Science and its product wisdom are limited properties in man. They are limited at one point with you, at another with me. I have passed your limit -you have not passed mine.

You complain that I retain old names under new ideas. That is not the truth as to our relative states of mind; but the truth is rather that I restore old ideas to old names.

You are a better Christian than Mr. Justice Erskine, not in the sense that christianity is the religion of vice, but that a vicious religion is not christianity; that his religion is vicious-yours not. I have not a doubt but that you would have got off with a month's imprisonment if you had not made a nine hours'Christian defence, that shamed the judge and confounded the jury. The foreman of your jury has said that he was convinced of your innocence by your defence, but, in meaning rather than in words, that the god or idol of the judge required protection! Christianity with me derives not its meaning from any thing born as flesh, but upon the birth of wisdom in men. The word god, as an abstract of goodness, is surely etymologically unobjectionable, and if the word Solomon be now rather the cognomen of a fool than of a wise man, the fault is not in the word, but in the social perversion of its meaning.

I do not allow that there has been any social christianity through the last seventeen centuries; but mark most distinctly between the first and second century how the present heresy began of wor. shipping Christ as flesh born of flesh, instead of as spirit born of spirit.

The oracles of reason at No. 8, Holywell-street, Strand, have a print in their window labelled" The appearance of Christ to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, before he was born!" This is mere ignorance of theology or grossness of heretical idea. Without Christ there could have been no garden of Eden-no state of happiness or pleasure; without Christ, from which to fall, there could have been no fall of man. Christ is but a classical mythical word expressive of science, wisdom, virtue, and love.

For the first time since my school days I have this last week been looking into "Tooke's Pantheon of the Heathen Gods," and I find Took as heretical in mythology as the various sects of the day are in christianity.

Before the time of Herodotus there was but one style of writing known-the style of the bible, theologue and gnomologue, or a discourse about the incarnation of spirits in man, and about public morals. All my theology partakes of this character, not true by the letter as literal narrative in the article theology, but true in spirit. The gnomologue is true in and by the letter.

Do the bible the justice to read it according to the idiom of its date, and do not put your or any other person's conceited and foolish reading upon it, and

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public does not know how to do this it ought to be taught in the church.

So long as we use mythological or theological books we ought so to study them as not to make ourselves fools with or about them.

You compliment me for some good I have done. I ask your credit for continuing to me the same dis position, even though you may not understand me. Write or speak against me from principle if you can; the more you attempt to do so the sooner you will approach me in mutual understanding. 1 see my past career but as a promise of what I hope the future is to be. You, Southwell, and others, are now where 1 once was, resting upon the mere flippant vulgarisms of what you and the world consent to call atheistic Infidelity, regulating your amount of wisdom by a critical contrast with other people's folly. Nothing that you say leads to any settlement of the dispute between you and them. I have pass ed on to an historical and classical explanation of the root of their errors, which you do not reach. It is one thing to bully, insult, pun, and ridicule; another to teach the root of errors. A fool may do the one; a wise man is required for the other.

Seeing something more is wanted than has hitherto been done in this way, I am about to start a new weekly periodical under the title of "The Christian Warrior, or Church Militant." Your Oracle, as far as it is reasonable, I shall support; as far as unrea sonable it must endure my common warfare with the errors of all sects and parties. I can, at least, promise some originality, not of the last seventeen centuries, but beyond that; I have nothing new, all is borrowed from the bible. R. CARLILE.

IS THERE NO GOD? IT has been remarked, that nearly all the from one or other of three causes. wrangling and disputing amongst men arise

1st. A misapprehension of the meaning of the terms employed. For example, by the term god, one party means one thing, and the other another thing.

2nd. Viewing the subject in a different light -one sees a subject in a clear broad day light; another in an obscure twilight glimmer; a third views it under the shades of night, with just light enough to perceive that there is a subject or object.

