the desires you possess; had placed you as you have been placed; had arranged every object and circumstance, even the most minute, that has ever presented itself before your senses, or influenced your actions, or acted upon your mind; had fixed the exact strength of temptation that has ever assailed you, and the exact degree of support which may have been afforded you to meet that temptation; if I had thus been your creator, your situator, your tempter, your supporter, who would be accountable-you to me, or I to you? If virtue within you was stronger than temptation, who had regulated its strength, you or I? If temptation was stronger than virtue, who made it so, you or I? If you were virtuous, should not I have caused your virtue? if vicious, should not I have caused your vice? Should not I, the potter-not you, the clay-be accountable (if accountability there must be) for both?

If God be man's creator, upholder, governor, there is not a thought of man's heart, not an impulse of his will-there is not a sensation he experiences, not an idea he forms, that is not God's-that does not come, directly, positively, from the Almighty. To say that all thoughts, impulses, sensations, ideas, come from one Being, and that the responsibility rests with another, is as reasonable in my eyes as it would be, were I to hold this printed sheet accountable for the words I had stamped upon it. Had I not wished the words so printed, I should not so have printed them. Had a God not wished man so charactered or circumstanced, he would not have so organized or so placed him.

I ask you, then :

What are the proofs to man that a God or Gods-that a devil or devils-that angels-that spirits good or evil-in a word, that any beings of nature and attributes superior to man, exist?

If they do exist, why should we trouble ourselves about their existence? If they have the will that we should know them, have they not the power? and if both the will and the power, why do we not all know them? If they do not wish us to know them, why should we seek to do so?

The space allotted to me is exhausted; and I await your reply. ROBERT DALE OWEN.

SIR,

TO ROBERT DALE OWEN.

LETTER II.

New-York, February 5, 1831.

I can conceive both of sincere sceptics and insincere onesof those who doubt from want of conviction, and of those who,

rather than believe in future retribution, would forego "riches, honour, a good name," or almost any thing else. Hence, I do not consider a man's scepticism a certain evidence of his sincerity.

It is difficult for me to conceive of a state of mind equibalanced, in relation to the question of the Divine Existence. There is, or there is not, a God. And it is not supposable that, in a case of this nature, there is equal reason for believing either the wrong or the right side. If there is a God, he did of course create the universe, and that too in an infinitely wise manner. If there is not a God, the universe must have been eternal, and void of plan. Now, to say that where there is a work of infinite wisdom, there is nothing therein manifest to show it to be such a work, more than to show it to be void of wisdom, appears to me unreasonable in the extreme, and vice versa. Yet it is virtually saying this, for a man to assert that he perceives no evidence to affirm or deny the existence of God. If he thinks upon the subject at all, he must in the nature of the case incline to the one side or the other. But if he thinks not upon it-if he banishes so important a subject from his mind, he acts very unreasonably.

It should be remembered, that the question now under discussion is, not whether we know there is a God, but whether, on the whole, there is reason to believe this. And suppose we know nothing about it, what has this to do with belief? We know nothing about Alexander the Great; still we believe something about him. For the very reason that we do not know a thing, we believe in relation to it; for, were we to know it, belief would be out of the question, inasmuch as knowledge excludes belief. It is a misuse of the term belief, to apply it in cases of knowledge. It is incorrect to say we believe what we know. For a man then to say, that he does not believe in a God because he does not know there is one, is a manifest absurdity.

That God has the physical power to do any thing to which physical power is applicable, I readily admit. But, as the application of this power is made under the guidance of his infinite wisdom, I do not admit that he has the moral power to apply this physical power to its full extent in all cases. To illustrate. A good man has the physical power, that is, the bodily strength, requisite to murder a numerous family of children. But he is morally unable to do it. The good principle within deters him from the exercise of his physical power in this manner. So of God. He has the physical power to do any physical deed, good or bad; but his wisdom and his goodness deter him from doing wrong. To say, then, without qualification, that God has the power to make us know him, is assuming the question, and talking at random. He has not the power (moral power I mean) to do this, unless his wisdom sees best. He would not be God, were he to act unwisely. If he has given us rational

evidence to believe in his existence, (which is the very point under discussion,) we are without excuse for disbelieving therein, and have no right to say that he did not intend we should thus believe. I believe there are evidences sufficient within the reach of every man, to convince him of the Divine Existence; and that if he is unconvinced thereof, it is either because he has not fully examined those evidences, or has not examined them with a becoming spirit. God, being good, has undoubtedly done all he could consistently do, to make his creatures acquainted with him-which without question is sufficient. Be it so, that a man is a sceptic; still, not knowing but there may be a God, he should say and feel thus: "O thou God of the universe, (if one there is,) do thou enlighten my mind, and lead me to necessary knowledge and belief." This prayer should be accompanied with a thorough examination of all the evidences to which he has access: the force of which evidences he should permit to take its legitimate effect on his mind, as that of other evidence does. At the same time, let him do in other respects what appears duty, and avoid doing what appears wrong, or even what appears questionable; yea, what may not appear so to him, but may be deemed wrong by others, (unless indeed it should appear duty to him to do it ;) let him, I say, do all this, and I should myself be almost willing to be answerable for all the scepticism that would long continue in his mind. All this the sceptic can do; all this he ought to do. Yet how few, have we reason to believe, adopt this rational and proper course! "But why," I am asked, "should God insist upon our knowing and glorifying him?" Because we ought so to do. He requires this, out of regard to right. A parent requires deference from a child, because that child should render such deference, and because it would be unseemly and rebellious for it not to do so. And inferiority on its own part, renders its debt so much the greater, and the parent's claim so much the stronger. How great then the obligation of man to render, and how strong the claim of the Creator to have him render, homage and adoration to himself!

