy of witchcraft, and the appearance of departed spirits.
Had the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of
reasoning and persuasion, the preceding analogy would be inadmissible.
We should never speculate on the future obsoleteness of a system
perfectly conformable to nature and reason: it would endure so long as
they endured; it would be a truth as indisputable as the light of the
sun, the criminality of murder, and other facts, whose evidence,
depending on our organization and relative situations, must remain
acknowledged as satisfactory so long as man is man. It is an
incontrovertible fact, the consideration of which ought to repress the
hasty conclusions of credulity, or moderate its obstinacy in maintaining
them, that, had the Jews not been a fanatical race of men, had even the
resolution of Pontius Pilate been equal to his candour, the Christian
religion never could have prevailed, it could not even have existed: on
so feeble a thread hangs the most cherished opinion of a sixth of the
human race!
When will the vulgar learn humility? When will the pride of
ignorance blush at having believed before it could comprehend?
Either the Christian religion is true, or it is false: if true, it comes
from God, and its authenticity can admit of doubt and dispute no further
than its omnipotent author is willing to allow. Either the power or the
goodness of God is called in question, if He leaves those doctrines most
essential to the well-being of man in doubt and dispute; the only ones
which, since their promulgation, have been the subject of unceasing
cavil, the cause of irreconcilable hatred. IF GOD HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE
UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?
There is this passage in the Christian Scriptures: 'Those who obey not
God, and believe not the Gospel of his Son, shall be punished with
everlasting destruction. ' This is the pivot upon which all religions
turn:--they all assume that it is in our power to believe or not to
believe; whereas the mind can only believe that which it thinks true. A
human being can only be supposed accountable for those actions which are
influenced by his will. But belief is utterly distinct from and
unconnected with volition: it is the apprehension of the agreement or
disagreement of the ideas that compose any preposition. Belief is a
passion, or involuntary operation of the mind, and, like other passions,
its intensity is precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement.
Volition is essential to merit or demerit. But the Christian religion
attaches the highest possible degrees of merit and demerit to that which
is worthy of neither, and which is totally unconnected with the peculiar
faculty of the mind, whose presence is essential to their being.
Christianity was intended to reform the world: had an all-wise Being
planned it, nothing is more improbable than that it should have failed:
omniscience would infallibly have foreseen the inutility of a scheme
which experience demonstrates, to this age, to have been utterly
unsuccessful.
Christianity inculcates the necessity of supplicating the Deity. Prayer
may be considered under two points of view;--as an endeavour to change
the intentions of God, or as a formal testimony of our obedience. But
the former case supposes that the caprices of a limited intelligence can
occasionally instruct the Creator of the world how to regulate the
universe; and the latter, a certain degree of servility analogous to the
loyalty demanded by earthly tyrants.
Jesus was an ambitious man, who aspired to the throne of Judea.
The vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of
Jesus was a supernatural event. Testimonies of miracles, so frequent in
unenlightened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something
divine. This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, met with the
reveries of Plato and the reasonings of Aristotle, and acquired force
and extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute
was death, which to doubt was infamy.
CHRISTIANITY is now the established religion: he who attempts to impugn
it must be contented to behold murderers and traitors take precedence of
him in public opinion; though, if his genius be equal to his courage,
and assisted by a peculiar coalition of circumstances, future ages may
exalt him to a divinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was
persecuted in the name of his predecessor in the homage of the world.
The same means that have supported every other popular belief have
supported Christianity. War, imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood;
deeds of unexampled and incomparable atrocity have made it what it is.
The blood shed by the votaries of the God of mercy and peace, since the
establishment of His religion, would probably suffice to drown all other
sectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive from our ancestors a
faith thus fostered and supported: we quarrel, persecute, and hate for
its maintenance. Even under a government which, whilst it infringes the
very right of thought and speech, boasts of permitting the liberty of
the press, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he is a deist, and
no one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged humanity. But it
is ever a proof that the falsehood of a proposition is felt by those who
use coercion, not reasoning, to procure its admission; and a
dispassionate observer would feel himself more powerfully interested in
favour of a man who, depending on the truth of his opinions, simply
stated his reasons for entertaining them, than in that of his aggressor
who, daringly avowing his unwillingness or incapacity to answer them by
argument, proceeded to repress the energies and break the spirit of
their promulgator by that torture and imprisonment whose infliction he
could command.
Analogy seems to favour the opinion that as, like other systems,
Christianity has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and
perish; that as violence, darkness, and deceit, not reasoning and
persuasion, have procured its admission among mankind, so, when
enthusiasm has subsided, and time, that infallible controverter of false
opinions, has involved its pretended evidences in the darkness of
antiquity, it will become obsolete; that Milton's poem alone will give
permanency to the remembrance of its absurdities; and that men will
laugh as heartily at grace, faith, redemption, and original sin, as they
now do at the metamorphoses of Jupiter, the miracles of Romish saints,
the efficacy of witchcraft, and the appearance of departed spirits.
Had the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of
reasoning and persuasion, the preceding analogy would be inadmissible.
We should never speculate on the future obsoleteness of a system
perfectly conformable to nature and reason: it would endure so long as
they endured; it would be a truth as indisputable as the light of the
sun, the criminality of murder, and other facts, whose evidence,
depending on our organization and relative situations, must remain
acknowledged as satisfactory so long as man is man. It is an
incontrovertible fact, the consideration of which ought to repress the
hasty conclusions of credulity, or moderate its obstinacy in maintaining
them, that, had the Jews not been a fanatical race of men, had even the
resolution of Pontius Pilate been equal to his candour, the Christian
religion never could have prevailed, it could not even have existed: on
so feeble a thread hangs the most cherished opinion of a sixth of the
human race!
When will the vulgar learn humility? When will the pride of
ignorance blush at having believed before it could comprehend?
Either the Christian religion is true, or it is false: if true, it comes
from God, and its authenticity can admit of doubt and dispute no further
than its omnipotent author is willing to allow. Either the power or the
goodness of God is called in question, if He leaves those doctrines most
essential to the well-being of man in doubt and dispute; the only ones
which, since their promulgation, have been the subject of unceasing
cavil, the cause of irreconcilable hatred. IF GOD HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE
UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?
There is this passage in the Christian Scriptures: 'Those who obey not
God, and believe not the Gospel of his Son, shall be punished with
everlasting destruction. ' This is the pivot upon which all religions
turn:--they all assume that it is in our power to believe or not to
believe; whereas the mind can only believe that which it thinks true. A
human being can only be supposed accountable for those actions which are
influenced by his will. But belief is utterly distinct from and
unconnected with volition: it is the apprehension of the agreement or
disagreement of the ideas that compose any preposition. Belief is a
passion, or involuntary operation of the mind, and, like other passions,
its intensity is precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement.
Volition is essential to merit or demerit. But the Christian religion
attaches the highest possible degrees of merit and demerit to that which
is worthy of neither, and which is totally unconnected with the peculiar
faculty of the mind, whose presence is essential to their being.
Christianity was intended to reform the world: had an all-wise Being
planned it, nothing is more improbable than that it should have failed:
omniscience would infallibly have foreseen the inutility of a scheme
which experience demonstrates, to this age, to have been utterly
unsuccessful.
Christianity inculcates the necessity of supplicating the Deity. Prayer
may be considered under two points of view;--as an endeavour to change
the intentions of God, or as a formal testimony of our obedience. But
the former case supposes that the caprices of a limited intelligence can
occasionally instruct the Creator of the world how to regulate the
universe; and the latter, a certain degree of servility analogous to the
loyalty demanded by earthly tyrants.