3rd. Viewing the subject or object from a different point of view. One views an object from the north; another from the south; one from the top of the hill, another from the plain. In moral and political subjects one views from a throne, another from a workhouse, &c.

To these three the phrenologists and mo dern physiologists have added another, which may be set down as the

4th. A difference in the physical organisation of the different viewers of an object or subject; from which difference two men will look at an object or subject in the same light and from the same point of view, and

yet each will form a different conception of that object or subject.

Instances of wordy cavilling arising from a misapprehension of terms must be familiar to the minds of every reader who has been much accustomed to attend to controverted questions. A very fine illustration of differences arising under the second head is given by the poet Merrick, in his fable of the chameleon. One traveller saw the chameleon in the sun and declared it was green; another saw it in the shade, and vowed it was blue; they wrangled of course, and to settle the dispute, they referred it to a third, who had seen the animal by candle light, and gave his decision that it was neither green nor blue, but black. Upon this, what may be called " a regular row" arose amongst the three, when the umpire remembers that he has the animal still by him, and can settle the matter by producing it: he then goes to bring it forth in another light, saying with full confidence

And when before your eyes I've set him,
If you don't find him black I'll eat him,
He said, and full before their sight
Produced the beast, and lo! 'twas white!

The story of the two knights and the shield illustrates the difference arising from looking at an object or subject from a different point of view. A statue with a shield was set up by the way side. The side of the shield looking towards the north appeared to be made of silver, that looking towards the south of gold. Two knights, one travelling north the other south, met at this point and stopped to admire the shield, one viewing it on the north side the other on the south. "What a beautiful silver shield," said one "Silver," said the other, "it is a very fine gold shield." So the dispute began, and ended in a battle; after which, they looked at both sides of the shield, and then laughed at their own folly.

The disputes arising from differences of organisation are, perhaps, especially in modern times, as numerous as any other. One man has a bard, sturdy, stubborn matter-offact kind of organisation; he can neither see nor conceive of anything except matter, and consequently becomes a Materialist. Another has a fine, soft, delicately organised frame; his nerves thrill with every breath of mural feeling, as the strings of an Eolian harp tremble with the physical breath of the atmosphere-such a being lives in a region of his own, and naturally becomes a Spiritualist. Shelley, the poet, who strangely enough is the poet of Atheists and Materialists, was a being of this spiritual kind, and as a matter of course, his poetry abounds with spirits, fairies, gods, and goblins. The matter of fact Materialist, and the aerial Spiritualist live each of them in a region

so wholly dissimilar, that it is quite impossible they should be able to feel and think alike or to understand each other.

Looking then at all these sources of dif ference of opinion, there need be little wonder that there should have been from the days of Epicurus down to the present time, some disputing concerning the existences and attributes, or mode of being of the power called god.

Of late the discussion of the question concerning the being and attributes of god has, I am sorry to say, taken a turn which, to my mind, and, I have no doubt, to the minds of many of the readers of the Oracle, appears quite puerile, and, I might say, contemptible. Perhaps this is in some degree to be ascribed to my own want of care; by giving expression to my ideas in such terms. as might, by a careless or wilfully perverse opponent, be construed into a meaning quite different from that intended. I have it seems, said that "god is an idea dwelling in the mind of man," and upon this I am gravely asked "what influence this idea can have upon the motion of the earth round the sun, or upon its own axis ?" with much more to the same purpose equally ridicu lous (see Oracle 296-7 and 338-9). Now, it certainly could not be expected that I should seriously answer the strange questions put in these four pages, I will therefore pass them by, and shall proceed to express myself in such terms as cannot, I think, be so easily perverted.