That there is neither moral good nor evil in human actions, few, I believe, even of sceptics, are prepared to assert. That the man, who, to gratify revenge, assassinates another, is blameless, is a sentiment that outrages common sense, and that would, were it to be generally adopted, sunder the ties which hold together society, and cause man to fly for shelter from the face of his fellow, to the thick forest or the craggy cliff. If we are conscious of any thing whatever, it is of blame for certain actions. And if we are to blame, it follows of course, that neither nature, nor God, nor any thing else, has so created, situated, circumstanced, and charactered us, as to render us blameless for those actions. And hence the argument against accountability to God, fails. To liken man, who has a will with regard to his actions, to a sheet of paper, which has none in relation to the

letters enstamped upon that, is evidently a very unsuitable comparison. Man acts, and acts according to his volition. The sheet of paper neither acts, nor has volition. And to represent God as governing voluntary agents, as men are, in the same manner as he governs inanimate matter, is equally incorrect.

In answer to the question, "What are the proofs of God's existence?" I reply: THE UNIVERSE-EVERY THING. There's not an insect, not a blade of grass, but displays omnipotence and omniscience: much more does the great WHOLE.

To the question, "Why should we trouble ourselves about the matter, even if God does exist ?" I answer: Because it concerns us. If God is our maker, our ruler, our judge, common sense teaches us, that we ought to render him homage and obedience; in order to which, it is necessary to believe in his existence, and to know his will as relates to our duty.

I wish to know what to understand by the phrase, "being or beings superior to man." The question under discussion is, "Is there reason to believe in an infinite God?" not in finite gods. I intend, however, during this discussion, to treat on the unity of God.

ORIGEN BACHELER.

TO ORIGEN BACHELER.

LETTER II.

February 12, 1831.

An insincere man is not one who believes this way or that way, but one who professes what he does not believe. What motive a man can have to forego "riches, honour, a good name," in order to profess unpopular doubts, which he does not entertain, is a mystery to me.

Let us take up one question at a time; and the most important first. The questions of accountability, free-will, and so on, will follow by and by.

I freely admit to you that we cannot know that there is a God; and thus, in one sense, all men and women are atheists, or rather sceptics. But have we something less than a knowledge of him? Can we reasonably believe, though we cannot know, his existence ? That is the plain question. Proceed we to test it.

"What are the proofs of a creating God's existence ?" universe-every thing."

"The

The universe is a proof to us of its own existence, for our senses perceive it: but why a proof of any thing more?

"I see a chair," you say. "The chair is proof of more than

its own existence: it is proof of the existence of a chair-maker. So is the universe of a universe-maker." This is the sum and substance of the argument of Paley and all natural theologians. Let us examine it.

A chair proves to us a chair-maker. Why? Only because we have seen or known, or can every day see or know, that men make chairs. We have never seen-we cannot see, Gods make universes. We cannot-you yourself admit it-know that they make them. We can trace back chairs to their origin, and find that origin a chair-maker. Could we trace back a universe to its origin, and find that origin a God, the cases would be parallel; and we should believe in a God as we do in a chairmaker. It is not the existence of a chair, that proves its maker, but the ascertained fact that men do make chairs. Without that ascertained fact, the chair would prove, like the universe, only its own existence.

If chairs dropped on the earth from the clouds, there might be some analogy between chairs and universes; but then chairs would no longer be proofs of chair-makers.

"But if chairs are made,"* you argue, "why not a universe ?" It is for you to say, why; not for me to say, why not. I cannot disprove to you that creatures walk about in the sun with their heads under their arms.

But you think it likely, because the cases are analogous. I cannot see the analogy. To make a chair, is to shape and fashion certain materials after a certain form: to create a universe is to give existence to non-existent matter. What analogy is there here? Because a man can and does put together certain materials to form a chair, is that the shadow of a proof, that a God can and does give existence to certain particles to form a universe?

Some things are artificial; that is, made by man: some are natural; that is, not made by man. Well. This is a simple We have ascertained the origin+ of the former; we have not ascertained the origin of the latter:

fact.

It is a pity that men are not careful to use all words in a definite sense. If they were, we should never hear the same term applied to the fitting together of divers pieces of wood, &c., to form a chair, and the calling into existence of innumerable atoms, to constitute a universe; we should never think of using the same sound for two so totally dissimilar ideas; we should not say, to make a chair and to make a world; meaning, in the one case, a mere SELECTION and MODIFICATION, and in the other, an actual CREATION. And then we should not be betrayed, as we now are, by the mere sound of a word, into imagining analogy where none exists. The utterly illogical argument implied in the question: "If chairs are made, why not universes?" owes its birth to a mere verbal accident.

That is, in the popular sense of the term. In strictness, inan, the creature of a day, can trace nothing, in the eternal succession of causes and consequents, to its origin.