66

The idea of god, as received amongst men, is a compound idea consisting of at least three more simple ideas, namely, power, wisdom, and goodness. Every man in these days has heard of physical power, or physical force," as it is called. Now, if I were asked is the earth whirled round the sun and round her own axis by physical power?" I should answer, yes: and I assert further, without the continual exertion of this physical power, neither the earth nor any other body would or could continue in motion for ever. But the idea of this physical power is not the idea of god. There are plenty of professed Atheists who will admit the existeuce of blind, unintelligent physical power as the operating cause of all motion and change throughout nature. If you ask them what this physical power is, they will tell you that it is attraction, repulsion, &c., that these are properties of matter, which properties are eternal, as matter also is eternal. If you push them a little further concerning this blind power, and say, "well, but this attraction of which you speak, it is a something or a nothing, if it be not matter it is nothing. Where is it? I have never seen it." The answer is still the same: it is a property of matter, and it is everywhere, because mat

66

ter is everywhere." Further than this no man can go in this direction. But amongst these blind physical powers, whatever be their number, we can find no idea of god. An Atheist might admit them all, and still be an Atheist. There must be something besides the idea of mere physical power, or any other or all other merely physical ideas, to constitute the idea of god. In a word, there must be a moral idea introduced, such as intelligence, or goodness, or both, before we can perceive in our mind the most vague idea of a god. It is on this account that I have said and do still say that the idea of god is a moral and not a physical idea, without for a moment intending to signify that this moral idea whirled the earth round the sun and upon her own axis; although I can very well conceive whilst physical power moves the material universe, the moral power, intelligence, may direct the movement. confess frankly that whilst it appears to me that mere intelligence or any other merely moral quality would be insufficient to give motion to so vast a machine as the universe or indeed to any machine, at the same time it appears to me equally impossible that mere blind unintelligent physical power should or could conduct all the nice arrangements which I see around ine and feel within me. T. S. M.

(To be continued.)

GRACES OF THE VOTARIES OF NATURE. (Copied from the Visitors' Book at the Blackgang Chine Hotel, Isle of Wight.)

BEFORE MEAT.

For what we're about to receive, Thanks to IT in which we believe; Not to Him() who chuckled in heaven, And said that "it was good,"

When He saw what the sun had given To man for food.

AFTER MEAT.

For what we ate and drank

Let us now thank

First the infinite universe,

And the laws of eternal nature,

Next our host and our finite purse, Alimentiveness and the waiter. September, 1842.

The following is copied from the outside of an envelope, sent by Isaac Ironsides, Esq., of Sheffield: G J. Holyoake, Esq., who is engaged in a six months' study of the love, joy, peace, and long-suffering of christianity, and of the beauties and mysteries of our holy religion," in one of her majesty's semminaries for the spread of learning and piety; that is to say, the Gaol, Gloucester."

Now Publishing. in Fortnightly Numbers,
at d. each, and Parts, at 6d.
THE JUSTLY CELEBRATED
AND UNEQUALLED SATIRICAL RHAPSODY, THE
YAHOO!

With numerous ADDITIONS by the Author.

NOTICE.

Rev. Fresham Gregg's letter, addressed "Satan," received, and will be attended to.

We have received a letter from the Bishop of Ex eter, and feel obliged to him, but do not think it insertable.

J. Singer shall appear at our earliest convenience. H. G., Hull, has our thanks, we will use his com. munication.

The Oracle folks have their eye on one of our peoplish," hot and rampant as in their crucifying days of yore, with a petition to put down the Oracle office. Better had the miserable a millstone round his neck and be cast into the sea. If once gibbetted on the "Oracle shutter," god help him.

Correspondents are requested to be more careful, to prevent the necessity of ERRATA. In the second line, first col., page 358, for "true," read "tree."

The 10s. 6d. in the same no., collected for Mrs. Holyoake, should have been 10s. 8d., at the Hall of Science Birmingham, on Sunday, Oct. 8.

Beauty and virtue crown'd thee!
Death in thy youth hath found thee!
Thou'rt gone to thy grave

By the soft willow wave,
And the flowrets are weeping around thee!
The sun salutes thee early,
The stars be-gem thee rarely,

Then why should we weep.
When we see thee asleep,
'Mid thy friends who love thee dearly?

Printed and Published by THOMAS PATERSON, No. 8, Holywell street, Strand, London, to whom all Communications should be addressed.-Agent for Sheffield, George Julian Harney, Bookseller, 11, Hartshead; Bristol, J. Chappell, News Agent, Narrow Wine-street; Macclesfield, Mr. Roche, Hall of Science; Barnsley, Mr. Thos. Lingard, New-street; Coventry, J. Morris, 35, Union-place. Butts; Preston, Jas. Drummond, 112, Friar-ga And Sold by all Liberal Booksellers.

Saturday, October 22, 1812.

EDINBURGH

SEC

No. 45.]

OUR COMMERCIAL ARTICLE. CHURCHES-Jew, Christian, or Pagannever let a chance go by. We hear of trades once flourishing and widely spread become extinct or forgotten. Of all the trades in this trading world the church and priest trade clutches most tenaciously, and dies most desperately. Yet certain departments of peculation have been given up. Whence shall we seek the interesting cause of so interesting a result? Certainly not within the establishIf revenue falls short through any laxity of fraud or plunder,we find that "pressure from without " exerts the most material influence.

ment.

The

market is proportionably depressed. wares of the sacred fortune-tellers, and conjurers, and polite letter-writers, and news-venders, under the sounding appellations of prophets, and saints, and evangelists, and apostles are growing stale and unsaleable. The new cry of the Puseyites, of "more church room for the millions," is evidence of ness. deep knowledge of modern principles of busiGive a sprat to catch a salmon. How sharp-sighted the fellows are when pelf is concerned. How readily, when obliged, they conform to the spirit of the age. With what business is given up for the modern competifacility the old monopolizing principle of tive principle. Clear away the pews is now the modern church cry. We will find on what calculation the pew cry is based. Suppose the people stay away. The priests will say, "I called and they came not," and the odour of their sanctity will increase, while the Suppose the people do come in and bring their people will be deemed a stiffnecked people. pence in with them, the god business is there. by improved. But suppose they come in without the pence, still there is an appearance of business, and the shillings will come in more briskly from other quarters. Thus again is the business improved. Verily the Puseyites are wise in their generation. They know what shopkeeping is. They have not served their apprenticeship for nothing. They know that to be poor and seem poor is the devil. So in good shopkeeping, to have no business, and to seem to have no business, is downright ruin. The great firm of Day and Martin sent their own men to order their own blacking when beginning business. Lloyd, the great-little publisher, baited the public with a gratuitous penny paper. Exeter, London, and Co., on the same plan, call in the poor to hear gratis the mythological nursery tales, and see gratis the mythological peep shows.

The religious firms now carrying on the old concern of God, Christ, Ghost, and Co., are obliged to trade on the old stock. This may be accounted for according to the principles of political economists, by a reference to the ordinary laws of supply and demand. These imperturable calculators know well enough that all commercial matters are regulated by profits. The profits must cease when the demand becomes too slight to pay the expenses. Demand ceasing, of course supply must cease. Thus it would happen that the prophecy article would no longer be made, the machinery would stop, and the master-manufacturers would have to live upon their capital. This they have been gradually doing more or less since the year of their lord

After all, we say clear away the pews! Republicanism is ill suited to the atmosphere of the altar. The "house of god" will be the more readily converted into the house of praise. We shall all the more easily turn St. Paul's Cathedral into a national assembly room and Social hall.

M. Q. R.

IS THERE A GOD?

XXIII.

When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it-'twas no matter what he said:
They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,
Too subtle for the airest human head;
And yet who can believe it? I would shatter,
Gladly, all matters down to stone or lead,
Or adamant, to find the world a spirit,
And wear my head, denying that I wear it.

BYRON.

W. BAKER's critical letter, in No. 37 of this paper, really deserves and shall now have most respectful consideration. It would have been attended to weeks ago, but for certain tough unaccommodating circumstances, which W.B. will, I am sure, if at all good-natured, excuse my not stopping to furnish an ac

count of.

The letter in question is little more than an industrious and laudable bringing in juxta position some contradictory absurdities, or presumed contradictory absurdities, coolly set forth as palpable truths in my paper, headed "Is there a God ?" in No. 34.

Upon the better-late-than-never principle, I shall now endeavour with all practicable brevity and clearness to combat the assertions and answer the objections, and, oh, Herculean task! convince the judgment of W. B. if he have any. I say if he have any, because according to his own account, which I feel bound to respect, he ought instead of trying to detect flaws in my articles, to be seriously thinking of taking up snug quarters in Bedlam. "I am (he says) not what the writer of the article would wish me to be, i.e. 'a sober minded reader.' I am, there is no doubt, non-compos, one whose brains are so sadly addled, that every one of my five senses must have given up the ghost." Now this unasked for confession of lunacy, I am not at all disposed to take advantage of, but most willingly place it to the account of W. B.'s excessive modesty, though I cannot but smile at the amiable candour and sang froid of a critical philosopher who doubts the existence of his own body, but don't doubt at all that " every one of his five senses have given up the ghost." Berkeley, in his Analyst, calls ultimate ratios, the ghosts of departed quantities. Now it may be, that W. Baker is sometimes visited by the ghosts of his departed SENSES. But to proceed. "The writer (he observes) begins by saying, 'It is a startling fact that Berkeley has not been answered. It is a fact yet more startling that he cannot be answered,' and at the end of the article I am told that all soberminded readers will agree with Baron D'Holbach, that the existence of matter is a fact, the existence of motion is another fact.' Now (he continues), does it not seem as if it came from one of the most presumptuously dogma

tical fanatics that ever put pen to paper, rather than from one who, I doubt not, admires the motto at the head of this paper ("Prove all things"). For a man to first, freely, frankly, and candidly to acknowledge the impossibility of proof, and then to sum up without any ceremony whatever, by hoping all sober-minded readers will admit a certain dogma as a fact, when he declared it cannot be proved, is indeed a great deal too much."

That what follows in explanation of the above paradox, which has so cruelly agitated the "addled brains" of W. B. may be easily and fully understood, I must first say something about the words MATTER and MIND, which will be found frequently to occur. By matter I mean a reality—all or any part of that which exists. By mind I mean an ideality-the thinking principle in man or brute. MATTER, according to my view, actually exists, and is everywhere present, whereas mind, nowhere actually exists, is nowhere present; it is an ideal not a real exist

ence.

When we speak of the principles of attraction, repulsion, and inertia, no one understands us to mean that there are things called inertia, attraction, or repulsion. By no means. Those words convey no idea of body; but states, conditions, affections, or as they are oftener called the accidents of body. Now mind, as it is usually called, is no more entity or individual, actual existence, than gravity, inertia, or any other of matter's principles. If it be objected that it is incredible matter should think, I reply, it is equally incredible that matter should attract, repel, or exhibit any quality whatever. Why matter should not think as well as act, I never could understand. Hume speaks of the "little agitation of the brain, we call thought," and even the carefully sage Locke saw nothing contradictory or absurd in the belief that god had "superadded to matter the power of thinking." Dr. Adam Smith tells us that the human mind and the deity, in whatever their essence may be supposed to consist, must be PARTS of the great system of the universe. Dr. Campbell asserts in his "Philosophy of Rhetoric," that "the human soul is surely a much included under the idea of natural object, as body is ;" and even the metaphysical Dugald Stewart allows that "the human mind forms PART of the great system of the universe." Here then we have a glorious galoxy of authorities in favour, not merely of the proposition, that it is possible for human brains to think; but in support of the far more decisive and important proposition, that mind, in whatever its essence or peculiar nature may be supposed to consist, must be a part of the universe. Here then Materialists are on safe ground, "for it is manifest that a PART of the universe, no matter how small, is still a PART and must be MATERIAL. From this conclusion there is no escape, un